Stay at Home Dad Wins One Million Dollars in Fantasy Fishing Tournament

Cash Prize Goes to Father of 2

In the biggest payout for any fantasy sports league, Michael Thompson of St. Michael, Minnesota wins the 1 Million Dollar Grand Prize in the FLW Fantasy Fishing Competition. The announcement was made during the awards ceremonies, which were held at the Colonial Center in Columbia South Carolina. No one knew who the grand prize winner was until the announcement at the ceremonies.

Michael Thompson is a 33 year old man with a wife and 2 children. Currently he is a stay at home dad, studying for a law enforcement degree. The million dollar prize will come as a welcomed surprised to this household.

Michael Thompson loves fishing. The FLW tournament was brought to his attention while watching FLW Outdoors, a cable TV show. Thompson said he went to the website and spent about 4 hours of research prior to picking his team. Apparently, this was time well spent. He won by the slimmest margin, just 402 points ahead of the second place winner. Michael Thompson used for fee service called Players Advantage to conduct his research. The FLW Fantasy Fishing website has information on this service too, so anyone who joined this year's competition knew about this service.

The FLW Fantasy Fishing tournament debuted this year with the largest payout of any fantasy sport competition including football. To enter all you had to do was pick a team of 10 Wal-Mart FLW Pro Anglers from a field of 200 for each tournament and you were on your way. With a payout like this I'm sure the next round, which starts in 2009 will have a huge draw. With prizes given out along the way as well as the cumulative prizes, many people walked away with something in their pockets. Over 4,000 prizes in total were given away during this competition. Here is what the top 5 winners received:

Grand Prize: Michael Thompson, $1,000,000.00.

2^nd Place: James Brown, Ranger Z-9 fishing boat with a Yamaha Engine and trailer package valued at $52,000.00.

3^rd Place: Steve Reed, Chevy Silverado Truck valued at $40,000.00.

4^th Place: Carl Trussell, Ranger Reata boat with an Evinrude engine and trailer valued at $30,000.00.