3 Famous Sports Betting Winners
Sports betting has seen a massive rise in popularity over the last few decades, and one of the reasons for this is the growth and expansion of the internet. When once sports betting was delegated to a dark alley, and handled by a sketchy bookie, it is now an easy and legal endeavour that can be done through a plethora of legitimate bookmakers from around the world.
Much like casino games, and any online casino no deposit wager, sports betting holds the potential to make anyone rich. All it takes is the right bet, a little bit of luck, and you could walk away with enough to never work again.
The fact is, however, that winning a bet of any substantial amount is difficult and rare, and of the millions of punters around the world that take out bets every year, only a handful every win, and even among them, its usually an unsubstantial amount.
This isn’t always the case, and over the years, there have been bettors that have won incredible amounts of money. These are not professional sports bettors, but instead every day men and women that just happened to make the right bet at the right time, making them not only rich, but legendary among sports betting circles.
3. Richard Hopkins
This English man won a staggering 165000 Pounds one day after betting that famous F1 driver Lewis Hamilton would win both the Formula 1 Grand Prix as well as a World Championship.
It was a bold wager, but what truly made it remarkable was that he made the bet when Hamilton was only 13 years old, long before he had even begun to establish himself as a professional driver.
Hopkins had noticed Hamilton’s talent when he would race go-karts with his son, and took out a total bet of 350 Pounds against odds of 1500, which turned out in his favour years later.
2. Nick Newlife
Roger Federer won Wimbledon in 2003, and a man by the name of Nick Newlife wasn’t happy that he hadn’t take out a bet on Federer at the time. To make up for this, Newlife decided to instead take out a 1520 Pound bet that Federer would win six more titles by the time 2019 came around, with odds of 66 to one.
It was a smart move, and Newlife’s bet ended up winning over 100000 Pounds, which was donated to Oxfam shortly after Newlife passed away some years later.
1. Mick Gibbs
In every day life, Gibbs was a professional roofer, meaning that he would construct and repair roofs around his hometown of Staffordshire. He was good at this job, but many didn’t realise that his skill with a roof was shared for a skill with sports betting.
Gibbs was particularly lucky when it came to accumulator bets, in which he won his first accumulator in 1999 of 157000 Pounds after a small 2.50 Pound bet.
His biggest win would come later in 2001, after Gibbs made a 30 pence bet on 15 football games, with odds of 1666666 to one. He would come out the other side of this bet half a million Pounds wealthier.