Weekend Review: Bookies given break by shock international football results
France’s failure to beat Luxembourg provides biggest shock of the weekend in absence of Premier League and major horseracing meetings
The absence of the Premier League and no major meetings in the horseracing made it a quiet weekend for the bookies.
Instead, international football dominated proceedings for the punters as France’s 0-0 home draw with Luxembourg provided the biggest coupon buster.
According to Betfred, it was a tumbleweed weekend at their headquarters and spokesperson Matt Crosby said: “The unthinkable result for Luxembourg came as a huge surprise to most punters who had the likes of France, Holland, Sweden, Portugal, Switzerland and Belgium all to win.
“It turns out the shortest price of the lot was the one to let them down.”
Ladbrokes had to pay a total of £700 to one optimistic customer who had staked £7 on a 0-0 draw at 100/1.
“France were heavily backed in just about every market you can imagine so of course that was a huge result in our favour,” said Ladbrokes’ Alex Apati.
“A 0-0 draw is good in any game, but even better in a match where one side is 1/100 to win before a ball was kicked!”
There was an exception for Kindred Group where Ali Gill said: “France getting held 0-0 by minnows Luxembourg wasn’t actually our biggest winning event of the weekend.
“That honour went to Spain v Italy, where a one sided affair without both teams scoring left us with a very healthy margin.”
Elsewhere, the France result came to the rescue of BetVictor as punters enjoyed a winning weekend on the races at Worcester and Brighton, where there were nine winning favourites from 10 races.
“Fingers crossed the return of the Premier League and Irish Champions Weekend can help us turn it around this week,” said BetVictor’s Jack Milner.