5 football bets with long odds that have a chance of winning

A Football Punter’s Dream Win

The one concept every football punter has recurring dreams about is placing an unlikely bet at major odds that has just the slightest glimmer of hope of coming in successfully, and it happens to pay-off big time. If one looks at history, having such fantasies is not entirely a pipedream either. Quite a few had the luck, knowledge, and foresight required to place long-odds bets with slim outside chances of coming in that eventually delivered a major win.

Strong streaks of astonishing good fortune made quite a few punters financially happy over the last few years. In 2015 two exceedingly lucky Leicester fanboys each placed a £5 and £50 bet at 5000 / 1 odds on the very remote outside possibility of Leicester becoming the EPL champs that year. At the conclusion of the season the two punters’ fervent belief in their favourite team saw them walking away with £5,600 and £75,000, respectively. In 2017 a £1.60 stake on a 17-fold acca resulted in a £1.6 million winning payout, later that same year a £1 stake on a 12-fold acca saw another punter also slap his bookie with a £575,000 winning payout.

Many similar against-the-odds wins also occur in other related gambling hobbies. For instance, aside from his reputation as a formidable businessperson Kerry Packer once won $40 million playing blackjack in Vegas. It remains the largest ever win for a single blackjack player, but a group of students surpassed that by a generous margin after its members walked away from Atlantic City casinos with somewhere from $50 to $100 million.

The recent popularity of blackjack gave rise to a huge rise in player numbers which resulted in numerous tournaments that offered significantly improved prize pools. Now is an excellent time for entering a tournament, or playing at an online casino to build and refine your skillset if you love blackjack.

This Season’s Underdogs as Potential Dream Winners

At this stage of the season there is a strong possibility Manchester City may take the team’s third crown in their past four campaigns. Positioning Pep Guardiola’s squad as firm favourites for capturing the EPL crown this year and leaves them out of the running for our purposes.

Last season Liverpool managed to capture their first top-tier title of the past 30 years. However, despite a good showing during the early part of the season, they have been unable to match the performance of their main rivals. After starting as season favourites, they flubbed over the winter scoring just two wins in nine games which means keeping the EPL crown in Merseyside has now become highly unlikely. Although according to former Chelsea star Tony Cascarino, signing Olivier Giroud may improve their chances a bit.

After imploding last season, Leicester aims to improve on their fifth place to perhaps bring home a second Premier League championship title. If the team can keep racking up the impressive results they have netted so far, they may just stand a chance to realise their title dreams again. Only the Red Devils have strung together more match wins than the Foxes this season. Looking at recent results including a vital comeback victory, the Foxes’ future looks promising.

Sir Alex Ferguson led Manchester United to victory in 2013 as the closing act to his final season as a player in the EPL. Disappointingly taking the Premier League crown has evaded the Red Devils ever since. However, there is the perception that Manchester United must win a trophy this season to mark progress under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

Outsider Chances

Chelsea’s exceedingly vigorous activity in the transfer market leaves them with numerous talented starting player options like Timo Werner, Kai Havertz, and Ben Chilwell. This together with the key management shuffle that brought about the arrival of Thomas Tuchel may have opened the door wide enough to leave them with an outside chance of winning the league.

After finishing in sixth place last season, popular opinion touted Tottenham as real contenders. However, a string of unexpected poor results over the winter saw the Spurs fall significantly in the season’s standings.

Outsider Tips

Naturally making long-odds selections in the EPL with the possibility they may come in is tough, but with Man City being in such a strong position as the undisputed favourites means everyone else has essentially become a dark horse. However, in our estimation, the following 5 have the best winning potential for you to pick a mix of singles to make the top-four, or to compile a reasonable acca covering the most likely variables.

Everton: If the Blues took Guardiola’s advice to up their aggression levels, keep it intense, focussed, and refuse to simply accept the odds stacked against them they could still, as they have done in the past, provide a huge upset.

Tottenham: Their recent weekend losses to Man City and Arsenal saw them take a significant drop in the standings, but the team has a history for pulling off the unexpected at the death of games.

West Ham: Having had a fairly dismal season so far N’Golo Kante may bring the much-needed breath of fresh air to the team that takes the performance of the Hammers to a new level. Everything else the team requires is already in place.

Liverpool: Despite receiving six consecutive defeats at home there is hope the Reds may yet return to form and offer Man City a real run for their money. They have the required talent, coaching staff, and management to still pull off a surprise finish.

Leicester: Currently flying high in the rankings leaves the Foxes as the strongest and most likely of our selection to make it through to the finals. Having previously taken the EPL title as 5000/1 outsiders it also means they are the most logical to include for rounding out a long-odds acca.