The search continues for the Unaware Millionaire, a Ladbrokes punter from Dublin who appears not to know that they are due £1.3m. He (or possibly she, but probably not, since female gamblers remain in the minority) staked just £6 into the enormous pool for the Scoop6 bet on Saturday and ended up with one of the eight winning tickets.
But the critical detail that converted this particular ticket from loser to winner is that one of the selections became a non-runner. Under Scoop6 rules, such selections are then switched to the favourite, whichever horse that happens to be; as it turned out, the favourite in question came good.
Not every punter understands that the bet works this way and even those who do are not always careful about checking whether or not their horses actually took part in a race.
The suspicion is that this punter may have scanned the results, realised they had five winners but nothing in the frame in the sixth race, cursed and thrown the ticket away.
One of the other Scoop6 winners was in an identical position.
A 58-year-old credit controller from Dundee, who staked £2 in a Paddy Power shop on the King’s Road in London, said he was on the point of crumpling up his ticket when he decided to check the day’s list of non-runners. “I was absolutely delirious,” he was quoted as saying in a press release from the bookmaker, having requested anonymity.
“When March wasn’t in the frame, I thought, oh well, that’s that. I don’t know why but, just before I binned the ticket, I thought I’d check the non-runners just in case. I’m glad I did.”
A third betting shop punter, a customer of Betfred, was among the Scoop6 winners, having also staked the minimum £2 according to the bookmaker. The remaining five successful tickets were held by three syndicates and two high-rolling users of Betfair.
All eight winners are eligible for a shot at the Scoop6 bonus pool, containing more than £5m. To win it, or a share of it, they must pick the winner of next Saturday’s most difficult race.
The win fund, having been scooped, will start again on Saturday, which would normally mean something like £250,000 in the pool. However, a Tote spokesman said there was hope that it could be double that on this occasion, following the excellent publicity generated by 12 weeks of rollovers and so many new millionaires, as well as a new record for the highest sum won by a single betting shop wager. The previous record was £1.1m in 2004, also set by a Scoop6 winner.
source : www.theguardian.com
