It was a very good bank holiday for one lucky William Hill punter, who stuck what was presumably a random 14p left sitting in their account on a 14-fold football acca – and won.
That’s 1p per selection, and the whole thing came in at odds of 98,429/1, netting the apparent genius £13,780 in winnings.
What makes it even more impressive, is that the matches the punter chose were spread out across England, Scotland, France, Germany, and Italy, including games in the Scottish League 1 and 2, as well as Italy’s Serie B.
That’s some pretty wide football knowledge right there.
The selections on the acca were all for the home team to win, and the odds associated with them were as follows:
- Cremonese vs Spezia – 11/8
- AC Milan vs Lazio – 4/5
- St Johnstone vs Dundee United – 11/8
- Ross County vs Livingston – 29/20
- Liverpool vs Brentford – 4/9
- Tottenham vs Crystal Palace – 4/5
- Lens vs Marseille – 7/5
- Nice vs Rennes – 7/5
- Hoffenheim vs Frankfurt – 11/8
- Hertha Berlin vs Stuttgart – 2/1
- Stenhousemuir vs Annan – 19/10
- Forfar vs East Fife – 5/4
- Queen of the South vs Kelty Hearts – 5/6
- Clyde vs Montrose – 21/10
Looking at all of those Scottish games, we would hazard a guess that the bettor is probably a Scot themselves, although this is just conjecture on our part.
Talking about the big win, a spokesman for William Hill said:
“This is one of the most industrious punts we’ve seen in a long while, and it’s an incredible thing to pull off.
“Turning 14p into £13,780 is not something many of us will ever say – and what a nail-biting way to settle a 14-team accumulator.”
As impressive as it was, it came close to being ruined in several of the fixtures, no thanks to a few red cards, but some last minute winners saved the day in the end.
Red Cards and Last Minute Winners
When our plucky punter made their bet, it’s unlikely they thought much would come of it.
However, assuming they were paying attention on the day, when they saw their selections coming in one after the other, they must have started to get pretty nervous in the dying moments of a few of the Scottish games.
The match between Clyde and Montrose remained goalless right up until the 83rd minute when the home team netted, only for Montrose to equalise 5 minutes later.
A draw would have killed the acca, but a 91st minute winner from Clyde kept the bet alive.
The Stenhousmuir vs Annan game was a similar story, with the score level at 1-1 after Annan scored a penalty having been 1-0 down since early on. It took another 91st minute goal to win the game for Stenhousemuir and keep our bettor’s nerves in tact.
Despite ending with just a 1-0 scoreline, the match between Forfar and East Fife was arguably the most tense for anyone who had a 14-fold acca depending on it.
That’s because the home side, Forfar, went down to 10 men due to a sending off after just 29 minutes, so East Fife had plenty of time to take advantage. They didn’t though, luckily, but even still, for the acca to win Forfar would need to score.
Score they did, but they made our punter wait for it, finally netting the only goal of the game in the 89th minute, and sending £13,780 to the account of the mystery person behind this pretty wild acca.