Referee no friend of Oldham punter – Best and worst sports bets ever
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Referee no friend of Oldham punter -
Best and worst sports bets ever
Wednesday 30 January 2025
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Every week, bookmaker and former Racing Post chief sports betting writer Mark Worwood takes you inside the wagering industry with tales of the best and worst bets of all time.
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One English football punter will always have mixed feelings about Sunday 27 January 2025 – the day on which his soccer side engineered an English FA Cup shock and he won more than £17,000 but a referee’s whistle cost him more than £400,000.
British bookmaker Ladbrokes reported that a man had placed a 20p Lucky 15 – total cost £3 – on long-priced correct scores in four of the day’s English FA Cup fourth round and Scottish Communities League Cup semi-final games.
A Lucky 15 is a favourite of betting shop punters in which one covers four selections fully with four singles, six doubles, four trebles and a fourfold accumulator. Betting shop managers love them even more than their customers do because one loser wipes out eight of the 15 bets straight away. Lucky 15s and other full-cover bets are the domain of punters either with absolutely no concept of value or big dreams of hitting the jackpot for a fairly small stake.
Obviously, the Oldham-based punter who placed his 20p Lucky 15 last month had his sights set on winning an outrageous sum of money for just a few pounds. He backed Brentford to draw 2-2 with Chelsea at 18-1, Leeds to beat Tottenham 3-1 at 25-1, St Mirren to defeat Celtic 3-2 at 50-1 and his beloved Latics to account for Liverpool 3-2 at 80-1.
The Lucky 15 punter got off to the best possible start when the Bees and the Blues drew 2-2 in the west London derby, Fernando Torres equalising for Chelsea with seven minutes remaining. That 18-1 winner meant that he was guaranteed to make a profit, albeit one of only 80p. But he was ahead.
However, then the Lucky 15 punter’s day took a turn for the worse. The Whites were leading Spurs 2-1 deep in second-half stoppage time when Tottenham goalkeeper Brad Friedel went forward to contest a late corner kick. Leeds managed to clear the ball and Rodolph Austin’s long-range shot rolled into the away team’s empty goal but not before match referee Kevin Friend blew his whistle to signal the end of the tie.
The Lucky 15 punter would have been more £100 up and with some serious money running on to games three and four had the Whites beaten Spurs 3-1 as he had bet at 25-1 so one can only imagine how he must have felt when Saints downed the Bhoys 3-2, albeit with the assistance of a meaningless 93rd-minute Celtic goal, and Oldham beat the Reds 3-2.
Yes, the Lucky 15 punter turned £3 into £17,055.80 over the course of six hours but he would have collected £460,511.80 had Friend not been so quick to blow his whistle in Leeds.
For what it is worth, I am a fully qualified soccer referee who officiates on the highest level of matches on Sydney’s northern beaches so I am more familiar with the Laws of the Game than most football punters. The referee is the ultimate arbiter of time in a soccer game and, from what I have seen, Friend did the right thing in ending the match when he did. If anything, Friend played over time to enable Tottenham to have one last chance from the corner kick that it had won.
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What is the best bet that you have ever placed? And what is the bet that you regret most?
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