Ireland’s largest bookmaker Paddy Power who are also owners of Australia’s Sportsbet made a massive decision on the weekend to pay all bets at the halfway mark of the US PGA for Tiger Woods to win the tournament. Woods was 4 shots in the lead at the time.
It can be a good business move as it increases the likelihood of punters betting their early winnings on other big events like round 1 of the English Premier League that started on the weekend. It also gives Paddy Power alot of good publicity with word going all around the world including right here on this blog in Australia!
Paddy Power said “Tiger is a dead certanty he just doesn’t lose from the front.”
“It’s cost us an arm and a leg but the way we see it is that we’ll be paying it out on Sunday night anyway so his backers may as well get their cash now and enjoy the rest of the weekend on us!”
This all backfired for Paddy Power who didn’t take into account that Tiger Woods would actually fall in a heap on the last day. He gave up a massive 4 stroke lead to South Korea’s Y.E. Yang breaking Tigers 36 game winning streak when at least holding a share of the lead going into the final days play.
It cost Paddy Power AU$2.5 Million in payouts.
“It takes a special kind of dimwit to turn what should have been our best-ever golf result into our worst,” Paddy Power said. “Paddy Power punters are obviously the big winners here and have made like bandits getting paid out on Tiger as a winner.”
This result was definitely one for the little guy.
In Australia, Sportsbet have only just last week paid out early on Daniel Rich being the AFL NAB Rising Star this year which I wrote about last week. Who knows what could happen with this market.
It’s worth sticking with bookies like Sportsbet that do early payouts because one day like what happened on the weekend the early payout will actually lose. Sportsbet also give new punters a $50 free bet to get hang of their website just for making a new account. They also will double your first deposit up to $200. Checkout their site to make a new account.
