Dave Portnoy has never been accused of subtlety, but his latest eruption over a bad beat in the Las Vegas Raiders vs. Denver Broncos game might be his magnum opus in sports-betting melodrama.
The Barstool founder, enraged over an 8.5-point spread that evaporated faster than the Raiders’ playoff hopes, delivered a one-man performance that oscillated between conspiracy theorist, disappointed gambler, and—briefly—someone auditioning for a federal watchlist.
The sequence itself was standard late-game chaos. Las Vegas, trailing 24–7, found life via Kenny Pickett and then stumbled into field-goal range thanks to a delay-of-game penalty almost no one has ever seen called. Five seconds remained, the Raiders kicked a field goal, the game total hit 41, and gamblers who had “Raiders +8.5” and “Over 40.5” suddenly felt touched by divine intervention. Portnoy, apparently holding the opposite ticket, did not.
What the heck was that?
What followed was a rant that would make even the most hardened officiating critic blink. Portnoy paced and shouted into his phone, demanding investigations into the league, the Raiders, and seemingly anyone within a five-mile radius of the stadium—punctuated by repeated cries of “PRISON!” for Pete Carroll, the referees, and anyone unlucky enough to own Raiders merchandise. At one point, he even yelled, “***** Pete Carroll!” a rhetorical leap from zero to chaos without so much as signaling.
Naturally, social media responded with the collective recoil of people expecting entertainment and receiving something closer to a hostage-negotiation transcript. Fans called the video “repulsive,” “embarrassing,” and “unhinged,” noting the irony of a media mogul who frequently laments “cancel culture” now urging violence over a football game he didn’t wager correctly on.
Pete Carroll and the Raiders don’t care about the spread…
Such is the bizarre circus of sports betting in 2025. We have grown adults shouting about refs, conspiracies, and “rigged” finales. Of course, doing so while insisting that it is all part of the charm. The Raiders’ late field goal didn’t alter the game’s outcome. Conversely, it absolutely torched the emotional thermostat of thousands of bettors—especially one with a very loud phone.
In reality, nothing about the ending was nefarious. The Raiders had no mathematical chance to win, and the field goal served only to dress up the final score. But in the theater of gambling outrage, logic is merely a supporting character.
Portnoy’s rant wasn’t the worst beat of all time. It wasn’t even the worst beat of the night. It was simply another chapter in the ongoing saga of a league that thrives on chaos. Oh, and a fan base that loves to scream into the void when chaos doesn’t go their way.
*Top Photo: Getty Images