Now that it’s done, good on Leicester. Edan Hazard waiting until this game to remember that he is a world class football player was a bit of a gut punch, and Chelsea are right bastards, but otherwise it’s still been a great season.
From a couple of months ago, but great little parody video.
How many people actually placed that bet?
I heard somewhere that the bookies where only expecting to have to pay out about US$15-million. So I guess it’s a lot small bets, people willing to throw down a fiver on their home team just because.
Looks like I misheard.
Here’s a source that quotes the payouts will be about £50-million and the largest bet on Leicester City was £20.
If you want to get in early on next year’s action, Burnley is expected to get a 5000-1 tag.
57 with Ladbrokes. (Don’t know about other bookies.) All but 21 took an early payout (at less than 5000x bet), and the 21 bets that won at the full payout were all 20 pounds or lower. The stunning thing for me is that the odds for Eddie the Eagle winning the gold in ski jumping were 2500:1. That really puts the 5000:1 odds for me (who remembers Eddie well from the Calgary Olympics) into perspective.
Will they be able to keep Vardy, Mahrez, Drinkwater and Schmichael in the off season is good question.
Not just the players. If I were running another club I’d be trying to recruit Leicester’s scouting staff. They seem to have the Midas touch. I mean, Wenger’s Arsenal know all about the French league and are always buying French players, so how come they didn’t get Mahrez* or Kante?
- OK, French Algerian
On this, whilst there are probably not that many who stuck it on at long odds at the start of the season, I know several people in my circle of friends who stuck money on at Christmas as a “value bet”. At that point, the odds had come in but they were still in the 100-1 range, I believe, so there’s a few people capitalising but not quite at the headline 5000-1 figure.
These Christmas odds are obviously a reflection of the idea that the bookies (and to be fair, a lot of football followers) had that Leicester would slip away eventually, after having had a good run. I think I only felt like they weren’t going to go away in about mid-March - and remember having watched the Arsenal game on Valentine’s Day and though, “well, this is the beginning of the end”. Pleased to be wrong.
One nice little detail that may not have been in the world coverage of this story: Gary Lineker, who comes from Leicester, played for Leicester City before going on to be a major star, at one time part-owned the club, and is now a famous sports presenter on TV, promised, back when it still seemed like an impossible dream, to present the first edition of next season’s Match of the Day (the BBC’s flagship football show) in just his underpants if Leicester won the title.
Many people have been reminding him of this pledge over recent months. Let’s hope he doesn’t Ashdown it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he agrees to do it, but some suit at the BBC squashes it for some spurious reason.
Well played Leicester - deserving winners.
On the 5,000-1 - saw a mildly amusing story yesterday about someone who had placed 50p (£0.50) on that at the start of the season, but cashed out - for 45p - after Leicester won their opening game.
Oh, and the stuff about bookies making a huge loss on Leicester payouts is nonsense - yes, it will cost them whatever the reported figures are, but that will be dwarfed by the lost wagers backing Arsenal, Man U, Man City, Chelsea, Liverpool etc. In other words, any bookie who has done their sums properly will have absolutely loved this outcome - generally, bookies do best if outsiders win. They’re just highlighting their losses because it’s great publicity for them.
According to several different things I have seen the figures quoted are actual losses. It seems that the bookmaker’s don’t make a massive profit normally. And fate has conspired against them:
Assuming the bloke from William Hill isn’t doing exactly what Dead Cat suggests and trumping up some publicity for the gambling industry, I wonder if the bath they are taking is precisely because these sort of bets are not popular. Most bets happen on events that are about to take place and will pay out in 5 minutes or so. The market for gambling on an event where you are meant to sit on your hands for 9 months is, perhaps, not usual, which might mean they could wind up with losses on this sort of market in this sort of event.
If ESPN said it, it must be true! No takebacks!
Congratulations to Leicester, they have been an amazing story.
Fucking Chelsea can fuck right the fuck off. Flopping and cheap shots all day, then they celebrate a drawlike they just won the fucking World Cup. Our guys need to get better at not reacting to that shit, but doesn’t change the fact that they’re fucking scum. And in conclusion, fuck.
Still a great season. We have the youngest team in the league and the best manager, and should be in the hunt for many years to come. Looking forward to next year’s Premier League season…and Champions League!! Still work to do this season, of course…must finish ahead of Le Arse.
Oh hell, here’s one more. Fuck those guys.
Go Chelsea, and go Leicester City!
I can’t stop giggling.
Spurs… 
LOL.
I fucking hate Chelsea, and on any other day i would cheer for Spurs over Chelsea every single time. I really quite like Spurs, and if it were not for Leicester’s amazing run, i would have been quite happy to see Tottenham win the League, especially over the usual suspects like Chelsea, Man U and Man City.
But the Spurs players should be embarrassed by their performance yesterday. They took cheap shot after cheap shot, including a blatant kick and an eye gouge, they got nine yellow cards and were lucky it wasn’t more, and probably should have had at least one person sent off. Not only that, but they started fouling from the beginning of the game, and even when they were winning they continued to do it. I found the whole thing completely befuddling.
I know you said you like Spurs, I don’t know how much you watch of them. This is really really unlike this team. It’s very much not how they play. Old school fans have been complaining all season about the lack of yellow cards in close games. They didn’t do this against Arsenal.
I have to think it had something to do with Chelsea. Chelsea wound them up and Spurs lost it and came out looking bad.
Hey, look at that. Now that the match is over and people are talking rationally… Chelsea were assholes.
Well I only watched the highlights but the impression I got was that both sides contributed equally to the spicy atmosphere. Spurs were pumped up from the start. I thought it was all highly entertaining. Kyle Walker’s yellow-card foul was a thing of beauty :D. Throwing his own snot at Diego Costa, less so.
Sure. But it’s Diego Costa. You think he wasn’t provoking Spurs? They shouldn’t have responded, but still…