9 Bizarre Bets That Actually Paid Off
Bookmakers will take a bet on almost anything if the odds are long enough. Most of those wagers lose, which is why bookmakers offer them. But every so often an outrageous bet comes in, and the story becomes legend. These nine are documented, not urban myths.
1Ten pounds on a man on the Moon
In 1964 a young Englishman named David Threlfall walked into a William Hill shop and bet £10 at odds of 1,000 to 1 that a man would set foot on the Moon before the start of 1971. On 20 July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed, and Threlfall collected £10,000, a fortune at the time. Bookmakers trimmed their space odds rather quickly afterwards.
2Everything on red
In 2004 a Londoner called Ashley Revell sold almost everything he owned, including his clothes, and flew to Las Vegas with the proceeds: $135,300. In front of TV cameras at the Plaza Hotel, he put it all on a single spin of the roulette wheel, on red. The ball landed on red 7, and he walked away with $270,600. He has said he would not recommend it.
3Fifty pence, one million pounds
In 2008 Fred Craggs, a retired man from Thirsk in North Yorkshire, put a 50p accumulator on eight horses running at different meetings. All eight won, at combined odds of two million to one, and on his 60th birthday he collected £1 million.
4Thirty pence on fifteen football matches
In 2001 Mick Gibbs, from Staffordshire, placed a 30p bet that 15 different football results would all go his way. The last leg was Bayern Munich winning the Champions League final on penalties. When the final kick went in, his slip was worth around £500,000.
5Leicester City at 5,000 to 1
Before the 2015-16 Premier League season, bookmakers rated Leicester City, who had barely avoided relegation, as 5,000 to 1 to win the title. They won it. A small number of fans and neutral punters held tickets at those odds, and the total paid out across the industry was reported to run into the millions. Several backers famously cashed out early for a smaller sure profit, a decision they have been asked about ever since.
6A grandfather's faith
When his grandson Harry Wilson was a toddler, Peter Edwards from North Wales bet £50 at 2,500 to 1 that the boy would one day play for the Wales national team. In October 2013 Harry came on as a substitute against Belgium at the age of 16, becoming the youngest player ever to appear for Wales, and his grandfather collected £125,000.
7Living to 100
Alec Holden, a retired engineer, bet £100 at 250 to 1 that he would live to celebrate his 100th birthday. In 2015 he did, and the bookmaker paid out £25,000.
8The man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo
In 1891 an Englishman named Charles Wells went on an extraordinary winning streak at the Casino de Monte-Carlo, repeatedly "breaking the bank" at his table, meaning he won more than the cash reserve placed there. A popular music-hall song made him famous. The ending was less happy: he was later jailed for fraud over unrelated schemes.
9The run of all runs, and how it ended
In the early 1990s a Greek-American gambler named Archie Karas reportedly turned a borrowed stake of about $10,000 into tens of millions playing high-stakes poker, pool and dice in Las Vegas, one of the longest winning streaks in gambling history. Then, in a few weeks, he lost almost all of it. It is the perfect footnote to every list like this one.
Why bookmakers love a crazy bet
Novelty bets are cheap advertising. When a long shot wins, the payout makes the news and puts the bookmaker's name in front of millions of people. Most of the time the long shot loses, and the stakes simply add to the bottom line. The odds on outrageous events are also usually much shorter than the true probability, giving the house a big margin. We explain why in The Science of Luck: 7 Probability Myths Busted.
Wagers have been part of storytelling for centuries, from Phileas Fogg's bet in Around the World in Eighty Days, featured in our balloon festival story, to Mark Twain's crooked frog contest in our bizarre frogs list. And for the luckiest people of all, see the luckiest lottery winners and strangest jackpots.
