We’d all like to win the lottery (though maybe not the ‘someone’s knocking at the door, someone’s ringing the bell‘ one, as there are some scary faces amongst them!) or an online or offline scratch cards win, but there must be something even more satisfying at feeling that you’ve earned it. Of course there are element of luck to betting, but there can also be an aspect of skill to it, in deciding the composition of a bet and likelihood of a result. So I like to think if I ever won big with an accumulator bet, it would at least in part be down to skill!
Of course though, even with bets, many or perhaps even a majority of punters ultimately take a ‘throw a dart at it’ approach and just pick a selection based on a name that they like, or a team that they or someone they know is rooting for. This was pretty much the case in November last year, when a 58 year old housewife placed a £1 12 football team accumulator bet on at William Hill and every single result came in.
The bored housewife had got her son to read out the fixtures for the day and picked teams she liked the sound of. Nothing more complicated than that, but with such a number of consecutive wins the rewards were great.
According to a William Hill spokeperson, “Apparently, the lady’s husband had been doing the £1 weekend acca since he was 18, so 40 years of practice on football punting. His wife started doing the same bet about six years ago, so she certainly had lady luck on her side as her hubby has never had a win anything like that. ‘It just goes to show if you can’t beat them join them and the payout in this case is absolutely fantastic.”
Below is the punter’s betting slip, and the bet in its entirety:
The Acca
Huddersfield to beat West Brom: 6/4 – 1-0 victory
Bournemouth to beat Newcastle: 5/2 – 1-0 victory
Burnley to beat Southampton: 4/1 – 1-0 victory
Brighton to beat Swansea: 15/8 – 1-0 victory
Sheff Wed to beat Aston Villa: 5/2 – 2-0 victory
Barnsley to beat Birmingham: 11/8 – 2-0 victory
Bolton to beat Norwich: 11/5 – 2-1 victory
Reading to beat Derby: 16/5 – 4-2 victory
Ipswich to beat Preston: 8/5 – 3-0 victory
Burton to beat Millwall: 10/3 1-0 victory
Nottingham Forest to beat QPR: 11/10 – 4-0 victory
Sheff Utd to beat Hull: 8/11 – 4-1 victory
