The ‘cash out’ option – which allows online punters to receive an amount of money back before the event on which they have bet has finished – was introduced to allow bookmakers to balance their books on advantageous terms. Depending on the likelihood of a bet winning, punters could, conceivably, be offered much more than their initial stake, but still far less than if the bet does actually win. Consequently, from the punters’ point-of-view, cashing out is always something of a ‘double-edged sword’.

Consider the example of an anonymous Betfair punter who, on Boxing Day, 2015, staked £1 on a 21-fold accumulator on afternoon and evening football matches. His selections include 18 matches that kicked off at 15.00, one that kicked off at 15.15 and two that kicked off at 17.15 and 19.45 respectively. A late goal scored by Olivier Giroud for Arsenal against West Bromwich Albion gave him 19 winning selections out of 21 and an option to cash out for £223,000, against potential winnings in excess of £1.2 million.

The astute, or lucky, punter took that option and, just minutes later, Myles Weston scored for Wycombe Wanderers against Plymouth Argyle in the 15.15 kickoff, making the scoreline 3-3, which it remained until the end of the match. Thus, the punter profited the tune of nearly of a quarter of a million pounds from a bet that, had he let it run its course, would have returned precisely nothing. Betfair spokesperson Naomi Totten was keen to emphasis how cashing out ‘gives customers the ultimate control over their bets’.

Lanfranco ‘Frankie’ Dettori has experienced his fair share of ups and downs since his halcyon days in the royal-blue silks of Godolphin, but remains one of the most recognisable and popular jockeys in the country. For readers of a certain age, Dettori will always be best remembered for winning all seven races on the highest profile race day of the year, the Festival of British Racing – a precursor to British Champions’ Day – at Ascot in 1996.

Perhaps the person with most cause to remember that fateful day is Darren Yates, nowadays a high-profile racehorse owner but, at the time, a self-employed joiner in Morecambe, Lancashire. Having latched onto the fact that the Godolphin horses wintered in Dubai were some way ahead of their British counterparts, Yates backed four of them – Wall Street, Diffident, Mark Of Esteem and Fatefully – all trained by Saeed Bin Suroor and threw in Dettori’s other three mounts, combining them in a £0.50 Super Heinz, plus an additional £1.00 each-way accumulator, for a total outlay of £62.00.

The rest, as they say, is history. The first three Goldolphin-trained horses won the Cumberland Lodge Stakes, Diadem Stakes and the feature race of the day, the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes and, following an easy victory for Decorated Hero, trained by John Gosden, in the Tote Festival Handicap, Fatefully duly completed a four-timer for Sheikh Mohammed’s operation in the Roseberry Rated Stakes. Dettori made all the running on Lochangel, trained by Andrew Balding, in the Seal Stakes and repeated the dose on Fujiyama Crest, trained by Sir Michael Stoute, in the closing Gordon Carter Handicap. His unprecedented seven-timer paid 25,095/1 at starting price, but 235,834/1 at best odds and cost the bookmaking industry an estimated £40 million or more; Darren Yates profited to the tune of £550,823.54.

Far and away the most popular and straightforward football betting market is the pre-match three-way, or 1-X-2, market, in which punters are required to predict a home win, away win or draw over 90 minutes plus stoppage time. However, the match result market is just one of a plethora of football betting markets, many of which can yield a profit regardless of the final result.

One such market involves backing a team to score two or more goals in a match and this is the market that was exploited, in audacious style, by an anonymous Sky Bet punter in March, 2019. The unidentified bettor staked £10 on a ten-fold accumulator on teams in League One, League Two and the National League and, eventually, collected £52,323.17 for his efforts.

In League One, his three selections included Blackpool, who scored two goals, but only thanks to Southend United defender Taylor Moore putting through his own goal in the sixth minute of injury time. Home wins for Bradford over Peterborough and Rochdale over Shrewsbury Town were more straightforward, as were those for Cheltenham Town, Colchester and Crawley in League Two. In the National League, three more home wins, for Barrow, Hartlepool and Maidstone, made it nine winning selections out of ten and, although Chesterfield lost at home to Eastleigh, they did so by a scoreline of 2-3, thereby completing the ten-fold.

Traditionally, football has been thought of as a male preserve, as has gambling as a leisure activity and, at least to some extent, those perceptions continue. Progress towards gender equality, in all walks of life, has been slow, but steady, although gender gaps obviously do persist. However, gambling, especially gambling on football, which has introduced a new generation to betting, is freely accessible to men and women.

A case in point is that of an unidentified housewife who, in November, 2017, staked £1 on a 12-fold accumulator on weekend football matches at a William Hill betting shop in Leysdown-on-Sea on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent. Apparently, the woman in question had been placing a similar bet every weekend for the previous six years, following in the footsteps of her husband, who had been doing so for the previous forty years, without much success. Her selections reportedly required no skill, but only one of them was odds-on; highlights included Burnley to beat Southampton at 4/1, Reading to beat Derby at 16/5 and Burton Albion to beat Millwall at 10/3. All told, her 12-fold returned £574.278.41 for a £1 stake.

Betting shop employee Carli Faulkner, who posed for publicity photographs with the winning betting slip, praised the win, which was, far and away, the largest payout she had ever experienced, as ‘real girl power’. William Hill spokesman Rupert Adams added, ‘‘In my 15 years in the business working for William Hill I have never encountered a bigger football win by a female punter for just a quid.’