Well, not my biggest accumulator wins, that would be too good to be true, right? Instead I’ve trawled the archives for examples of accumulator bets that saw punters come away with a cool £1 million plus (or in the ballpark of).
1) Steve Whiteley – 5-fold accumulator
Plumbing engineer Steve Whiteley of Tawton in Devon sure knows how to make a couple of quid go a long way. Having recently acquired a bus pass, he’d enjoying heading down to the course to watch the horses. The plucky punter placed a paltry £2 accumulator bet on the Exeter Tote Jackpot in 2011. These were his selections:
Semicolon (2/1), Black Phantom (12/1), Ammunition (16/1), Mr Bennett (16/1), Lundy Sky (5/1), and Lupita (12/1).
Coming into the last race, he was the only punter left with a chance to getting a clean sweep of wins. Jockey, Jessica Lodge brought it home for him (I think he owes her a drink!). The win saw a cheque worth £1.45 million heading his way. Not bad for a few minute work!
2) Fred Craggs – 8-fold accumulator
If you thought winning well over a million with £1 was impressive, then you’ll be doubly impressed by thrifty fertiliser salesman Fred Craggs from Thirsk who placed an 8-fold accumulator with William Hill with selections from races around the world. It was a bet he made on his 60th birthday and as luck/skill would have it, all of the selections won (with selections including Isn’t That Lucky and A Dream Come True perhaps it was written in the stars) and he was £1,000,000 better off (betting odds of 2 million – 1).
Craggs clearly wasn’t counting the money in advance and saw his bet as more ‘hit and hope’ style. So much so in fact that he didn’t even check the result and was instead informed of his staggering win when he went to place another bet.
“I had quite a glowing feeling in the shop but none of the other customers seemed to notice.” said Craggs, of finding out about his win.
He then went home and sat through a meal with his family without telling them. Come of Fred, spit it out!!
3) Anon Punter – 5-fold accumulator
In April 2017 a £19 accumulator bet was placed on five horses running at Punchestown by an anonymous Leicestershite punter.
The accumulator bet was placed on:
- 10/1 Das Mooser
- 9/2 Woodland Opera
- 7/1 Definite Ruby
- 10/1 Bacardys
- 33/1 Canardier
and consisted of five £3 fourfold accumulators and one £4 fivefold accumulator. The anonymous gamber had previous interest in racing in that he used to be a bookmaker himself. He stated that he never places single bets, and since this bet came up he must be rather pleased to operate by that ethos. Due to the substantial betting odds of some of the selections, he won big this time around, to the tune of £823,000. Not quite a million pounds, but we didn’t stipulate which currency did we? Let’s call it euros ;).
