Our favorite bets of 2020: Reliving our most memorable wins

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It doesn't take much experience with betting to know certain wins just hit different.

There are ones you forget about minutes later, and those that stick with you for years - the ones that have you pacing the house and waking up the neighbors. Those are the bets - big or small - that never fully leave you.

Here are our most memorable betting moments of 2020.

Andrew Thomas, 2nd offensive player drafted (+4000)

Remember April? It was the longest I'd gone without ingesting a live sporting event in my life and I could only fill so much time with old WWE PPVs. I did a hard pivot to the NFL draft and became an information junkie.

I was subscribed to tweet alerts for all the plugged-in draft reporters and it was simply a matter of reacting quickly to information.

One night I was ripping through the 2000 Royal Rumble and was notified about a Matt Miller tweet that his sources said Thomas could be the first offensive lineman off the board. I don't even really trust Miller all that much, but for some reason, this spoke to me.

Riding the adrenaline of the New Age Outlaws retaining their Tag Team Championship, I slapped some cash on Thomas to be the second offensive player drafted at +4000. Then I hit it again. And again.

When the Giants took him fourth overall, months of pandemic-fueled misery just disappeared.

- Alex Moretto

Baltimore Ravens to win the Super Bowl (+4000)

OK, so the Ravens didn't actually win the Super Bowl, and I didn't actually win this bet. But boy, was it worth the ride.

Did I expect Lamar Jackson to go Super Saiyan on the NFL en route to the NFL? Not really. But I took a chance on it anyway, betting him to win MVP at 55-1 and betting on the Ravens to win the Super Bowl at a price that seems ridiculous in retrospect. It took a while for the market to catch up, too, and I gleefully padded my bankroll amid Baltimore's 11-5 ATS run.

By the time the Ravens entered the playoffs, I was sitting on a 40-1 title ticket for a team priced at 2-1 to win it all. Yes, that dream crashed and burned at the feet of King Henry, but I'd gladly live it all again at a value like that.

- C Jackson Cowart

Cleveland Indians over 33.5 wins (-110)

It was late June and I had spent the past four months exclusively betting Belarusian soccer and NFL draft props. MLB had just officially announced a plan to return to play and I was ITCHING to drop the hammer on something meaningful.

I loved the Indians' roster and was all-in. But mostly, I just wanted to feel again. A rush of blood to the head led me to place the biggest bet I'd made in years on over 33.5 wins. A day later, I found it available at 32.5. Good start, right?

I was so invested in this wager that I'd watched more Indians games in two months than I do Blue Jays ones in a normal season. By early September, Cleveland was 26-15 and I was throwing around fat stacks like Michael Scott at the Burlington Coat Factory.

The Indians proceeded to lose eight straight. I was the Ben Affleck darkness GIF.

I picked myself off the pavement and, in a last-ditch effort, sold my soul to the gambling gods.

Cleveland wound up winning nine of its next 10, including a four-game sweep of the White Sox that included two thrilling walkoff wins. I watched every second of that series. Jose Ramirez's and Jordan Luplow's walkoff home runs will stick with me forever.

- Alex Moretto

Dustin Johnson to win the Northern Trust (+2000)

Dustin Johnson was the gift that kept on giving during the summer of 2020. After picking him to win the Travelers Championship at +3000, we went back to the well with DJ five starts later at +2000.

Typically, when you have an outright ticket on a player who is in contention going into the final round, your stress level is through the roof and you are sweating every shot. But Johnson dismantled the field, winning by 11 shots and cashing the most stress-free golf bet you could hope for.

- Eric Patterson

Henry Ruggs 40-yard-dash time under 4.32

I've bet more questionable markets in my life, but there's nothing quite like sweating a human being running in a straight line. All the buzz leading up to the combine centered around Ruggs, who was ripe to break the all-time 40-yard dash record.

I took the under at just about any place that had it, then texted C and asked him if he could bet more for me. We'd been colleagues for, like, six months at that point; he probably had the lowest opinion of me ever.

Ruggs came up short of the record, but he clocked in at 4.31 - one fraction of a second under his total of 4.32 seconds.

It took longer for me to remember if I had won or lost the bet than it did for the entire wager to occur.

- Alex Kolodziej

Luka Doncic to win MVP (+4000)

What does it say about me that my two favorite bets of 2020 are both losers? Nonetheless, betting a sophomore Luka Doncic to win MVP is one of the proudest speculative bets I've made.

Sure, Doncic was stellar as a rookie, but nobody truly expected the Slovenian star to become the best player on the planet in his second season. The youngest MVP in NBA history was Derrick Rose (22) in 2010-11; Doncic was 20 entering the 2019-20 season, and he posted 11 triple-doubles in his first 19 games and skyrocketed to the top of the MVP leaderboard.

Injuries forced the Mavericks star into two midseason absences that ultimately derailed his campaign, but he still finished fourth in MVP voting and entered this year as the award front-runner. Sometimes process trumps results, and my process was never better than with this wager.

- C Jackson Cowart

Super Bowl national anthem under 2:03 (+140)

I remember getting a tip from someone I trusted that Demi Lovato sang the national anthem well under the total of 2:03 in her rehearsal. All of a sudden, the Super Bowl - at least in my eyes - was not the Chiefs versus the 49ers; it was Demi versus the clock, and my entire bankroll was riding on it.

I didn't even time the national anthem on my phone; all I remember was a string of texts immediately after the word "brave," ranging from dollar signs to eggplant emojis.

Nothing but high regard for my queen. She hummed the anthem well under the total of 2:03, and for once in roughly the last five years, I didn't enter the actual game down multiple units from pregame props.

- Alex Kolodziej