KEY TAKEAWAYS
What was the famous 5,000-1 bet on Leicester City? Before the 2015-16 English Premier League season, British bookmakers offered odds of 5,000-1 against Leicester City winning the title. The club had avoided relegation the previous spring only after a late run of results. Leicester won the league on May 2, 2016, when Tottenham Hotspur drew 2-2 at Chelsea, and those who had staked small sums in August were due 5,000 times their stakes in profit.
There was no single bet. William Hill said it took 25 bets at that price, Ladbrokes took 47 before its price shortened, and Sky Bet said 75 people had backed Leicester at 5,000-1. This article traces the bets from the pre-season price to the payouts, explains the arithmetic, and records where sources disagree. It also shows the other side of the story: the bets were small, many fans cashed out for less, and long shots at similar prices in other sports lost.
Leicester Before the 2015-16 Season
Leicester City finished 14th in the Premier League in 2014-15, according to BBC Sport. The BBC reported that a run of seven wins in nine games had saved the club from relegation under manager Nigel Pearson. Pearson was sacked in the summer and Claudio Ranieri took charge in July 2015, a choice the BBC said some fans and pundits saw as uninspired.
Bookmakers priced the new season accordingly. The BBC reported that Leicester started the campaign as 5,000-1 outsiders for the title, and ESPN cited William Hill as the source of that price. William Hill also listed bets at the same 5,000-1 price on Elvis Presley being found alive and Barack Obama playing cricket for England, ESPN reported.
Fractional odds of 5,000-1 mean a winning bet returns 5,000 units of profit for each unit staked, plus the stake itself.
That 0.02 percent figure is what the price implied. It is a bookmaker’s quote, not a measurement of Leicester’s real chance. At that price even tiny stakes produce large sums: £2 earns £10,000, £5 earns £25,000 and £50 earns £250,000 in profit, before any early cash-out.
The Bets Themselves
Because the price was so long, the sums staked were small. De Montfort University reported at the time that Sky Bet said 75 people had backed Leicester at 5,000-1, with bets totaling £212.07. According to City A.M., William Hill took 25 bets at that price, 12 online and 13 in branches, with the largest at £20 and the smallest 5p, which returns £250. ESPN reported that Ladbrokes took 47 bets on Leicester until September, when its price shortened to 1,500-1.
Leigh Herbert, a carpenter, put £5 on Leicester on a whim after a few drinks on a camping holiday in Newquay, following Ranieri’s appointment, according to the BBC. At 5,000-1 that stake would earn £25,000 profit. A medical secretary near Leicester was given a £10 bet at the same price as a joke, CBS Sports reported, citing Sky Sports. She kept the ticket hidden in her office all season.
The Mirror reported that a 20-year-old fan placed £2 with Ladbrokes on August 8, 2015, splitting any winnings with her aunt, and that the bet would pay £10,000. Almost none of these bettors expected to win. De Montfort University described most of them as casual, bet-and-forget gestures by fans with a sense of humor. Herbert told BBC Sport, “Even if they tail off, it’s been worth that £5,” and said he was not a betting man apart from a pound or two on the Grand National.
The Odds Shorten and the Cash-Out Decisions
Leicester’s price collapsed as the season went on. The BBC listed it at the start of each month: 5,000-1 in August, 1,500-1 in September and October, 500-1 in November, 66-1 in December, 16-1 in January and 7-1 in February. Reuters reported that by March Ladbrokes rated the club at 5-4.
As the price fell, bookmakers began offering to buy out the bets for less than their full value. Each holder had to choose between a certain sum and a chance of the full payout. In February the BBC reported that Herbert had declined an offer of £3,200 for his £5 stake. In March, Reuters reported that an anonymous fan accepted £72,000 for a £50 stake, which would have been worth £250,000 if Leicester won. The offer would have risen to £91,000 had he waited out a match at Watford. The Guardian quoted him as saying, “It will mean so much if we win, so there’s no point in being greedy.”
On April 13, Sky Sports reported that Sky Bet’s biggest Leicester backer cashed out a £20 each-way bet for £108,703.41. Sky said it would have paid just over £133,000 on a title and £25,020 on a second- or third-place finish, and nothing if Leicester ended fourth. ESPN reported that Ladbrokes settled 24 of its 47 bets early and that 23 customers let theirs ride.
The Title and What the Bookmakers Paid
Leicester City were confirmed as champions on May 2, 2016, when Tottenham drew 2-2 at Chelsea, leaving them seven points clear with two games remaining, as the Associated Press reported. It was the club’s first top-flight title in 132 years.
