'Mattress Mac' Jim McIngvale to give Astros fans $10 million in rebates

ByDarren Rovell ESPN logo
Thursday, November 2, 2017

The man they call "Mattress Mac" has to pay up once again now that the Houston Astros are MLB champs -- to the tune of more than $10 million.

Houston business mogul Jim McIngvale, who owns Gallery Furniture, told ESPN he'll be giving back more than $10 million in purchases made from when he announced in May that he would rebate fans who spent more than $3,000 on mattresses and beds if the team won it all.

"I'm happy for this great city and for the Astros," McIngvale said, minutes after the Astros won the World Series title on Wednesday night.

In past promotions, McIngvale has rolled the dice, but this time he decided to protect himself.

"I can say we still made money on everything," said McIngvale, explaining that he had been drawing business with his promotion.

He said he paid an insurance premium of between 10 and 20 percent of the total value of what he had to pay out. In order to balance his risk out more, he placed some bets in Las Vegas on the Astros. Those bets, he said, totaled north of $1 million on the Astros to win the World Series.

McIngvale isn't a stranger to making big bets to promote his stores.

In 2014, to promote his 63rd birthday, he predicted the putrid Astros wouldn't win 63 games. They won 70. He gave back more than $4 million to his customers. Earlier that year, he refunded customers to the tune of about $8 million, after he predicted theDenver Broncos would beat the Seattle Seahawksin Super Bowl XLVIII, only to see the Broncos lose.

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