More often than not (usually, a lot more often than not) the football accumulator you spent half an hour pains-takingly putting together on a Saturday morning falls at the first hurdle when an odds-on relegation candidate stuffs one of the Premier League elite in the early kick-off, sending you into a downward spiral.
Leicester were given absolutely no hope of winning the Premier League title in June 2015, listed at odds of 5000-1. To put that into context it was considered more likely for Piers Morgan to become Arsenal manager, the Queen to have the Christmas number 1, Kim Kardashian to become the US president and Dean Gaffney to win an Oscar. DEAN GAFFNEY.
Thankfully the comparisons came nowhere near to coming true, but on 2nd May 2016, Leicester won the English Premier League title. This meant everyone brave enough to put their money where their mouth was at the start of the season were rolling in it. A £10 bet at odds of 5000-1 would have paid out a staggering £50,000!
See below for a selection of the CRAZIEST ever bets to win, with odds that defy belief:
5.) 1,000-1 – During the 2010 African Cup of Nations Mali were 4-0 down against Angola with 11 minutes left on the clock. One punter saw something that nobody else did and risked £5 on a comeback at 1,000-1. Mali scored two goals by the 90th minute and squared up the scoring in injury time. The match ended 4-4, gifting the lucky punter £5,000.
4.) 1,250-1 – Lewis Hamilton has been pretty dominant in F1 for a number of years, few were surprised when he won his first F1 World Championship with McLaren in 2008 having been tipped for greatness from an early age. One lucky punter must have seen the potential first, having spotted Lewis when he was karting at 13 years old. He promptly put £100 on Lewis to win the sport’s most prestigious prize. When Lewis delivered the lucky and mysterious chap walked away with £125,000.
3.) 25,0000-1 – The bookies were so confident that Frankie Dettori wouldn’t win all seven races at Ascot in 1996 they gave odds of 25,000-1 of it happening. On the day Frankie created one of the greatest moments in horse racing history by defying those odds and winning all seven. The only person who came close to being as happy as Frankie that day was probably Darren Yeats of Morecambe. Darren put £59 on the outcome at 25,000-1 and walked away with more than £550,000!
2.) 1,666,666-1 - A man from Staffordshire placed a 30p bet and correctly predicted the winner of the top five English leagues, 3 divisions of Scottish football, Leicester to win the rugby union Premiership and Surrey to win the county cricket championship at 1,666,666-1. His thirty pence stake won him an impressive £500,000.
1.) 2,000,000-1 - In 2008, Fred Craggs from Yorkshire decided to put 50p on an eight-horse accumulator for his 60th birthday. This resulted in what is believed to be the world record odds for a winning bet at 2,000,000-1, winning him a staggering £1,000,000.