Sporting Victories That Shocked the Bookies
PHOTO, CAPTION: These competitors beat the odds to climb the seemingly impossible mountain
When it comes to sport betting, the longer the odds, the more money you stand to win if your bet comes in. However, there’s a very sensible reason that the odds go up, and that’s because the predicted outcome is increasingly unlikely to actually happen. So, whilst it might be great fun chucking on some money at ludicrous odds, these kind of bets are much more guaranteed to end up not being successful.
Having said that, it doesn’t mean that once in a blue moon, there haven’t been some staggeringly long odds that have ended up coming true, resulting in some extremely ecstatic punters, and some truly devastated bookies.
Buster Douglas KO’s Iron Mike
This fight which took place in Tokyo, Japan, on 11th February 1990, was the biggest upset that the boxing world had seen, and shocked it to its core. Mike Tyson came into the fight at the peak of his powers, with his ability to combine both tenacious power with breakneck speed, obliterating his previous opponents, wowing fans and earning him a 37-0 win record. It was fair to say then, that everyone thought relative unknown James ‘Buster’ Douglas was showing up to be not much more than a pushover for ‘Iron’ Mike’s punching practice.
The bookies certainly did, pricing him at the insane odds of 42-1. Nevertheless, when the first bell rang Douglas came out swinging with authority, shocking Tyson and everyone watching. Then, in round ten, the unthinkable happened, and Douglas floored Tyson with a hard left, sending ‘Iron Mike’ down to the canvas for the first time ever in his career.
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The Miracle on Ice
The 1980 Winter Olympics took place in Lake Placid, New York, but the relationship back then between the USA and the Soviet Union was anything but placid. The two sides met in the men’s ice-hockey, and the Soviets were a four-time gold medal winning team, made up of primarily professional players. The USA, in contrast, were merely a collection of amateur players, and were actually the youngest team in US national history.
The match was a furious battle, and the never-say-die attitude of the US underdogs managed to overcome the steely professionalism of the Soviet Union in a 4-3 classic. The game quickly became known as ‘The Miracle on Ice’ and the USA went on to capture the gold, despite being 1000-1 outsiders going into the tournament.
The 2022 Winter Olympics are due to start on the 4th February in Beijing, China. The men’s ice-hockey will again be a big draw, but it will have to come up with some real greatness to beat the theatrics on show in 1980. You can find all the odds for the competition here at Nicer Odds.
Leicester Winning The League
The Premier League is known as being one of the toughest leagues in the world. It’s a marathon of twenty teams playing each other home and away, with each team playing thirty-eight times. As the league is so difficult to conquer, it’s seemingly always won by one of the clubs that have the most money to spend on players and wages.
In fact, since the Premier League was formed in 1992, it has astonishingly, only been won by seven different teams, with mega club Manchester United winning thirteen out of the twenty-eight seasons that have been played so far. However, one of the teams that makes up those seven teams is not like the others, and that team is Leicester City.
Rewind back to the late summer of 2015, and Leicester City began the new season having just managed to scrape enough points together to stave off relegation the year before. There’d been a managerial change, with the then newly appointed Claudio Ranieri now in the hot seat at the East Midlands club. Pundits and fans both expected yet another relegation scrap, and what did The Foxes go and do come May 2016? They only went and won the league, having been priced at the outrageously long 5000-1 odds before a ball had been kicked. If you want more detail into this crazy sport story, you can read all about it over on The Sportsman.