Ahhh my single largest winning bet ever. This was a nice moment. Actually, I made this bet on a crappy day. I was in a funny mood and was reading a gambling forum I often frequent and there was talk of this football player called "Falcao" being good value at Betfred. I had never even heard of him. But I paid attention and took a look at the markets. The numbers would tell me all I needed to know.
Betfred had been running the same promotion each week on selected football matches which they call, "double delight/hatrick heaven". They still run this promotion today. In a nutshell, if you back a player to score the first goal and your bet wins and the same player scores a 2nd goal in the same match, Fred will double your odds. If the same player scores a third goal then Fred will treble your odds. It turned out that this game was selected by Fred for this "double delight" promotion.
The match was the Super Cup 2012, which is when the winners of the Champions League play the winners of the Europa League. It was Chelsea Vs Atletico Madrid.
I found out that Falcao as first goal scorer was available to back at 7.5 (13/2) at Betfred to score first. I looked at Betfair and you could lay him at 7.8 which isn't bad (don't know what lay means? Start here). I got my calculator out and layed enough to cover a bet of £200, but I decided to join a queue to see if I could get matched at 7.6 and within five minutes it got matched. So I quickly went to my local betfred shop and bet £200 on him at 7.5 (13/2).
I got home and there was enough liquidity to lay him again at 7.6. So, I picked up the phone and rang Betfred's telebetting service and placed another £200 on him at 7.5 (13/2). I layed it off immediately and I noticed that there was quite a bit of action being taken on him at Befair and the price was being traded at 7.4, lower than you could back him at Betfred.
I knew that there were three more local shops that I could get to pretty quickly and I was confident that each of them would accept a £200 bet on Falcao as first goalscorer. But like I said before I was in a bit of a funny mood this day, so I queued enough to lay £600 at 7.2 and I went to visit my Mum. After I moped around there and sulked for a while I checked on my phone how my queue was doing and it had been matched, so I had no choice now but to drive out to the next three shops.
So the next three bets all went pretty smoothly and I was feeling good about the bet but I knew that it was a long shot so I wasn't jumping for joy just yet. I went home and got my calculator out and I backed a little bit more on Falcao to score at 7.4 in order to create a little underlay where I was risking £56 to win around £350 should he score first, with a lot more money to come should the long shot come in. So I had backed £1,000 in total, but hedged the bet so that in effect I was only ever going to lose a maximum of £56.
I went back to visit my Mum and have a brew. Later on my wife called me and tells me the car has broken down on her way back from her Mums. That Peugeot 307 gave us nothing but problems. It was an AA jobby and my mum drove me to meet her. Not knowing how long we'd have to wait for the AA man we popped in to a pub which was close by to where she had broken down.
The pub pretty busy. It wasn't a sports pub, it was one of those that focused on food. The match was on one television but it was on silent, and by the time I had got in there it was already 1-0 to Atletico Madrid. I had a little bit of hope going on inside me at this moment and shortly after getting in there I saw Atletico Madrid score their 2nd goal. "Please be Falcao, please be Falcao", I muttered to myself.
Of course I had no idea who it was that scored, as I had never heard of the bloke before, let alone know what he looked like. So I peered around the crowd of people, trying to get a good luck at the television screen and I noticed a number 9 on the back of the shirt. I still didn't know for sure but I was hopeful.
I wandered off to find my wife who was sitting behind a pillar at a table with our sleeping 12 month old daughter. "We might have just won.... *a lot* of money", I said to her. "Probably not though, but we might
", I wandered back to the TV screen with a skip in my step without waiting for a response as I often do when I get my head involved with these things. Poor woman having to put up with me. She's amazing though
Then I saw this at the bottom of the silent TV screen,
That was the information I was after. I move to a position so that I can see my wife, I catch her eye and then I start nodding my head like some sort of victorious super hero and then I went and spoiled it all by pumping my fist like those super sissy golfers do. I guess the emotion just got to much for this sissy.
I say, "that's like £6,500 we just won", and my wife starts joking about how we are going to spend it. For anybody who doesn't know me, I'm not frivolous, winnings like this get invested, not spent, and my wife knows it. Again, poor woman
The AA get in touch and announce they are outside. Can't remember what was wrong with the car, don't care. That car was a dick! It was getting dark and the AA man suggested we follow him in our car, in it's current state to get home, and he carried out his work outside our home. I go inside and switch on the TV.
Ooooo who had scored the third? Well I think you know where this story was heading. Yep, got it! Hatrick heaven. Winnings came to around £13,500.
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