Make no mistake, the bookies cleaned up in spite of Leicester

sites in the past couple of weeks you could be forgiven for thinking that some bookmakers will be sticking up “bankrupt” signs as the Leicester win cost them a fortune.

The articles with headlines such as “Leicester fairy tales costs bookmakers dearly” spoke of the huge payouts that bookmakers had to make to punters who had jumped on board the Leicester train early in the campaign. Before you start feeling sympathy for the bookmakers, though, consider that while many of them will indeed have to pay out on Leicester, there is no mention in the articles of the overall book being held.

In other words, with Leicester winning the title, how many tickets on the likes of Manchester United, Chelsea, Man City, Arsenal and even Spurs and Liverpool went up in smoke? Yes, bookmakers would have started getting some interest in Leicester as their price continued to shorten over the last few months of the season, but imagine how many bets were placed on the bigger clubs over the past nine months?

I would not be surprised if some bookmakers never took a cent on Leicester before the season kicked off, but they would have been taking massive bets on the bigger clubs. The punters we are hearing about had amounts like £75 at 1 500/1 on the Foxes, but there are punters who would have had 50 times that stake on the likes of Chelsea or City.

I have no problem with the articles highlighting some of the punters who got lucky and are scooping massive payouts, as it is great publicity for the sports betting industry. This is, of course, exactly what the bookmakers are looking for, but it would be nice had the writer at least raised the question as to what the overall book looked like. I have a feeling that most bookmakers would be reluctant to answer this question as it would show that far from being costly, the Leicester fairy tale is, in fact, an absolute dream result for the bookies.

Brent Graham is a sports betting blogger at

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