What’s it like to lose £2.5M on a game? Read on..
Harry Findlay has earned legendary status in the gambling fraternity. He has been skint dozens of times, won over £20million and spent just as much. But he will not change. In his much-awaited book, Harry recounts the mind-boggling tales behind the bets that will make ordinary punters shudder.
NEW ZEALAND were rugby union’s unstoppable force in 2007.
Every reliable signpost acknowledged the likelihood of a black-shirted romp through the World Cup.
But when it came to supporting them with hard cash, no one was more convinced of their tournament-winning potential than Harry Findlay. “In the two years leading up to the 2007 finals, I thought the All Blacks were brilliant,” said Harry.
“Over that period, I effectively used them via betfair as a highprofit bank account.
“They might have been 4/7 when the competition started, but I’d managed to have £2.5million at the average price of 1.78 [just under 4/5]. It was the bet of a lifetime.”
What Harry – and the legion of friends he told to back the All Blacks with as much as they could lay their hands on – had not bargained for was that the opposition in the last eight would be the hosts, France.
He had expected it to be Argentina, but they had exceeded expectations by topping their qualifying group.
“It did start to go wrong a bit when Argentina beat France in the opening match of the tournament. I thought, ‘Aye, aye, this is a bit naughty’,” Harry recalled.
“Maybe then yes, I should have cut it down by five or six hundred grand, which I didn’t – although I made up for it at half-time in Cardiff.
“New Zealand should have been 14-0 up at the interval, but, at 13-3, the enigmatic French had a squeak. I was still smarting from them playing France instead of Argentina and, at half-time, I had to go for a Smokie-Joe.”
As he stood outside the Millennium Stadium, puffing way, Harry made a smart call. He laid £600,000 on New Zealand at 1.03 to win the match – an investment that would end up reducing his overall loss to £1.9m from the original £2.5m.
As play resumed, the patrons of the Findlay box felt a sense of foreboding when Dan Carter, New Zealand’s preeminent player limped off (below).
“His replacement, Nick Evans, was injured and no one was prepared to go for the three points,” said Harry.
“We were pleading for the All Blacks to go for the drop goal, but they seemed compelled to go for the try.
“We were behind one of the goals, but, even from almost head-on, you could see the forward pass for the French try. I wasn’t even bothered when they scored, I knew it would be brought back.” But it wasn’t brought back. Yannick Jauzion’s improbable (and legally flawed) try brought the pall down on Findlay’s company. The final, shocking score was France 20 New Zealand 18. Harry was distraught. “It was the sort of atmosphere you had to escape from,” he admitted. “If I’d been an innocent bystander, I’d have wanted no part of it, either.”
Harry’s whole life had been shaped by the need to bet and here he was, at 45, knowing the largest sum he had placed on the outcome of a single sporting event was in someone else’s pocket. More than half of his entire worth was obliterated.
“I was asked dozens of times what was it like to lose £2m on a rugby match,” Harry said. “But it was difficult to explain.
“I remembered many times when defeat was harder from both a mental and personal finance point of view.
“This was a different kind of pain and, with it, the numbing realisation that I’d cost a lot of other people money as well.”