Joseph Milord in SPORTS
Saturday, April 30, 2016
Leicester's Mahrez celebrates - Riyad Mahrez with teammates at The King Power Stadium, Leicester, August 22, 2015. Leicester City is on the verge of the Premier League title.
Ninety minutes is all Leicester City needs.
Ninety minutes of their usual level of play and the modest club could be the most unlikely champions in the history of any sport.
Simply put, if Leicester wins on Sunday, it will be the single greatest upset of all time, especially considering how bad they were last season.
Last year at this time, Leicester was one of the worst teams in the league. Now they’re the best.
Out of their 35 games in the English Premier League so far this season, Leicester has lost only three times. Their record has them sitting atop the Premier League, seven points above their closest competitor.
In the process, they will make some lucky bettors very rich — which means the bookies are screwed.
Because the Foxes were such a long shot to win the Premier League, anyone who put money on their odds before the season began can win $5,000 for every individual dollar they bet on the team. According to Sky Sports, 128 people put money on Leicester to win the league when the odds were 5,000/1. Now, those mere 128 people will cost bookies nearly $29 million in payouts.
The reason bookies set the odds so high is indicative of one simple fact: Practically no one saw this coming.
Perhaps a simple analogy to American football could explain this plainly: Right now, the odds of the Cleveland Browns winning the 2016/17 Super Bowl arecurrently at 200/1. Now, take the Browns’ odds and multiply them by 25. That’s how unlikely Leicester was to win the title.