Leicester City and 10 of the greatest winning odds of all-time

Leicester City shocked the footballing world when they won the 2015-16 Premier League title from out of nowhere.

It was arguably the greatest surprise since Atletico Madrid won the Spanish La Liga when competing against the defending Champions League holders (Barcelona) and the team who would go on to win it that season (Real Madrid). Diego Simeone’s side event spent less money in the transfer window than Leicester! However, the football odds were only around 14/1 for Atleti at the start of the season.

Whereas, the East Midlands club were backed by at least one lucky punter at a staggering price of 5,000/1 to win the Premier League title at the start of that season.

Betting exchange Betfair have put together the infographic below that shows some of the biggest winning odds in sporting history. Leicester rank at number two but are ousted by Frankie Dettori’s performance back in 1996.

The jockey won all seven races at Ascot that year with one punter taking a chance of him to do so at a staggering 25,000/1. According to the Mirror, Darren Yeats of Morecombe even placed £59 on the seven-fold, returning a life-changing £550,000!

And who can forget Rulon Gardner’s staggering upset at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney? The American had been given odds of 2000/1 to win the Gold medal in wrestling that year. He made it all the way to the final where he faced Alexander Karelin. The Russian had been clear favourite having never lost in an international competition, was on a 13-year winning streak and hadn’t even given up a single point in a decade! Gardner stunned him in a 1-0 victory to take Gold!

Speaking of Americans versus the Russians… back when the latter were part of the Soviet Union, they were heavily fancied to win the Gold medal in the 1980 winter Olympics men’s ice hockey. However, they were stunned during the final group, losing 4-3 to the Americans. The Americans were such underdogs because they consisted of university players who were beaten 3-10 by the Soviets pre-tournaments! Al Michaels’ famously said “Do you believe in miracles?” in commentary, leading to the event later being called the ‘Miracle on Ice’.

Betfair have put the 10 biggest odds in 10 different sports in the infographic below: