Florida gambler hits racing jackpot

Gamblers around the country had been waiting for Monday’s races at Gulfstream Park for months and the chance at the score of a lifetime.

The Rainbow 6, a $20 minimum bet, had been carrying over for 4 1/2 months, the jackpot up to $6.6 million.

It got so huge because, unlike a typical Pick 6, the Rainbow 6 carryover pool gets paid out only if there is a single winning ticket. Monday was what is known as a “mandatory” payout, with anybody having all six winners getting paid. It was anticipated that as much as $15 million in new money would be bet into the pool. It was like getting into a poker hand with $6.6 million in the pot.

Only Dan Borislow of Palm Beach, Florida, reached in and took the pot on Sunday. While everybody else was plotting for Monday, he saw an opportunity.

Unlike Monday’s gigantic fields, Sunday’s field sizes were small. He figured if he could pick the winner in one race, he could cover the other five and hope to get lucky. He was lucky, he was smart and he got all the money.

After buying two tickets at the Palm Beach Kennel Club worth $15,206.40, Borislow took down the entire jackpot, worth $6,678,939.12.

“I’ve been doing that my whole life,” Borislow said of taking chances.

He loves the track where he is renowned as one of America’s biggest bettors and he’s owned horses for more than 20 years.

Still, even for Borislow, this was some score. So, how did he do it?

Well, he used every horse in five of the six races Sunday and four of the 10 horses in the other race. Even for somebody with deep pockets, that strategy could not have worked Monday because the fields were so big that it would have cost $500,000 to cover every possibility.

Sunday, it cost $28,000 and earned $6.6 million.