How the biggest winners played the game

From Macedonian football to PGA golf, the money flowed.


A look at recent big winners on Betway’s site provides fascinating insight into how successful sportsbook players construct their wagers.

Unsurprisingly, most big wins come from multiples or accumulator bets – or multibets. The more legs you add to a multibet, the more the odds climb – as does the risk, sadly.

Football, the world’s most-watched sport, is also the most popular for betting.

This past weekend, the biggest winning payout was R154,179.61 on a six-leg multibet at odds of 41.55 – from a stake of R3,342.50.

The winner is clearly a major football nerd. His or her six legs covered games in Egypt, Macedonia, Slovenia and France. And each leg was a prediction of which half goals would be scored in – or that none would be scored in a particular half.

It’s safe to say that wager was informed by absurdly arcane knowledge and/or serious data-based analysis! A punt of three grand is unlikely to be based on pure whimsy.

Straightforward bets

If that story intimidates “normal people” wanting a fun flutter, it’s worth noting some of the weekend’s other nice wins were from quite straightforward bets.

Golfer Tommy Fleetwood’s victory in the Tour Championship and FedEx Cup final returned R12,200 to one punter who took a straight R1,000 win bet on the Englishman at 12.20 (note: when The Citizen’s betting preview on the tournament was published – with Fleetwood one of three players tipped – his odds were 13.80).

Fleetwood coupled with the Legion XIII squad of Jon Rahm to win the LIV Golf Team Championship paid R14,887.62 to a player who staked R300 at 48.18.

Those two outcomes weren’t hard to predict!

The second biggest payout on Betway was for a 12-leg bet covering win/draw/loss results in top-league football in China, England, France, Holland, Portugal, Turkey and Spain: R74,062.04 for R3,000 at odds of
22.10.

Not a piece of cake but quite possible if you follow your footie.

These Betway odds correct at time of publishing and subject to change.

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