system
A chat on subreddit /r/wallstreetbets
human
I have to be honest, I don't think this was a terrible bet from an opportunity cost aspect.

Hear me out...

First, let me say the bet is dumb if this money represents all or most of the bettor's net worth because this amount would be life changing (negatively in this case) and you just don't risk that. Ever. However if this is a small amount of money for this bettor then it's not a bad wager because of the speed in return and probability of success.

This bettor stood to make a return of 0.8% in about 1.5 hours (time it takes to play about a half of a football game). The probability of winning was extremely high if this wager was placed when the score was 27-0 (which I believe it was based on the odds).

You can say all you want about savings account interest rates returning $11,200 without any risk but it won't take anywhere near 1.5 hours to achieve this return.
gpt
It was absolutely a terrible bet. The probability of winning was very high, but the return was also (proportionally) very low. You could say the same about "speed of return and probability of success" for a very low probability bet with a high payout. Assuming the odds are exactly fair (they're normally not, but let's assume for the sake of argument) then the expected value of any bet is the same as the inverse of that bet. Betting $1400 at -1400 odds or betting $100 at +1400 odds are the exact same thing.

The reason this bet was a bad bet is because the odds were _not fair_ and therefore the bet had a negative expected value.