Fact Check

Cubs Fan Steve Bartman Wins $3.7 Million from 9-Year-Old Bet on Cubs

Reports that the notorious Steve Bartman won $3.7 million when the Cubs made it to the World Series for the first time since 1945 are fake news.

Published Oct. 25, 2016

Claim:
Infamous Chicago Cubs fan Steve Bartman won $3.7 million after betting that the team would be in the 2016 World Series.

On 25 October 2016, the Satira Tribune web site published an published an article reporting that notorious Cubs fan Steve Bartman had won a $3.7 million wager after the Chicago Cubs defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers to earn their first World Series appearance in more than 70 years:

Infamous Cubs fan Steve Bartman won $3.7 million dollars on a bet he made on the Cubs 9 years ago in Las Vegas. At the time, the odds were 25000:1 but Bartman predicted the Cubs would defeat the Dodgers in 6 games in the year 2016. And that happened Saturday night in Chicago.

The Vegas sports bookie issued a check for $3.7 million to Mr. Bartman. He can win an additional $22.5 million if the Cubs beat the Indians in 7 games this World Series.

The Nevada Reporter interviewed Bartman who said, “It was a five dollar bet. I was a little drunk and the bookie egged me into to. I finally said ‘you know what? The Cubs will win the Pennant in 2016 against the Dodgers’, and they did. Guess who has the last laugh now.  

There was no truth to this story.

Bartman, who infamously interfered with a fly ball during the National League Championship Series in 2003 (and was widely blamed for costing the Cubs the pennant), did not place a $5 bet in Las Vegas in 2005 that the Chicago Cubs would beat the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the pennant in 2016, he didn't give a recent interview to the Nevada Reporter, and he did not win $3.7 million.

The Satira Tribune is a fake news web site that publishes "satirical and futuristic news."

While Bartman's $3.7 million World Series prediction originated with a fake news story, another Chicago Cubs prediction that made its way around the internet in October 2016 appeared to be genuine. In 1993, a high school student used his senior yearbook quote to predict a 2016 World Series victory for the Chicago Cubs.

Dan Evon is a former writer for Snopes.