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Winning a big priced horse racing accumulator with betting sites is something most of us can only dream of as many have tried and many have failed.
The amount of variables and permutations in horse racing make it hard enough to pick one winner never mind get multiple winners all in the same bet.
A few lucky punters have bucked the trend and struck gold as we take a look at the 10 biggest ever horse racing accumulator wins.
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1. Steve Whitely – £1.45 million
There is only one place to start when it comes to the biggest ever accumulator wins on horse racing betting sites, and that is on the south coast of England.
No single individual has won more from a £2 wager than Steve Whitely, who scooped a whopping £1.45m in March 2011.
Whitely, a heating engineer from North Tawton in Devon, struck gold during a day out at one of his local tracks, Exeter, where he placed a £2 placepot bet on The Tote.
Whitely decided on that remarkable day that the following selections were his best chance of hitting the big time: Semi Colon (2/1), Black Phantom (12/1), Ammunition (16/1), Mr Bennett (16/1), Lundy Sky (5/1) and Lupita (12/1).
Established 2000
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By the end of that most memorable of afternoons, Whitely was a cool £1,450,671.71 richer thanks to a combination of astute selection and a drop or two of good fortune.
However, Tote dividends aren’t always as good as the fixed odds equivalent and this is a stark example because if Whitely had instead placed a £2 accumulator bet on those horses at industry SP, then he would have picked up £1,758,276.00 – over £300k more!
2. Fred Craggs – £1 million
Fred Craggs became the first high street millionaire on the eve of his 60th birthday when a quite remarkable eightfold came good in 2008.
The humble fertilizer salesman from North Yorkshire placed a 50p accumulator that featured selections over the jumps, on the all-weather, and even as far afield as Nad El Sheba, at extraordinary odds of 2,000,000/1, in his local William Hill betting shop in the market town of Thirsk.
Amazingly, Craggs had no idea that all of his selections had won until he visited another betting shop, near his home in Bedale, the following day. It was at that point the Yorkshireman was told that his betting slip had made him a millionaire.
William Hill spokesman Graham Sharpe later declared: “This is the most amazing bet ever placed since betting shops were made legal in 1961”.
Oh, and the icing on the cake? The first of Craggs’ eight selections was a horse called ‘Isn’t That Lucky’ while the final leg of his monster win was named ‘A Dream Come True’ – you couldn’t make it up!
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3. Conor Murphy – £1 million
National Hunt trainer Nicky Henderson went into the 2012 Cheltenham Festival having assembled his strongest ever squad for the sport’s biggest meeting and that fact hadn’t escaped Henderson’s stable lad Conor Murphy.
In November 2011, four months before the Cheltenham jamboree, Murphy decided to place a £50 accumulator with bet365 on five horses trained by his boss.
Murphy backed Sprinter Sacre to win the Arkle Chase (6/1), Simonsig to win the Neptune Novices’ Hurdle (12/1), Bobs Worth to win the RSA Chase (6/1), Finian’s Rainbow to win the Queen Mother Champion Chase (8/1), and Riverside Theatre to win the Ryanair Chase (10/1).
The rest, as they say, is history. Murphy’s wager triggered bet365’s maximum payout ruling and a cheque for a cool £1million was winging its way to the Irishman. That maximum payout rule saved the betting giant around £2million!
The 31-year-old might have just landed a life-changing win, but Murphy was back in work and riding out at 5.30am the very next morning. However, a long-held ambition to be a trainer in his own right led to him taking the decision to move to Kentucky, USA.
Cheltenham Festival Losers That Can Make Amends at Aintree
4. Anonymous Punter – £986,807
Paddy Power took a major hit in 2013 when one shrewd horse racing acca punter landed a colossal £986,807 from just a £10 wager.
The six-fold acca was split evenly between races from Naas and Galway, all of which ran in a 90-minute period.
The end result was that Paddy Power were forced into their biggest single horse racing payout of the decade because of one of the savviest punts ever on Irish racing!
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5. Anonymous Punter – £823,000
Coral bookmakers’ record horse racing payout came on the Friday of the 2017 Punchestown Festival, known to many as Punchestown Champion Hurdle day.
One shrewd Leicester-based racing punter, who subsequently decided that anonymity was the best course of action, placed six-horse racing accumulator bets, consisting of five £3 fourfolds and a £4 fivefold acca, at odds of 181,015/1. The total cost was just £19.
The anonymous punter, who had reportedly been placing that kind of bet for 20 years, put his faith in Das Mooser (10/1), Woodland Opera (9/2), Definite Ruby (7/1), Bacardys (10/1) and Canardier, who got up close home at 33/1 to complete the stunning five-timer.
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However, the anonymous punter only realised that he had netted a staggering £822,972.75 when he checked the results in the early hours of the following morning, after returning home from a night on the town!
“I’ve been placing these accumulator bets pretty much every day for 20 years, and winning this bet is the realisation of a lifetime dream.”
“Over the years I’ve come close landing a big return a couple of times but kept hitting the woodwork, and now I’ve done it I feel remarkably calm. I don’t know if I’ll even carry on betting after this as I feel I’ve achieved my goal”, said the lucky punter!
