A lucky Londoner had a life changing win when his 6-fold acca came in, and the last leg was an absolute stress monster.
The unnamed man put just £11.50 on the following outcomes:
- Football – Croatia to beat Scotland at 7/5 (2.40)
- Football – England to beat the Czech Republic at 11/20 (1.55)
- Golf – Steve Stricker to win, Bridgestone Senior Players Championship at 5/1 (6.0)
- Golf – Kelly Norda to win, KPMG Women’s PGA Championships at 14/1 (15.0)
- Golf – Victor Hovland to win, BMW International Open at 13/2 (7.50)
- Golf – Harris English to win, Travelers Championship at 35/1 (36.0)
This all amounted to overall odds of 90,396/1 which would turn the £11.50 bet into £1,039,544 if successful.
The events took place over the space of about a week, with Croatia triumphing comfortably in a 3-1 win at Hampden Park, and England keeping the Czech Republic at bay after a 12th minute goal from Raheem Sterling.
A few days after these matches had been played his golf bets started to come in, until he was only needing Harris English to win for his bet to pay out.
He must have needed nerves of steel watching English, who at 35/1 was the biggest risk on the acca and ended up tied at the 18th hole. A historic 8 hole playoff ensued that didn’t conclude until after 1am UK time, with English finally claiming victory, and making the punter a very rich man in the process.
Betfair Ignore Their Own Rules
Despite having a £100k upper win limit on golf, Betfair paid out the full amount to the newly minted punter, saying that it was “the right thing to do”.
They could quite possibly have refused and gone to war with the punter, but it wouldn’t have done their reputation any good even if it would have saved them almost a million quid.
What’s more, if they want people to continue to place accumulator bets with them (bookies love acca’s because they hardly ever win), then the last thing they should be doing is refusing to pay out when one of them eventually does win.
🤑 A Betfair punter from London has become a millionaire – from a £11.50 acca!
👏 He’s won a HUGE £1,039,544 from a 90,396/1 six-fold.
😓 Harris English made him sweat, winning on the 8th play-off hole after 1am! pic.twitter.com/895GlycQGM
— Betfair (@Betfair) June 29, 2021
As you can see, not only did they pay out but they let the world know about it too, congratulating the winner and writing a story about the whole thing.
Great publicity for them, life changing money for the punter – everybody wins.