Weekend Review: Silvestre de Sousa’s stunning quadruple dents bookies’ margin
The Brazilian’s four-timer at Pontefract sees Betfred and bet365 suffer as Kindred takes a hit in pre-season football
Silvestre de Sousa and trainer Mick Appleby dominated Pontefract races on Sunday to leave bookmakers cursing the Brazilian jockey.
De Souza won all four of his races on Michele Strogoff, Big Country, Future Score and Classic Pursuit at combined odds of 654/1, with Betfred sustaining a £2.5m loss according to Racing Post.
A Betfred spokesman said: “De Sousa is undoubtedly the punters’ favourite and he obliged big time.
“Congratulations to thousands of our customers who went nuts after the Brazilian had a perfect day.
“Our high street customers have had an absolute field day combining the four rides of the most popular of jockeys.”
It was a familiar story for bet365 where Steve Freeth told EGR: “We did a bucket load on the Silvestre de Sousa four-timer.”
✅ Michele Strogoff
✅ Big Country
✅ Future Score
✅ Classic PursuitBetfred are reeling from a £2.5million loss after Silvestre de Sousa won on all four of his mounts at Pontefract today with combined odds of 654/1 ?
Our customers have had an absolute field day! ??? pic.twitter.com/7hMCFbRR7p
— Betfred (@Betfred) July 29, 2018
Bet365 also had to pay out on the golf where Dustin Johnson won the Canadian Open by three shots and England’s Richard McEvoy earned his maiden European Tour title.
“Dustin Johnson was well backed from 7/1 into 11/2 and obliged in the Canadian Open, while Richard McEvoy was a skinner in the European Open,” Freeth said.
In the F1, Freeth added: “Lewis Hamilton was 4/1 earlier in the week but landed the spoils in style having gone off as a well backed 5/4 favourite.”
Kindred Group will be counting down the days before the new football season starts after the Nordic operator’s margin took another hit on pre-season tournament, the International Champions Cup.
Kindred Ali Gill said: “It’s a pretty quiet time right now, although pre-season fixtures are in full flow.
“A familiar fixture at the weekend saw Liverpool sweep Man Utd away 4-1 which saw a hefty negative for us here, and Unai Emery made an instant and victorious return to former club PSG as new club Arsenal really put on a show in a 5-1 win, another one which hit our margin.”
The operator did claw some cash back on Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas however.
Wow!!! Unreal, I have no words pic.twitter.com/T4qgpIMenQ
— Geraint Thomas (@GeraintThomas86) July 28, 2018
“The Tour de France was a very different story as Team Sky got the victory, but not with the rider we, or our punters, predicted, added Gill.
“A first Tour victory for Geraint Thomas saw us claw back some pre-season football losses on the outright market with a healthy positive margin, and overall the event was a positive one.”
The BetVictor-sponsored World Matchplay darts ended in the worst way possible for the bookmaker, after Gary Anderson became just the third man to complete darts’ ‘triple crown’.
BetVictor’s Charlie McCann said: “We kept Michael van Gerwen on our side pre-event in the BetVictor World Matchplay darts and Gary Anderson was our biggest loser.
“Had Joe Cullen or Mensur Suljovic taken their chances against the Flying Scot then it would have been an excellent week.
“As it was, bet numbers and actives were up considerably on 2017 and it was a magnificent week of darts showing the sport is currently in rude health.”