Punter Turns £20 Into £96,000 at Southwell Races While Another Is a Dart Away from £12k Payday

Field of Horses on All Weather Surface from Behind

Sometimes, our accas are a million miles away and we shrug it off – we’ll be back for more next weekend.

But, on the rarest of occasions, punters can get within a whisker of a handsome payout; a tiny margin one way or another can see dreams made or shattered.

That was perfectly personified last week by the experiences of two punters within less than 24 hours of one another. At the Premier League Darts on Thursday evening, one bettor was a single dart away from turning £5 into £12,000 thanks to a four-fold correct score acca.

And then, the very next day, a Ladbrokes punter turned a £20 kitty into a staggering £96,000 payout courtesy of four winners at Southwell Racecourse.

The Price Isn’t Right

For those not aware of the format of the Premier League Darts these days, the eight players in the competition travel around the UK, Ireland and parts of Europe each Thursday, with the fixture list determining what the quarter-final games will be in advance.

One William Hill punter decided to have a four-fold accumulator across the quartet of matches, opting for the high risk strategy of backing the correct score in each.

It’s the sort of bet that, for many, wouldn’t win once in a lifetime, but that didn’t deter our punter here, who got underway by backing Chris Dobey to beat Stephen Bunting by a 6-2 scoreline at odds of 9/1.

The pair propped up the league table heading into night seven of the competition in Cardiff, although Dobey had reached the final of the very first night in Belfast.

Whether both players were feeling the pressure of their basement clash remains to be seen, but this was not a classy affair we’d expect from such elite operators.

Not that our punter gave a hoot: Dobey did just about enough to assert his dominance and win by the required 6-2 scoreline. One down, three to go.

Incredibly our punter’s second (Michael van Gerwen to beat Luke Humphries 6-4) and third (Luke Littler to beat Nathan Aspinall 6-3) selections both landed at 7/1 and 15/4 respectively, leaving them with just one leg left to run: home favourite Gerwyn Price to beat Rob Cross 6-5.

Price was outstanding on home soil, averaging 97 and looking the more likely winner by a comfortable margin. But Cross hung in there, and by hook or by crook took it all the way to a last leg shootout at 5-5.

Cross was slow out of the blocks, leaving the ‘Iceman’ with the perfect opportunity to set up a finish – he narrowly missed double 18 to seal the win.

His opponent was way back on 170, which is the highest checkout available in darts and a low frequency occurrence… particularly in a deciding leg. Cross hit treble 20 with his first dart, punctured the same target with his second and – to the bewilderment of everyone in Cardiff – landed the bullseye with his third to round out a remarkable 6-5 victory.

If Cross hadn’t taken out the 170, Price would have likely won the leg and sealed a 6-5 victory… securing William Hill’s customer a £12,000 payout.

Fine margins!

Southwell Surprise

Less than 24 hours later, a Ladbrokes customer turned a £1 Lucky 15 and a £5 four-fold into £96,578 courtesy of four unlikely winners at Southwell.

We say unlikely, because the prices of his picks were 14/1, 12/1, 6/1 and 10/1 respectively… the betting market certainly didn’t favour their quartet of selections.

Time Horse Trainer Jockey SP
19:00 Dutch Kingdom Darryll Holland Liam Wright 14/1
19:30 King Of Fury Michael Dods Sean Kirrane 12/1
20:00 Toby Tops Dylan Cunha George Wood 6/1
20:30 Sevensees Stuart Williams Warren Fentiman 10/1

But Dutch Kingdom did the business in the 19:00 race, staying on tremendously to pip 2/1 favourite – and all-race leader – Legal Reform on the line.

King of Fury made a mockery of his 12/1 price by winning the 19:30, albeit by a neck from How Impressive in second, before Toby Tops fair bolted home in the next as a 67/1 chance.

All of which left the huge gamble relying on Sevensees, a 10/1 chance in the final race of the card. The five-year-old has moved to Stuart Williams’ yard in 2025 after a so-so career in Ireland, and the switch to the all-weather in England has proven to be a successful one.

But when the well-backed 2/1 favourite Moulin Booj sat prominently at the front of the field in the 4f handicap, our punter may have already been trying to work out what their Lucky 15 would have paid from three winners – by our reckoning, in the region of £1,776.

However, they needn’t have worried. As Moulin Booj weakened ever so slightly, Sevensees stuck to his task manfully, gaining on the leader length by length.

As they crossed the finishing line, Sevensees had just managed to head Moulin Booj – no doubt sparking scenes of jubilation for our punter… and less so in Ladbrokes’ offices.