Something known as the Drake curse within the sports world may have struck again, this time costing the super-rich rapper almost $500,000.
The Canadian musician made several wagers on the recent UFC 278 event, which took place in Salt Lake City, Utah, this past Saturday.
Based on several posts Drake shared on his Instagram Story on Saturday night, he went on the crypto casino and betting platform Stake to place substantial bets on two fights.
The first bet arrived at 11:34 p.m. when he put $238,000 on Jose Aldo to win his fight against Merab Dvalishvili. According to Vegas Insider, Aldo was a slight underdog heading into the matchup.
Aldo and Dvalishvili battled for three rounds, with Dvalishvili winning it via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28). That was Drake’s first loss of the evening.
He then placed several wagers on the main event, putting over $200,000 on UFC Welterweight Championship Kamaru Usman, the favorite against Leon Edwards. Drake bet for Usman to win the fight in four rounds and then placed another bet that he’d win by knockout.
“I need a big bag off this one going all in,” Drake wrote on one of his IG Story slides showing the bets.
Unfortunately for Drake, luck was not on his side as the champ fell to the challenger in the final minute. Per ESPN, Edwards stunned Usman and most of the world as he delivered a head-kick TKO to win the championship.
Per an Instagram post via @rap (below), Drake lost nearly $500,000 on his bets on Usman and Jose Aldo. It’s worth noting that the IG Story screenshots of his bets also include Bitcoin symbols next to the dollar amounts, indicating how Drake might collect his money on Stake.
Was the Drake curse responsible for losses?
Many fans blame the infamous Drake curse for Saturday night’s UFC 278 losses for Aldo and Usman. That curse has been historically associated with Drake and sports, as some believe any team or player the rapper associates with gets hit with misfortune.
It’s believed several college teams got hit by the curse. According to Marca’s report, they include the Kentucky men’s basketball team that Drake warmed up with in 2014. The Wildcats have failed to win an NCAA title since.
The Alabama Crimson Tide was the odds-on-favorite team to win the 2019 National Championship for college football but lost to Clemson 44-16.
In another example featuring UFC, Drake once wore an Irish flag and posed next to Conor McGregor ahead of UFC 229. At the event, McGregor lost his fight to Khabib Nurmagomedov.
Some thought that maybe Drake reversed the curse this year, as he placed a large wager on the Golden State Warriors to win the Western Conference and cashed in. The Warriors also went on to win the NBA Championship.
Drake makes history with his Billboard hits
The past week wasn’t a total wash for Drake, real name Aubrey Graham, as he recently made history in terms of his music and the charts. Drake became the first artist to earn 100 Top 20 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
He also broke an all-time record, achieving the most top 5 hits among all artists in the history of the Hot 100. Drake surpassed the legendary rock group, The Beatles, who had 30 top 5 hits in the Hot 100.
“Ok I broke my records for the month now me and @stake need you to do your thing Bitcoin ?,” Drake wrote in a caption on an IG post sharing the news.
A second slide in his IG post shows a video of him playing roulette online and celebrating after it hits a specific number or color.
“That’s big,” he said in the clip after slapping hands with someone in the room.
Other content in his IG series includes pics of the rapper next to a friend, by himself on stage, taking a selfie in an elevator, and showing off a sparkly ring in a video clip.
A final slide in his Instagram series is a screenshot of a recent Bitcoin chart showing a price of $24,805.89 for the digital currency.
As of this report, some reports show Bitcoin recently dropped below $22,000. The digital currency is currently at less than half of its all-time high, as it was over $68,000 in November 2021, per Time.
Either way, Drake isn’t hurting money-wise, but should Bitcoin hit those all-time highs again, he’ll have an even higher amount of money sitting in some of his accounts. That is if he hasn’t bet it all away first.