6. Anonymous Punter – £682,282.14
Scottish record-books needed rewriting in September of 2018 when an unnamed racing enthusiast smashed the record for the biggest horse racing accumulator win ever recorded by a punter north of the border, and it came on his birthday!
The married father of five speculated a fiver on the day’s racing at his local William Hill shop, perming eight selections into 70 x 5p four-folds, 28 x 5p six-folds, 8 x 5p seven-folds and 1 x 5p eight-fold.
The birthday boy spread his selections across three nations, with five picks at Ffos Las in Wales, two from the Curragh over in Ireland and one from Bath in England, whilst looking on from Scotland.
The lucky punter needed half of his eight selections to come home in front in order to generate a return but it turned into the day of all days as Time Stands Still (8/1), Havana Grey (15/8), Syndicate (11/1), Alra Vita (9/4), Homing Star (10/1), Barbill (6/1), My Boy Sepoy (5/2) and Ascot Day (14/1) did the business, pocketing the fortunate Scot a princely sum of £682,282.14!
Birthday presents don’t come much better than that!
7. Darren Yates – £550,000
For many, September 28, 1996 is the most famous day in British horse racing history.
It is the day that Frankie Dettori catapulted himself to stardom by riding all seven winners on Queen Elizabeth II Stakes day at Royal Ascot, a feat that put huge holes in pockets of UK bookmakers.
Darren Yates was a huge fan of the Italian jockey so decided to stake £67.58 worth of accumulators on all seven of Dettori’s mounts, at astronomical odds of 25,000/1.
Yates, who had previously promised his wife he would not back Dettori any more, watched his selections win whilst sat in the pub and, when Fujiyama Crest held off all comers in the finale, Yates worked out that he was a cool £550,823 better off than at the start of that remarkable day.
However, even that jaw-dropping payout would not have been enough to cover the £620,000 that Yates went on to pay for Point to Point winner Interconnected in May 2019.
At the time, that six-figure fee was a record for the most expensive jumps horse ever bought at a public auction.
8. Anonymous Punter – $471,000
The Pick Five wager is one of the most popular bets in the USA because it enables punters to win big from very small stakes.
That’s exactly what happened to one lucky New Jersey gambler in the summer of 2015 when a 50 cents-voucher came up trumps.
The unnamed punter placed a Pick Five bet online that included Realm (11/1), English Minister (3/1), Site Read (21/1), Hey Bro (24/1) and Saratoga Mischief (6/1). Remarkably, these selections went on to win the first five races on the Saratoga card, netting the punter a cool $471,124.50, according to the New York Racing Association.
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The horse racing accumulator bettor was the only person who won the Pick Five that day, meaning the entire pool was his.
However, while the winning ticket cost just 50 cents, the gambler actually bet a total of $675 on other combinations in those races.
9. Anonymous Punter – £307,464.02
Royal Ascot is always a meeting which attracts a huge amount of betting interest and the 2022 meeting saw a William Hill customer strike it rich with their accumulator bet.
This day four multiple bet saw this punter secure a life-changing amount of money and it was achieved with a relatively small stake.
The customer in question decided to remain anonymous and placed a £2.50 each-way accumulator that included all seven winners on the Friday card in 2022.
The actual odds for the bet amounted to 122,889/1, with Inspiral among the horses that managed to help secure a monster return.
It’s fairly customary for punters to place accas on the full racecard at Ascot, although few bets are still alive when it comes to the final race, with this customer needing Latin Lover to triumph in the Palace of Holyroodhouse Stakes in order to secure the jackpot win.
A William Hill spokesperson commented at the time: “Many of our customers try going through the card at the bigger meetings like Royal Ascot or Cheltenham but few manage it.
“However, one pulled off the incredible feat of successful choosing all seven winners on the penultimate day of the royal meeting at a frankly ridiculous price of 122,889-1.
“The £2.50 each-way bet on Meditate, Perfect Power, Candleford, Inspiral, Heredia, Changingoftheguard and Latin Lover won them £307,464.02.”
Established 2001
Established 2020
Established 2000
10. Anonymous Punter – £331,452.80
Although this was a winning treble rather than an accumulator, it was still a life-changing multiple for the customer who placed a £35 bet on three selections to win at Fairyhouse.
The punter in question placed this horse racing bet with Coral and benefitted enormously from their Best Odds Guaranteed concession, with horses Don Chalant, Ardera Ru and Mousey Brown delivering the goods on March 30, 2024.
Don Chalant was the first winning leg of the bet in the 2.10 on that day, with Coral boosting the horse’s odds from 7/1 to 9/1.
However, the second and third legs came in at amazing odds of 33/1 and 50/1, with this ensuring that the winning acca delivered a life-changing return in the process.
The customer took an early price of 50/1 for Mousey Brown before the horse went off at a starting price of 33/1, although it looked as though the race in question was going to be won by the Willie Mullins-trained Olympic Man before the rank outsider was able to find plenty at the finish.
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