Drake probably won’t be cracking open any bottles of bubbly following his latest sports gamble. The Champagne Papi has lost a total of $565,000 after betting that Tyson Fury would win the Saturday (May 18) boxing match against Oleksandr Usyk, who ultimately proved victorious over his opponent to become the sport’s undisputed heavyweight champion.
Usyk’s victory comes shortly after Drake posted a screenshot of his gambling slip on Instagram Stories last week, proving that he’d put upwards of half a million dollars on Fury’s name via the online casino Stake, with which the rapper has had a long-running partnership. Had Fury won instead of Usyk, Drizzy’s payout would have been just over a million dollars.
To Drake’s credit, it was a close call. One judge at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, originally scored the match 114-113 in Fury’s favor, however, the ruling was overturned by two other judges who favored Usyk 114-113 and 115-112, respectively.
The news comes amid the Canadian musician’s unresolved feud with Kendrick Lamar, who, ironically, called out his adversary’s gambling hobby on the diss track “Meet the Grahams.” Over the course of April and May, K. Dot has also dropped “Euphoria,” “6:16 in L.A.” and the Billboard Hot 100-topping “Not Like Us” to antagonize Drake, who, for his own part, has released “Push Ups,” “Taylor Made Freestyle,” “Family Matters” and “The Heart Pt. 6” targeted at Lamar.
Fury vs. Usyk aside, Drake has had much better luck with previous gambles. In February, he bet $1,150,000 on a Kansas City Chiefs win in the 2024 Super Bowl, which turned out to be advantageous when the Patrick Mahomes-led team triumphed over the San Francisco 49ers.
“I can’t bet against the swifties,” Drake wrote on Instagram Stories at the time, poking fun at Taylor Swift’s relationship with Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.
