A lot of you are probably nursing post-election day hangovers this morning, although your head may not be hurting as much as the anonymous punter who, for some wholly unknown reason, decided to place a million-dollar bet on a Labor victory.
The man, understood to be from New South Wales, placed the bet earlier this month, shortly after the then-opposition leader Bill Shorten gave a heartfelt response to a Daily Telegraph hit piece on the subject of his mother.
It was the largest bet ever taken by Ladbrokes, surpassing the previous record, a $370,000 wager on the race horse Winx, recorded earlier this year. “Clearly this gentleman thinks the Labor Party is a safer bet than the now-retired mighty mare,” the company’s chief executive said at the time.
Yesterday’s federal election result proved to be embarrassing for Sportsbet, who were so certain of a Labor win that they paid out on a Bill Shorten win two days before the nation actually went to the polls. On Thursday, a representative of the company told News Corp:
“With punters so confident, Sportsbet has today paid out early on all bets placed on Labor to win Saturday’s vote. Over $1.3 million has been paid out to punters who had a flutter on Labor. Labor have attracted several large wagers including one savvy punter who walks away with over $128,000 before a vote has been counted …”
Sportsbet added that seven out of ten bets it received were for Labor, and that this factored into their decision to pay out early, as “punters rarely get it wrong on elections.”
