Mega-sharp horse bettor Barney Curley (pictured) has struck again, taking bookies for an estimated £2.5m via a four-horse betting ‘coup’ on Wednesday. Originally estimated at around £15m, the revised sum is nonetheless a hard pill to swallow for bookies still recovering from the eight-figure shellacking they took a couple weeks back when the top seven English Premier League squads all lived up to expectations come match day.
Curley’s latest coup involved four horses that had underperformed in their most recent outings, leading bookies to rank them as outside chances to win their respective races at Lingfield, Catterick and Kempton tracks in England. Three of the nags were once personally handled by Irish trainer Curley, while the fourth was trained by Curley associate Des Donovan. By the time the bookies realized the horses were being heavily backed, the damage had already been done. Some of the horses were originally listed at odds of as high as 20:1 before bookies could reprice them. Accumulator wagers on all four horses winning featured odds as high as 9,000:1.
A Paddy Power spokesman said the company had “genuinely had our pants pulled down” on Wednesday, which he characterized as “one of the blackest days in the history of bookmaking.” The Paddsters are believed to have suffered a £1m hit via the “weapons-grade coup.” Bet365 spokesman Pat Cooney said the company would “certainly like the last 24 hours back, that’s for sure,” but noted that the pre-race buzz on social media ensured that odds could be adjusted in time to spare the Stoke-based bookie further embarrassment.
Betfred, which for two years resisted paying out £823k on a 2010 Curley coup, paid out promptly this time after taking what spokesman Andrew Griffiths called “a step back” overnight to make sure “everything was above board.” Griffiths told the Guardian they were out around £250k from Curley’s latest heist. Ladbrokes and William Hill reportedly took similar sized hits, but Lads’ PR man David Williams said his firm wasn’t “looking for sympathy” and/or “a violin accompaniment.” Coral would admit only to a “six-figure” loss.
The British Horseracing Authority (BHA) is investigating Curley’s latest headline grabber, but there’s been no suggestion that the coup involved any illegal activity. Curley was supposed to have ‘retired’ from his betting ways but it seems he was simply playing possum. A year ago, Curley told the Belfast Telegraph that he hadn’t had a bet since 2010 because “the buzz has gone out of the game.” Curley has yet to make any public comment on how he set the betting world buzzing yet again.
