Maltese Punter Struck by Luck

Place less than EUR1, win more than you can spend After placing a less than EUR1 accumulator bet online at William Hill, a player from Malta got more than he bargained for - EUR683 739.88! The 41-year-old football punter certainly rejoiced after Liverpool Football Club player Glen Johnson's late winning score against Chelsea, because that was precisely what brought him so much money on the record odds of 683 738/1. The accumulator bet he placed included 19 football results, the previous 18 of which he had already won when he hit it big on the Chelsea-Liverpool game. According to a William Hill spokesman Graham Sharpe, "We cannot recall any punter winning either this much on an accumulator, or landing such stratospheric odds- even though he wasn't a Liverpool fan before, he tells us he is now! "Football punters were already celebrating the biggest winning weekend in living memory as all the best fancied teams in the Premier League, Championship, Leagues One & Two, Blue Square, SPL and William Hill Scottish Cup turned out be winners. "This late winner in the final game of the weekend left us feeling about as cheerful as under-pressure Chelsea boss Andre Villas Boas. The weekend as a whole was football betting's equivalent of racing's Dettori day in 1996, when Frankie rode all seven winners at Ascot, costing the industry almost GBP 50million. “Punters backing long-odds accumulative bets like the one described here were the biggest winners, most of them collecting four and five figure sums from modest stakes."