FOOTBALL PUNTERS’ £1.5BN BETS FRENZY
Kate a hot date
®
FANS will celebrate the return of top-flight football with a staggering £1.5billion of bets across the season.
The Premier League kicks off this weekend – and bookmaker William Hill is predicting a surge of punts from supporters.
They are expecting around £15m in wagers across all bookies for each televised game, with punters spending even more on the league’s biggest games.
Manchester City are the 7-4 favourites for the title, but are the fifth most-backed team with punters.
Fans are instead backing rivals Manchester United, who at 10-3 have attracted 15.6% of all bets for the title.
Liverpool and Arsenal are the second and third most-backed sides, with fans attracted by better odds of 12-1 for both.
In a sign of how competitive the league now is, the race for the top four has eight teams all rated at odds of 20-1, with bookies fancying a strengthened West Ham to crack the top six.
At the other end of the table, Leicester are 20-1 for the drop – and that has attracted 20.6% of the bets placed on relegation. Punters are also heavily waging that promoted Huddersfield and serial strugglers Stoke City will go down.
Backed
When it comes to top scorer, fans have overwhelmingly gone for Manchester United’s £75m signing Romelu Lukaku at 4-1, backed by 17.2% of punters.
The second-most backed striker is Everton’s Wayne Rooney, despite being dismissed by the bookies with odds of just 66-1.
Spurs star Harry Kane has won the Golden Boot two years running and is the favourite at 3-1.
A William Hill spokesman said: “It has been a long summer but the big one is back.
“While people constantly debate whether the Premier League is the greatest league in the world, what is certain is that it is by far the most popular with our customers.”