When punters place bets on accumulators each weekend, they generally come with hope rather than expectation, especially when the multiple-fold choices move into double figures. However, whether it is through luck or judgment, there are occasions when they hit the jackpot, so to speak. The amount of that "jackpot" varies, depending on the likelihood of the bets which have been placed, but no punter will ever feel short-changed if they earn a return from the most ambitious of bets. As well as your standard accumulators, there have also been occasions when the outsiders of all outsiders have prevailed on the biggest stages, none more surprising than in English football six years ago.
Just like punters can receive a free welcome bonus no deposit required, Leicester City's betting odds to win the 2015-16 Premier League were generous at 5,000/1, even if the Foxes had only narrowly avoided relegation a season earlier. Unless you were a Foxes fan, there was no reason for anyone to look that far down the betting odds, but Claudio Ranieri and co delivered the greatest title triumph in the history of top-flight football in England. A punter who had the biggest success placed a bet of £50, standing to win £250,000, but they ultimately cashed out at £72,000 when given the opportunity.
Before Leicester's fairytale year, Greece was the previous standout moment for ambitious punters when involving just one team. At the time, the nation had only featured at two major tournaments, being eliminated in the group stage of each, but they defied pre-tournament odds of 150/1 to start and end the competition with victories over well-fancied hosts Portugal.
When taking a look at the biggest win ever involving football bets, it was placed in bizarre circumstances, opportune if you will. All eight of the selections were losing and just 20 minutes were remaining, yet they all turned around their respective matches to win, subsequently earning £650,000 at odds of 6,542/1. Why the odds were still relatively low at that point, who knows, but we doubt that the punter in question was complaining after he turned £100 into life-changing money within half-an-hour.
While that represented the biggest return, we would argue with justification that the next two bets are more impressive. The latest of those came in 2011 when someone from Malta tried their luck with a 19-fold bet, creating odds of 683,738/1. There was a time when 18 bets were coming in and Liverpool were only drawing with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. The writing appeared on the wall, the punter facing substantial disappointment at going so close yet coming so far, but Glen Johnson would pop up with an 87th-minute winner, turning an 80p bet into £585,000.
A decade earlier, a punter took a different approach in successfully predicting the winner of nine competitions - not all of them football-related - at odds of 1,600,000/1. Their stake of 30p indicated that they were not necessarily optimistic about a return, but the punter was eventually left with £500,000 resting on the Champions League final penalty shootout between Bayern Munich and Valencia. Can you imagine the nerves?! We certainly can't, especially when Paulo Sergio squandered Bayern's first penalty, but misses from Valencia at number three and four ultimately led to the German side prevailing 5-4 after seven spot kicks had been taken.
Turning our attention away from football, according to The Casino Wizard, one of the biggest online casino wins - with a huge odd - came from a lucky Finnish man who won €17,861,000 with a bet of just 25 cents on the Mega Fortune slot. That makes some of the football bets mentioned above appear to be small change, but it shows the possibilities that low stakes at big odds can bring. body check tags ::
