Tristan N. asks: What are the longest odds on a sporting event that ended up having to be paid out?
Given the nature of sports gambling and so little publicly available documented evidence in the field throughout history, it’s impossible to know for sure what the longest odds were on a sports bet that ended up having to be paid out.
However, as far as known documented instances are concerned, it would seem the longest odds paid out on any sports bet were probably what ultimately amounted to 2,800,000-1 odds on a 50p ($0.66) bet placed by one Fred Craggs of the UK.The bet in question was an eight horse accumulator bet (meaning all eight horses had to win their respective races) in 2008. They did and the 60 year old Craggs, who was celebrating his birthday at the time, should have won £1.4 million (~$2 million), but the institution he placed the bet at had a rule in place that capped the winnings on Craggs’ bet at £1 million. Technically they could have even reduced it to £100,000, owing to more fine print they had in place, but it would have been a tenuous argument ripe for litigation and would have also been something of a PR nightmare for them, whether they won or lost the case. So they went ahead and just paid the £1 million and also submitted the win to Guinness World Records for consideration.
As for the longest odds paid out on a bet where multiple people bet on a sporting event and won, this *seems* to have occurred when Leicester City won soccer’s Premier League in 2016. They had so little shot at the title that the odds of them attaining it were 5,000 to 1 when the season began. According to reports, bookmakers paid out in excess of $14 million to various individuals on that long shot.
Other notable underdogs who won despite long odds include the 1980 U.S. Men’s Olympic Hockey Team, which took the gold medal from Finland despite being huge underdogs with 1,000 to 1 odds against them.
Similarly, in 2012, the Auburn Tigers also defied 1,000 to 1 odds to win American college football’s Bowl Championship Series.
My St. Louis Baseball Cardinals also beat long odds to win the 2011 World Series. With just 15 games left to play in the regular…
The post The Longest Odds Paid and Biggest Upsets in Major Sports Betting appeared first on FeedBox.