Leicester City won the title in the 2015/16 season against all odds and that cost the bookmakers quite a lot of money. However, there’s more to this story.
Crazy things happen in football. Things that were so far off before they actually happened, so that it was more conceivable to imagine that Elvis would be announced alive, or better yet, that you have better chances of winning a slot jackpot. However, things that seem impossible do happen in football. How many people believed that Leicester could win the title? Their chances were merely theoretical. Yet they did. As painful as it was for Arsenal fans not to see their club finally win the title again, Leicester managed to finish the season on top. So, if Leicester could win, surely you might, just might stand a chance of winning at least a smaller amount of money on a casino game. Here are some games you can play on your mobile and who knows, you might get lucky.
5,000 Odds Are Pretty High
Surely when the people who placed wagers on Leicester winning the league showed up at the bookie shop on their high-street or placed their bet online it seemed like easy money for the operator. Even if the wager in question was only a couple of quid. The odds weren’t 5,000 without a reason, in fact, most people considered Leicester to be more of a candidate for relegation. And even when they won their first few games it didn’t change much. Perhaps you’ve read of one of the unluckiest punters in the UK who wagered 50p on Leicester to win and then cashed out after their first win, receiving 5p less, when he could’ve won £2,500 had he waited.
The Bookmakers Lost £25 Million
And even when Leicester kept on winning and were top of the league at Christmas, the general public didn’t believe that they would win the league. The odds for Leicester winning the league were still smaller than the odds for the odds for the bigger teams, even those who were far behind Leicester. When Leicester eventually won, it was announced that this will cost the bookmakers a staggering £25 million. In fact, Leicester was this year’s joke bet and quite a few punters placed a quid or less on Leicester. Bookmakers can consider themselves lucky for offering a cash-out option as many of these punters cashed out and settled for much smaller amounts, otherwise the pay-outs would’ve easily exceeded £25 million.
The Odds Won’t Be that High in the Future
It is obvious that the bookies didn’t have the last laugh in the 2015/16 season as the joke bet turned out to be quite serious. It has already been stated by experts and some of the representatives of betting operators that we can no longer expect odds as high as 5,000. They explained that the odds for underdogs like Leicester for outright bets aren’t calculated in a conventional manner and it is very difficult to set realistic odds. It is more than certain that they will refrain from offering such odds, even if the team in question really stands little chance of winning.
Is this a Beginning of a New Trend?
Is this Arsenal’s year after a 12 year wait?
There will likely be a benefit for the bookmakers though. Even though they did lose money on Leicester winning the league, that only meant that they made profits on all the bets that the big teams will win the league. Numbers haven’t been released, but it is well known that people wager smaller amounts on teams like Leicester, but tend to wager larger sums on Arsenal, City, United and Chelsea. Moreover, this might be the start of a new trend, as it has been suggested that a lot more fans of smaller teams will be wagering on their clubs from now on. All in all, the bookies realised that they’ll be losing money at the end of the season, when it became obvious that Leicester might indeed win the title, but their losses weren’t that great and in the long run they might actually win.
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