The personification of the ordinary guy who made it big, Ian Wright is a legend within football circles for good reason. The England international built up a career from non-league activity and even short-term imprisonment to becoming one of the best goalscorers in the history of Arsenal. Across an interesting career, he played for the likes of Greenwich Borough, Crystal Palace, Arsenal, Wet Ham United, Celtic, and Burnley. For his country, Wright played 33 times, scoring 9 goals.

He was, without doubt, one of the hardest working and most clinical forwards of his era.

What made Ian Wright so special?

His story is one that is easy to find and to fall in love with, on top of a bubbly personality and an optimistic demeanour. However, what made Wright so special was his ability on the pitch. He could score from various angles, was decent in the air, and worked tirelessly to pressure defences. He was a player who, to many, carried that knife-between-the-teeth attitude that is needed to succeed at the highest echelons of the game.

He played with respect for his teammates and none for his opponents, making him an absorbing presence to watch as he paraded around Highbury en route to becoming one of the top goalscorers in club history.

What does Ian Wright do now?

Today, Wright is a successful pundit and has become a major part of the media in the English game. His effervescent personality and his human approach to talking about football make him an easy pundit to listen to. Though somewhat light on deep analysis, Wright brings a fans perspective to games and can be incredible to listen to when we opens up on his own insights.

Given his path to stardom, Wright has become a personality known for both his on-pitch expertise and his off-pitch perspective.

 

A handy visual of bets that can be made up from a set number of selections. For a more detailed write up of various types of multiple / acca bet (heinz, trixies, yankees, lucky 31 etc) check out the right side of any page on multiples.co.uk).

The ‘all-or-nothing’ nature of accumulator betting, or parlay betting, as it’s known in the United States, makes it an inherently risky proposition. Nevertheless, the prospect of a huge payout for a small stake provides tasty bait for those punters who consider the risk worth taking. Once such punter was 26-year-old Las Vegas resident Tayla Polia who, in December, 2015, staked $5 on a 15-fold accumulator involving National Football League (NFL) matches and landed odds of over 20,000/1.

A lifelong sports fan, but having just her second sports bet ever, Polia had previously discussed point spreads with her boyfriend without, it seems, fully understanding the concept. In fact, she simply based her picks on whom she thought would win each game, regardless of the points spread. Reflecting on her windfall, Polia said, ‘I remembered that I picked the [New York] Giants and they lost.’ What she failed to realise, though, was that she backed the Giants as five-point underdogs, so their 38-35 defeat by Carolina Panthers was a winner as far as her accumulator was concerned.

All told, Polia backed four more underdogs, namely Atlanta Falcons, Houston Texans, Washington Redskins and Detroit Lions, and not only correctly forecast that Pittsburgh Steelers, six-point favourites to beat Denver Broncos, would cover the spread, but also that both teams would score over 45 points. She had only been in Las Vegas for two months, having moved from Boston to escape the East Coast winter but, $100,000 better off, as the result of a naive, but nonetheless lucky, punt, she said she hoped to move on to a beach house in California in due course.