Twilight horse racing fixtures are extremely popular sports and social events and none more so than the National Hunt meeting staged at Punchestown on Friday, April 29, 2017. At least, not in the eyes of an unnamed Leicester man, who staked just £19, in the form of five £3 four-folds and a £4 five-fold, on five selections at the Co. Kildare track. All five selections won – in three out of five cases at odds significantly longer than starting price – and the anonymous Leicesterian collected the princely sum of £822,972.75 from Coral Bookmakers.
Having embarked on an evening out, the unwitting punter did not discover his good fortune until the early hours of Saturday morning. Nonetheless, the fact that he did not watch his selections run may have done his nervous system some good; his penultimate selection, Bacardys (10/1), only scraped home by a short head, while his final selection, Canardier (33/1), was strongly pressed in the closing stages before winning by three-quarters of a length.
Some of the winning margins may have been small, but the payout was the highest Coral had paid out on horse racing since the business was established by Joe Coral in 1926. Reflecting on what he described as the ‘realisation of a lifetime dream’, the lifelong gambler said, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do with the money, as it’s only just sinking in, but I have a few ideas and it is going to change my life.’
Simon Clare, Consumer Public Relations Director for Coral Bookmakers, was also in celebratory mood. He said, ‘This is the most incredible big-win story that we have ever encountered and a just-reward for our customer for twenty years of perseverance placing these ‘small-stake big-win’ bets day-in day-out.’
Despite his epithet, ‘Vegas Dave’, David Oancea was born in the college town of Saline, Southeast Michigan on December 10, 1976 and raised in nearby Ann Arbor. At the age of 21, Oancea moved to Hawaii, where he developed a taste for sports betting. Legend has it that he subsequently moved to Las Vegas on the pretence of attending the University of Nevada but, having secured a student loan for $10,000, placed all his money on a single winning spin of roulette.
Thereafter, Oancea abandoned his studies altogether and embarked on a path that would make him the self-proclaimed ‘best sports information consultant in the world’. He first rose to fame, or infamy, in 2015, when he backed Kansas City Royals – who were available at odds of 22/1 at the start of spring training – to win the World Series. They did so, beating New York Mets 4-1 in the best-of-seven postseason play-off to record their first victory since 1985 and netting Oancea $2.5 million.
Lo and behold, Oancea did it again the following February, collecting $2.3 million when Denver Broncos defeated odds-on favourites Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl 50. However, on that occasion, his winnings were withheld, at least in part, because he was under investigation, for identity fraud, by the federal government. Oancea was subsequently indicted on numerous counts and only escaped conviction as the result of a plea bargain. In any event, he pled guilty of a misdemeanour, surrendered half a million dollars and was bannned from sports betting in Las Vegas for three years. He remains one of the most controversial figures in the field, with a distinctly dubious reputation.
Horse racing on a Sunday has been a fact of life in Britain since 1992, but Sunday, September 16, 2018 was still a red-letter day for one anonymous Scottish punter. The unnamed father-of-five, who was celebrating his birthday, cast his net far and wide, staking just £5.35 – in the form of four-folds, six-folds, seven-folds and an eight-fold, at a thrifty £0.05 apiece – on eight selections at Bath, Ffos Las and the Curragh throughout the afternoon and early evening. He placed his bet, at starting price, at his local William Hill betting shop in Leith, Edinburgh.
Of course, the nature of his bet meant that at least 50% of his selections must win to guarantee a return, but his confidence was not misplaced. The bulk of his selections were at Ffos Las, where Time Stands Still (8/1) got the ball rolling with a comprehensive, 3-length victory in the 7½-furlong handicap, despite 3lb overweight. The temperamental filly was subsequently followed into the winners’ enclosure at the West Wales track by Syndicate (11/1), Alra Vita (9/4), Homing Star (10/1) and Ascot Day (14/1); the latter, which was his final selection of the day, barely gave him an anxious moment, staying on well under Martin Harley to win by 3 lengths.
In between times, the fortunate Scot also latched on to Havana Grey (15/8) and Barbill (6/1) at the Curragh, plus My Boy Sepoy (5/2) at Bath, for a total return of £682,282.14. The eight-fold bet, alone, netted £203,969.39 and the total return represented a mind-boggling Return on Investment (ROI) of 12,752,837%. Rupert Adams, International PR Manager at William Hill, said, ‘We believe it is the biggest accumulator payout in Scotland.’ In Britain, as whole, the permed accumulator ranked third and was the biggest since Frankie Dettori went through the card at Ascot in September, 1996.
