Hmm, excuse me for being just a tad cynical. According to a Sky Bet press release which landed in my email inbox during the week, one lucky punter won £148,818.01 last Saturday.
Hmm, excuse me for being just a tad cynical. According to a Sky Bet press release which landed in my email inbox during the week, one lucky punter won £148,818.01 last Saturday thanks to Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink's 91st-minute winner for Celtic at home to Aberdeen and a late penalty save for Stenhousemuir in the match away to Albion Rovers.
Last weekend's winner came from Pontefract in West Yorkshire, so you can understand my incredulity when I discovered the punter successfully predicted the outcome of 13 fixtures involving Scottish teams. These teams weren't just dead certs, either.
Celtic apart, only one other team were odds-on (St Mirren 10/11) and prices included a 13/8 (Livingston to beat Partick), an 11/8 (Dundee United to see off Hearts) and a raft of 5/4s and 6/5s. The worst price thereafter was evens.
A £10 stake on a 14,881/1 shot? The only conclusion one can draw from reading such a thing is that the punter is either a fool or someone who got extremely lucky.
Suitably intrigued, I contacted Sky Bet to see if I could speak to the punter to ascertain which category he fell into but, alas, my enquiry came to nought.
"Unfortunately he's asked us not to make his identity public, thus we could only mention his home town and winning selections. Sorry!" was the reply from Helen Jacob, Sky Bet's head of PR.
I realise that this might read as some kind of apology for my own failings in recent weeks. It is not meant to sound like sour grapes but rather it is an attempt to show how we can be tempted into making stupid bets, regardless of the outcome.
Over the past fortnight, I have attempted to raise the return on any winnings by including an extra away team and that last weekend's 11/1 treble was let down by that extra away team. I intend not to make the same mistake for a third week.
That's why I have gone with three homes in tomorrow's Barclays Premier League. All three teams are reasonably well-priced because of indifferent starts to the campaign but they are playing against opponents in the bottom four.
First up are Portsmouth, whose record for the season is made to look somewhat lopsided by two 4-0 defeats at the hands of Chelsea (the best team in the division on the evidence so far) and a 6-0 walloping against Manchester City, which can be explained in part by Harry Redknapp's decision to tinker with his line-up and go with a three-man defence, manna for players like Robinho.
Portsmouth looked much more like themselves against Spurs last Sunday and are worthy of consideration again. This weekend, they face a Stoke side who, despite their gallant start to the season, are 18th and on the slide.
Everton have been patchy and have yet to win at home, but tomorrow afternoon brings the visit of Newcastle United and they are nothing like the team they were under Kevin Keegan. The new manager, Joe Kinnear, inspires little confidence and it is surely only a matter of time before David Moyes finds a winning combination at Goodison Park.
The final selection in the treble is West Ham, who seem to have benefited from the appointment of Gianfranco Zola as manager. Upton Park is never an easy place to go and Bolton could find themselves in trouble this weekend.
Don't expect to see a "punter scoops £44 treble" headline if it wins, though.
Selections
Portsmouth (4/6), Everton (4/5), West Ham (4/5)
Treble 4.4/1
Season's profit £27
