Bookies lose £1.25m in Tiger US PGA gamble
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Bungling bookie Paddy Power was left reeling last night after their £1.25m early payout on Tiger Woods to win the USPGA spectacularly backfired when the world number one was unable to see off the challenge of Korean player Y.E. Yang at Hazeltine National Golf Club.
Paddy Power, famous for their early payouts, took the unprecedented step of paying out over £1.25m to backers of Tiger Woods before the world number one teed off for round three of the USPGA on Saturday afternoon.
At that time of Tiger was four shots clear at the top of the leader board and was the bookies red-hot 1/5 favourite to win the final Major of the year. Unfortunately for Paddy Power,
Tiger failed to produce his trademark magic in the final two rounds resulting in the bookies record breaking seven-figure cock-up, the biggest ever mistake of its kind.
Paddy Power said “It takes a special kind of dimwit to turn what should have been our best ever golf result into our worst. Paddy Power punters are obviously the big winners here and have made like bandits getting paid out on Tiger as a winner. Our only saving grace is that Harrington didn’t do the business, thank God!”
Y.E. Yang was available at odds of 150/1 with Paddy Power at the start of the tournament and at 16/1 before the final round.
In the end Yang emerged a comfortable three-shot victor after birdieing the last hole. Just behind Tiger in joint third spot on -3 were England’s Lee Westwood and Northern Ireland’s fast-emerging Rory McIlroy whose first major surely can’t be to far away…
