Chris 'Mad Dog' Russo reveals on First Take how much he's lost gambling over the years

There’s no doubt that Chris “Mad Dog” Russo is entertaining on TV and radio, especially when he gets himself worked up into a tizzy about something. This season, alone, we’ve heard of his mixture of betting $10,000 on Colorado and gummies on ESPN’s First Take.

On Wednesday’s show, Russo explained how he lost a “big parlay” because he had the OVER 48.5 in the Week 12 Jacksonville Jaguars-Houston Texans game. It was a wild, back-and-forth game that involved the Jaguars choosing to go for a touchdown at the 1-yard line with seconds remaining in the first half, instead of kicking a field goal, and Texans kicker Matt Ammendola missing a 58-yard FG off the crossbar that would’ve sent the game into overtime — and likely cashed Russo’s parlay.

.@MadDogUnleashed says on @FirstTake that he’s lost between $50,000 and $100,000 gambling.

Eliminating some of these parlays probably would help his bottom linepic.twitter.com/xBIF5iw4iZ

— Ben Fawkes (@BFawkes22) November 29, 2023

But the real kicker is that the conversation then shifted to how much money Russo had lost gambling over the course of his betting career. Russo had Molly Qerim, Stephen A. Smith and Marcus Spears all guess a number, and then revealed that it was somewhere in between Qerim ($50,000) and Spears’ ($100,000) guesses.

It seems like a lot of money, but Russo has made a whole lot more over the course of his career. Maybe betting a few less parlays will help that bottom line.