The 50p bet that made luckiest punter a millionaire

A FERTILISER salesman who became a millionaire off a 50p bet has been named as one of the country’s luckiest punters ever.

William Hill has compiled a list of the longest odds bets that it has seen come in, including Fred Cragg’s 2 million to 1 punt on the horses.

In 2008, the 60-year-old placed 50p on an accumulator bet on eight different horse races, collecting £1 million in winnings when they all came in.

Two of the horses he picked were named A Dream Come True and Isn’t That Lucky.

Second on the list is George Rhodes, of Aldershot, who collected £86,056.42 after tax from an accumulator in 1984, after putting down a 5p stake, beating odds of 1,670,759 to 1.

One man from Lichfield won £500,000 off a 30p bet.

He made a long list of successful predictions, including who would win the Champion’s League, the top five English football leagues and the three lower Scottish divisions.

A Maltese man won £499,000 in 2011 after betting one euro on a 19match football accumulator, but needed a last-minute goal in the last game.

Finally, one punter made £550,823.54 on “Frankie Day” at Ascot — when Frankie Dettori rode the winner in every race — from a £62 accumulator.

While these are among the few successes, most long shot bets obviously come to nothing. The longest odds the bookmaker has ever offered were the 15 million to 1 for former Monster Raving Loony Party leader Screaming Lord Sutch’s £10 bet that he would become prime minister. He did not.