One lucky punter made away with £83,000 this weekend after a lucky break embellished his bank balance. The Northern Irish punter put £50 on an 11-team accumulator and managed to mistakenly choose one game whilst meaning another. Victor Chandler spokesperson Charlie McCann explained: “The customer placed the bet on the evening of 1st December for fixtures last weekend (3rd & 4th December) and we were surprised to see that ten of the predictions were correct but the outstanding game was for last night with Benfica travelling to Maritimo in the Liga Sagres. I thought this was unusual and looked back to see who Benfica played on the previous weekend and it was Maritimo away on Friday night the 2nd December in the Portuguese Cup which they lost 2-1!”
The remaining ten teams he can be thankful for were Bayer Leverkusen, Lille, AC Milan, Real Madrid, Kilmarnock, Shrewsbury, Sheffield United, Notts County, Brighton and Leeds. McCann added: “We contacted the punter to let him know what we considered to be his lucky mistake and he confirmed that the bet was placed, so he thought, for the Cup game and not for last night’s league game which Benfica won 1-0 with an 85th minute winner. Maritimo had played with 10 men from the 47th minute and finally succumbed five minutes from time and the punter was £38,058.71 better off. Now that is an early Christmas present. His first “selection” lost but he ended up winning £38k; better to be a lucky punter than a good one perhaps.”
Accumulators must be the bane of the sports bookmaker. William Hill lost over £450k to two different punters and on sports betting’s worst weekend ever Sky Bet lost £45,000 on one £5 bet. From the customers point of view it just means that a dead rubber between Boreville Wanderers and Sleeptown Harriers is all the more exciting and adds another strand to football’s undying potential to entertain.