William Hill said it lost £2.2 million on the market, on total payouts of £3 million, according to City A.M. William Hill called these the biggest odds it had ever paid on. Its previous longest payout, City A.M. reported, was at 2,500-1, on a bet placed in 1999 that an 18-month-old grandchild would play for Wales. City A.M. also reported that Ladbrokes had warned of a £3 million payout, and that UK bookmakers as a whole expected to pay out £15 million, £10 million of it in losses.
The companies drew conclusions about pricing. ESPN reported that William Hill said it would no longer offer title odds longer than 1,000-1, and that Ladbrokes would never again offer 5,000-1 on a soccer team to win a title. ESPN also reported that Ladbrokes called it the longest odds on a single event ever to pay off, though longer odds had been paid on cumulative bets. In 1996, for example, a bettor won on jockey Frankie Dettori riding the winners of all seven races at Ascot. And according to the Guardian’s Greg Wood, bookmakers’ biggest liabilities came from bets at around 100-1 to 500-1, not from the 5,000-1 tickets.
Differing Figures and the Other Side of the Story
The reported figures do not always agree. Herbert’s payout is given as £25,000 in 2016 and £20,000 in 2019: the BBC wrote in February 2016 that he stood to earn £25,000, and in 2019 that his bet netted £20,000 after he cashed out part of it. Estimates of the industry’s bill also vary. City A.M. gave £15 million in payouts, the Guardian’s Barry Glendenning cited industry reports of up to £20 million, and ESPN reported that three large bookmakers would lose a combined £7.7 million.
The story also has a more sobering side. These were tiny stakes, and other long shots at the same price lost. ESPN gave examples at 5,000-1: Cal State Bakersfield lost in the first round of the 2016 NCAA tournament, 16-year-old Paul Chaplet finished last at the 2016 Masters, and the Minnesota Timberwolves, 5,000-1 in January, missed the playoffs by 14 games.
No source reviewed here presents the Leicester bets as a method that anyone could repeat. Bookmakers, in fact, were more exposed to bets placed at much shorter prices than to the 5,000-1 tickets.
Leicester’s 5,000-1 Bets: Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| July 2015 | Claudio Ranieri takes charge of Leicester City (BBC). |
| August 2015 | Leicester priced at 5,000-1 to win the title; 5,000-1 bets are placed (BBC). |
| September 2015 | Price shortens to 1,500-1 (BBC). |
| November 2015 | Price at 500-1 at the start of the month (BBC). |
| February 2016 | Price at 7-1; one bettor declines a £3,200 cash-out (BBC). |
| March 7, 2016 | An anonymous bettor takes £72,000 for a £50 stake (Reuters). |
| April 13, 2016 | Sky Bet customer cashes out £20 each-way bet for £108,703.41 (Sky Sports). |
| May 2, 2016 | Leicester are confirmed champions after Tottenham draw at Chelsea (BBC, AP). |
| May 3, 2016 | William Hill reports a £2.2 million loss on the market (City A.M.). |
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Frequently Asked Questions
Sources & References
- Frank Keogh, BBC Sport — Leicester City: Fan hopes to win £25,000 after 5,000-1 bet (February 8, 2016)
- BBC Sport — Leicester City win Premier League title after Tottenham draw at Chelsea (May 2, 2016)
- Frank Keogh, BBC Sport — Fan who won 5,000-1 title bet backs Foxes again (November 3, 2019)
- Rob Harris, Associated Press — Leicester wins English title for 1st time in its 132 years (May 2, 2016)
- Reuters — Leicester fan accepts 72,000 pounds offer on 5,000-1 bet (March 7, 2016)
- Barry Glendenning, The Guardian — Mugs end up looking clever as long as Leicester City win Premier League (May 1, 2016)
- Greg Wood, The Guardian — The 5,000-1 payouts on Leicester only tell part of Premier League betting story (May 3, 2016)
- Darren Rovell, ESPN — Leicester City championship costs big England sportsbooks $11.4 million (May 3, 2016)
- Paul Carr, ESPN — How Leicester City’s 5,000-1 odds compare to other long shots (May 2, 2016)
- Francesca Washtell, City A.M. — How much Leicester City’s Premier League win cost bookmaker William Hill (May 3, 2016)
- Tim Clement, Sky Sports — Sky Bet punter takes £108k from 5,000/1 bet on Leicester (April 13, 2016)
- Roger Gonzalez, CBS Sports — A woman won a 5000-to-1 bet on Leicester City made for her as a joke (May 5, 2016)
- De Montfort University — The lucky longshots: famous bets which show the Foxes’ 5000-1 dream could come true (2016)
- Aaron Flanagan, The Mirror — Leicester fan who stands to win £10,000 reveals how she’ll spend the cash (May 2, 2016)
