Weekend Review: Bookies suffer FA Cup blues

Victories for a host of favourites in the football on Saturday and Chelsea’s 5-1 demolition of Manchester City in the FA Cup yesterday led to a weekend which went the way of the punters, bookmakers have said.

Both Watford and Everton saw off weaker opposition in their respective fifth round FA Cup ties on Saturday, while in the Championship promotion contenders Burnley and Derby also emerged as convincing winners.

And although the well-fancied Arsenal, Sheffield Wednesday and West Bromwich Albion let punters down, there were still enough favourites to see Sky Bet suffer significant football losses on Saturday.

“It was an interesting weekend on the football front that turned out to be profitable for punters on Saturday,” the Leeds-based operator’s head of PR, Sandro Di Michele, said.

“With popular favourites across Europe, including Inter Milan, Monaco and Benfica all winning, it was the Sky Bet punters who were left celebrating on Saturday night,” Di Michele added.

It was a similar story for Coral. “Saturday’s football results were really poor for bookies, despite the 0-0 draw between Arsenal and Hull City, as the majority of the most popular selections down the longlist of matches in multiples all won,” Coral’s head of PR, Simon Clare, said.

“The preponderance of small field races on Saturday, due in part to the heavy ground, also dulled turnover on horseracing. So all in all it was a below par Saturday in terms of stakes and results,” he added.

And it didn’t get any better for the bookies in yesterday’s high-profile football matches either as favourites Chelsea beat a much weakened Manchester City team. West Ham also won in convincing circumstances with a 5-1 victory.

“Chelsea were backed off the boards yesterday as punters got wind of City’s weakened team and West Ham and Everton were also excellent results for the punters,” Charlie McCann, BetVictor head of communications, said.

However, Crystal Palace’s 1-0 win over in-form Tottenham Hotspur and Real Madrid’s draw with Malaga helped save the bookies’ from further punishment.

Elsewhere, it was also a tough weekend for the layers in the rugby league with all three favourites comfortably winning in the World Club Challenge. An aggregate score of 118-28 in favour of the well-backed Australian sides led to some bookmakers recording their heaviest ever losses in the sport.

“The Australian whitewash in rugby league cost us over ?100,000 with St Helens, Wigan and then Leeds all losing heavily to Sydney, Brisbane and North Queensland respectively,” Peter Spencer, a public relations executive at Betfred, said.

“Most knowledgeable fans bet that the teams from Down Under would win their games by over 20 points which they all duly did,” he continued.

BetVictor also reported heavy losses due to Ronnie O’Sullivan’s victory in the Welsh Open. The ‘Rocket’ was 5-3 down to Neil Robertson at the interval but won every frame of the evening session to take the trophy and award the favourite backers.

“Ronnie O’Sullivan winning the BetVictor Welsh open was a shocking result but what a performance by the Rocket who blew away Neil Robertson in the final winning the last seven frames,” McCann said.