It is not often somebody can turn €5 into nearly half a million euro but it is going to be a very happy New Year for one lucky Galway punter who has managed to do just that.
The man who wishes to remain anonoymus scooped a whopping €421,000 following a winning 20-team soccer accumulator which was laid down in a local Paddy Power shop on Monday December 22. The man backed 19 of the teams in a straight win or draw, his selections including some of the bigger teams like Chelsea, Man United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham. The soccer fan also placed bets on some lesser known names such as Mk Dons, Leyton Orient, Preston, Burton Albion and Grimsby. The customer opted for Man City -1 in the handicap market for the current Premier League champions' game against West Brom, getting longer odds of 7/5 rather than the 1/2 on offer for City simply to win.
The last of the 20 selections was victorious on St Stephen’s Day. This massive win has been Paddy Power’s biggest payment in a shop this year, so the lucky man is being titled the ‘top retail punter of 2014.’
Paddy Power spokesman Feilim MacAnIomaire said he was delighted for the fortunate gambler. “It’s taken until the end of year but I think we’ve found our punter of 2014! It’s not often that we see a 20-team accumulator come in and we can only congratulate the Tribesman who has speared us.”
Mr MacAnIomaire revealed that the winner is a regular punter but he outlined he could not reveal the exact shop where the bet was placed, to protect the customer’s identity. He says it was an extremly ambitious bet. “It is nearly unheard of for a bet of this magnitude to click. To put it in perspective, it is difficult to get a five team accumulator to win, and a 10 team accum is virtually impossible, so hats off to this guy, it is absolutely amazing.’’
An interesting statistic shows what could be purchased with the money, if one was so inclined; the newly flush Galway man could buy 97,906 pints of Guinness, 11 brand new Golf GTIs or… 106,582 packs of cheese and onion crisps.
