10 of the Biggest Ever Horse Racing Accumulator Wins
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Winning a big priced horse racing accumulator on the best 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.
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).
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 too 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!
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.
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!
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.
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 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 - $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.
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. Paul Dean - £250,000!
Paul Dean became a celebrity in the horse racing world in 2021 when he won £250,000 in a Cheltenham five-fold despite the last leg of his wager getting beaten!
The 40-year-old from Stockton, Teesside, was actually on course for a payout of £511,000 after the first four legs of his ante-post £5 horse racing accua with Betfair came in.
It was a sensational quartet of winners that included Bob Olinger at 25/1, Golden Horde at 12/1, Hello Youmzain at 10/1 and Shishkin at 4/1. However, Dean now had some thinking time because the final leg of his accumulator wasn't due to run until the following day.
The choice was simple, sticking to his guns and see the bet out to the death, risking everything in the process, or cashing out for a quarter of a million pounds.
As it transpired, the northerner made one of the shrewdest decisions in Cheltenham Festival punting history because he chose to take £250k cash out offer from Betfair.
Envoi Allen, the fifth and final leg of his wager, went on to let down his many backers by falling at the fourth fence, despite being sent off an odds-on poke to land the Marsh Novices’ Chase.
Dean played his hand to perfection and celebrated with a customary takeaway!
10. And finally...a £212,000 horse racing accumulator win that got away!
Dave Smith thought that he had landed the horse racing acca of a lifetime in 2019, but the gambling gods inflicted a twist that left the 60-year-old from Loughborough with a bitter taste in his mouth.
Smith, who placed the six-fold horse racing accumulator in his local Loughborough shop, made a mistake when writing out his slip and included Bailarico, who finished third, rather than Bialco, a winner.
The other five selections in the bet all won: Ardera Cross (40/1), Indian Temple (7/1), Shanroe (9/2), Pennsylvania Dutch (15/2) and Sir Busker (4/1) but, despite Smith having indicated the right race and odds of Bialco on his slip, Betfred refused to honour the £212,000 winning wager.
After Betfred security intervened, Smith was forced to make do with a £23,000 payout, some £189,000 shy of his expectations. One that got away….
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