“I figured out at just 6 years old that betting on the underdog paid the most. What kindergartner knows this? Me!”
It’s best to bet with your brain, rather than your heart.” So says Ashley Haas, a sports broadcaster and betting advisor who has worked with SportsGrid TV, MLB Network, BetMGM and Triller Fight Club. Haas splits her time between New York and Los Angeles but grew up outside Philadelphia and roots for the Eagles, Phillies, Sixers and Flyers—not that she lets her team loyalties affect her betting strategy.
“I never want to jinx my team, so I avoid betting on them to win,” Haas says. “In fact, sometimes I bet against them. Either your team wins or you make some money, which creates a win-win situation. It’s called ‘hedging your bet.’ You’ll feel good about either outcome, and it softens the blow of a loss with some cash in your pocket.”
The stunning sports specialist—who has modeled for Victoria’s Secret, Donna Karan and Carolina Herrera, and considers making the Maxim Hot 100 List in 2021 “one of the highlights of my career”— first learned about playing the odds when she was a child while accompanying her grandfather to a New Jersey horse racing track. “He would take me to billiards bars to hustle for money, and was quite the pool shark,” Haas shares. “After his wins, we’d go to the race track, and if I picked the winning horse, I’d get ice cream. That’s where I first learned about odds. I figured out at just 6 years old that betting on the underdog paid the most. What kindergartner knows this? Me!”
Haas now prefers to wager on betting apps (responsibly, of course) rather than at race tracks or casinos, and only gambles to make watching sports more fun. “The biggest lesson I learned from watching my grandfather gamble was knowing when to walk away,” she says. “If you gamble long enough, the house always wins. So understanding when to stop is the most crucial lesson of all.”
Aside from her betting and broadcasting duties, Haas says she’s preparing to play an “overstressed, coffee-addicted producer” in an upcoming sports comedy TV series, Match Point, alongside former NFL players Vernon Davis and Omar Bolden. But the multihyphenate media personality, actress and model has even bigger career goals on the horizon.
“My next aspirations are to be the face of a designer fragrance and to star in a major comedy movie. So let’s manifest that—and a million-dollar paycheck!” she says. “But seriously, I would love nothing more than to work alongside talented people like Kristen Wiig, Larry David and Ryan Reynolds. Van Wilder was a classic, and I truly respect Reynolds’ comedic delivery in that film.” We’re betting that much like Reynolds’ career after that 2002 National Lampoon flick, Haas is headed for bigger and better things.