Weekend Review: Sunday punters strike back on weekend of two halves
Sour Sunday for bookies having revelled in Manchester United’s defeat to Huddersfield
It was a weekend of two halves for the bookies as Manchester United’s shock defeat to Huddersfield in the Premier League saw them laughing all the way to the bank on Saturday before punters bounced back on Sunday.
Kindred’s Ali Gill said: “Jose Mourinho did us all a favour as his obviously well backed team came up short against Huddersfield, with plenty of singles and accumulators that went bust because of the result.”
It was a similar story for Betway, where Alan Alger described Manchester United as the cornerstone of accas, with many punters also lumping on the Red Devils in-play to come back and win from behind.
William Hill’s Rupert Adams was left mopping his brow following the United result: “We had a fantastic Saturday with a significant profit in all channels, mainly thanks to Man Utd’s defeat at Huddersfield.
“With most of the other popular selections all winning such as Man City, Chelsea, Wolves, Sheffield Utd and Newcastle, the Huddersfield win saved the company a large seven-figure sum across all channels.”
But the punters took their revenge on Sunday, as North London teams Arsenal and Tottenham were well backed to win their televised fixtures against Everton and Liverpool.
“Sunday saw heavy losses online, as all the top English, Italian and Spanish teams all won including both North London teams in the live matches. PSG’s failure to win at Marseille saved us another seven-figure in online pay-outs in the late French TV game,” said Adams.
Betfred customers fancied Liverpool to get a result against Spurs, but Matt Crosby said: “Liverpool were well backed, but despite the Reds losing 4-1, any winnings were countered by Betfred’s double delight offer, where odds on a winning first goalscorer bet are doubled if the player scores again. Harry Kane duly obliged.”
There were mixed results in the weekend’s horseracing. Betway said Ascot provided just the right amount of big-priced winners on a competitive card to secure a decent profit, despite Order of St George and Cracksman being well supported.
Kindred’s Gill said: “At Ascot we got off to an expensive start as Order of St George did as expected against a tough field and later in the day it got worse as the heavily backed Cracksman hosed up, but in between Kindred saw some light with a number of beaten favourites, notably Persuasive beating both Ribchester and Churchill, much to the dismay of our players, but overall racing very much went the punters way.”