Don't feel too sorry for Ladbrokes...
Tuesday 3rd May 2016
In your Prem10 – Review email today:
- Leicester have done it...
- The shock of a lifetime?
- Coming up this week...
Don’t believe it...
You can’t turn on the radio or go on the internet today without hearing about Leicester City’s 5,000/1 Premier League title win...
First things first – well done to Leicester. What a fantastic achievement. And one that puts the romance well and truly back into the game.
But let’s not get too carried away with thinking the bookies have been ‘taken to the cleaners’... ‘rinsed for millions’... or ‘wiped out’ by Leicester backers...
Ladbrokes report taking a total of 47 bets on Leicester @ 5,000/1.
Just 47. That’s not many at all when you think how many customers Ladbrokes must have, online and visiting their shops every week.
And 47 winning tickets to pay out on isn’t many at all when you think how many tens of thousands of punters will have done their cash backing Chelsea... Man City... Arsenal... Man Utd or any other Premier League team to win the title.
And while a 5,000/1 payout certainly hurts the bookmaker, even for a £1 or £5 stake, let’s counter that by thinking how many more people will have backed the clubs mentioned above – for significantly higher stakes.
Not to mention any number of pre-season accumulators on Outright Winner markets across the leagues, taken down by that surprise Premier League win.
Ladbrokes are saying the Leicester win cost them £3 million.
Skybet are calling in a ‘loss’ of over £4 million.
Whatever the amount – well done to each and every Leicester fan (or hugely ambitious bettor) who backed the Foxes this season... The bet of a lifetime, and a huge payout to go with it!
An all-time great...
Gary Linekar said he wouldn’t have had a pound on Leicester at the start of the season, even if you’d give him odds of 10-million-to-1... That gives an even better indication of how unlikely – how unthinkable, even – Leicester City winning the Premier League title was.
As a betting result and a sporting ‘shock,’ this is truly unprecedented.
Looking back at some of the most famous underdog wins of all time, the odds don’t even come close to that 5,000/1 price...
Greece winning Euro 2004 (which until now was the biggest and most ‘recent’ football Outright Winner shock I could think of), was merely 150/1 in comparison. You’d have got a similar three-figure price for Denmark winning that tournament in 1992.
In tennis, Goran Ivanisevic winning Wimbledon as a Qualifier in 2001 was also a 150/1 shot. The same price or thereabouts goes for Darren Clarke winning The Open golf in 2011 at his 20th attempt, and the low-ranked Shaun Murphy winning the Snooker World Championships in 2005.
Will we ever see the likes of Leicester’s win again? Well, it’s a funny ol’ game as they say – so you never know...
Right now it looks like the bookies are playing it safe for the immediate future: at the time of writing no team is available at anything as big as 5,000/1 for the 2016/17 Premier League. With newly promoted Burnley having the honour as the current rank outsider at 2,000/1 for next season.
- It’s interesting to note that two of football’s biggest outsider triumphs have come in the European Championships...
- Can anyone imitate Greece and Denmark at Euro 2016 this summer? I’ll be taking a look at the Outright Winner prices and any potential early value in the markets in the build up to the kick off in France....
- To get my Euro 2016 email updates ahead of the launch of our dedicated service this summer, simply click here to register your interest
Coming up this week...
Back to the current Premier League season and we still have two rounds of games to look forward to before thoughts turn to the Euros...
Our value Picks produced just the one winner from three selections at the weekend – Liverpool winning the Most Cards at Swansea @ 11/8 (2.38).
There were some strong trends on show elsewhere though with the likes of Bournemouth (8 in a row now for Over 2.5 Goals bets) and Southampton (5 out of 7 for Over 2.5 Goals) proving to be end-of-season entertainers.
We’ll be looking to identify games with the right mix of stats, form and value prices throughout the final fortnight...
I’ll be on the hunt again then, using the stats as a guide, in your weekend analysis on Friday.
Until then,
Best wishes,
Oliver Upstone
Prem10 |
