Weekend Review: Football results gift-wrapped for bookies
Layers' good run continues as lack of winning footy favourites more than makes up for Six Nations pain
Sportsbooks were left rejoicing once again this weekend after a number of odds-on football favourites failed to land for jolly-backing punters.
Bookies have enjoyed a kind run of football results over the past six months and, following the defeat of Arsenal and draws for the two Manchester clubs at the weekend, Ladbrokes described this season as “the gift that keeps on giving”.
Manchester City were roughly 4/7 to see off relegation-threatened Norwich City at Carrow Road in the televised Saturday lunchtime game but could only muster a nil-nil draw, a near perfect outcome for the books.
Sky Bet said the stalemate kicked off a weekend “full of bookmaker friendly results” with Watford’s toppling of 2/5 shots Arsenal on Sunday perhaps the biggest upset of the weekend’s fixtures.
Manchester United’s one-all draw with West Ham on Sunday was also good for the majority of operators, although Sky Bet reported more than 500 bets placed on a winning 275/1 request a bet special, which cost it a “significant sum”.
The firm also said Dimitri Payet’s 30-yard free-kick saw it pay out more than ?200,000 to punters who had latched on to its price boost (10/1 to 12/1) on the Frenchman to score from outside of the area.
Betfred also got caught out on some of the smaller sub-markets at the weekend, with Romelu Lukaku’s late double for Everton against Chelsea costing the firm more than ?250,000.
“But with Arsenal surprisingly losing at home to Watford and West Ham drawing their quarter-final tie against Manchester United at Old Trafford, we just about broke even,” a Betfred spokesman said.
However, most operators were comfortably in the black. BetVictor described it as a “great weekend” for the layers, with a particular mentions for the Arsenal and Manchester City results.
But while football results continue to be kind, punters did fare better during the course of the weekend’s Six Nations games, which saw England, Ireland and Scotland triumph.
France went off narrow favourites against Scotland but William Hill said it had seen a rush of money for the Scots to prevail in the days leading up to the game.
A comfortable win for Ireland and England’s victory over Wales were also costly, although the late Welsh comeback narrowed the margin to just four points, which wasn’t enough to cover the pre-match England -5 handicap.
“England hit our rugby traders hard by landing the match on the way to the Six Nations and they will desperately be praying that France can conjure a minor miracle to prevent the Grand Slam,” Ladbrokes said.
“Wales’ late rally helped offset the handicap liability which looked banked with minutes to go, and in-play turnover on the game was good, which is an area we want to grow in the sport,” the bookie added.
Ladbrokes also reported strong in-play trading for the final of the Ladbrokes-sponsored World Grand Prix snooker championship, which ultimately saw Shaun Murphy edge out Stuart Bingham in a final frame shoot-out (10-9).