Weekend Review: FA Cup shocks provide welcome boost for bookies

The bookies were back in the black this weekend after the magic of the FA Cup helped end a tough run of punter-friendly results over the festive period.

William Hill, which this morning issued a profit warning following a string of “punter friendly” results, said the FA Cup provided them with some “welcome relief”.

“Despite the two big live matches involving Manchester United and Arsenal going against us, Saturday was pretty good overall with Stoke’s loss to Wolves the highlight for the bookies,” the bookmaker’s Rupert Adams said. “We also had help from Ipswich, West Brom and Newcastle not winning.”

Arguably the biggest “cupset” of the weekend came at Anfield after Liverpool was held at home to League Two outfit Plymouth Argyle, providing a big boost to Ladbrokes.

“The early draw knocked out plenty of accas and both fans and punters can only look to the team sheet for blame there,” said Ladbrokes’ Jessica Bridge.

Bet365 said it also had a “good weekend”, crediting its good fortune to Plymouth and Villarreal, which held Barcelona to a draw yesterday evening.

And BetVictor welcomed a “cracking” weekend of football results. “Whilst turnover was down on a normal Premier League weekend we were actually delighted with the numbers and only Arsenal’s late winner at Deepdale prevented us from keeping the lot on Saturday,” said BetVictor’s Charlie McCann.

“The results at Stoke, West Bromwich Albion and Everton knocked out the vast majority of the 3pm accas and draws for Liverpool and Barcelona on Sunday made sure it was a good winning weekend,” he added.

On the horseracing front, William Hill said its retail business made a 20% profit from Saturday’s ITV4 races, offsetting a loss of 4% from online.

“Garde La Victoire and Finian’s Oscar were the cause of the slight negative online,” said Adams. “However, for the weekend as a whole online was up 8%.”