A Few of the Biggest Betting Upsets Ever

Sports upsets are at the core of why people watch competitive athletic competitions. The unpredictable nature of these events is what makes them so appealing, producing thrilling moments where underdogs overcome insurmountable odds to emerge victorious. Below, we rattle off six of the most jaw-dropping results in sports history that likely made some individuals who sense them coming super-rich.

Leicester City Wins the EPL

It is one thing for someone, an individual or team, to have a terrific night when they are firing on all cylinders and beating a favorite. Yet, it is totally something different for an unheralded club to show an amazing level of consistency that would guide him toward winning a title in a thirty-eight-game season. That is what Claudio Ranieri did with Leicester City during the 2015/2016 English Premier League tournament when this team managed to finish England’s top football competition ten points clear from second-placed Arsenal, ending the season with a record of twenty-three wins, twelve draws, and three losses.

The odds before the season started for this occurring got set at a head-turning five thousand to one. No one thought the Foxes had any shot of lifting the Football League Trophy. Yet, somehow, they managed to achieve this feat, and it is doubtful that any lower-ranked club from a top European league will manage to repeat this accomplishment.

The Boston Red Sox Win the World Series

The Curse of the Bambino was one of baseball’s most renowned superstitions. In 1919, the Red Sox decided to sell Babe Ruth, known as the Bambino, to the Yankees franchise. Before Ruth moved from Boston, the Red Sox claimed five World Series titles, with Ruth contributing to three of these. Yet, after his departure, they had not won a title until 2004, a drought period named Curse of the Bambino, which many saw as punishment for the Red Sox not keeping what may be baseball’s goat.

In the hundredth edition of the MLB, the Red Sox entered the 2004 playoff through a wild card. They turned this gifted opportunity into a championship series against the St. Louis Cardinals, which the team from Boston won in four games. What is interesting about the Sox’s 2004 run is that they got six to one, seven to one odds to win the World Series before the start of the season. But in the post-season, to reflect their shown performance, sportsbook shifted their odds to go all the way up to even one hundred and fifty to one.

Greece Wins Euro 2004

Speaking of one hundred and fifty to one odds, those were the chances given to Greece to become the European football champions in 2004 in Portugal. In that competition featuring sixteen teams, only Latvia got worse odds, and it is funny that the Greek team opened the tournament by beating the host nation led by Cristiano Ronaldo and closed it with another win against Portugal.

What is shocking about Greece’s unlikely win is that they faced a lineup of super-powerful teams on their way to the top but managed to only lose to the weakest-ranked squad they faced, Russia.

Mike Tyson Loses to Buster Douglas

Billed as Tyson is Back, the match-up of then undisputed IBF, WBC, and WBA heavyweight champion Mike Tyson and then Ring #7 ranked contender Buster Douglas was supposed to be a cake-walk, a tune-up fight for the undefeated champ. The fight occurred at the renowned Tokyo Dome on February 11th, 1990. The indoor stadium in Bunkyo got chosen as this contest’s site because the general public thought a quick win for Tyson was the most probable outcome, akin to his 93-second knockout in his previous fight against Carl Williams. Therefore, there was no need to hold the fight on US soil, as it would not generate much attention. At the time, Mike was looking to book a meeting with Evander Holyfield, the then-undefeated number-one contender. So, no one expected that Douglas would have any shot to win. Of course, except Buster himself, who was coming into the bout with various personal problems.

Listed as a forty-two to one underdog, Douglas not only TKO’d Tyson in the 10th round, but he outboxed him for much of the fight, out-landing the reigning champ by a hundred and nineteen punches, leading on two of the three judges’ scorecards, and miraculously trailing behind on the other one going into the tenth round. Post-fight, Douglas, the new boxing HW world champion, credited the win to his recently passed away mother. Douglas went on to lose the title to Holyfield in his next fight.

Steve Darcis Defeats Rafael Nadal

That famous Rafa is likely in most tennis experts’ top five ever, and we are sure that loads would even put him in their top three. The Mallorca native burst onto the pro scene in 2001 and won his first major title four years later, at nineteen. That same year, he made it to the third round of the Australian Open and the second one in Wimbledon. As of the date of writing, he has won twenty-two Grand Slam titles and accumulated more than $135 million in prize winnings.

In 2013, he was at the peak of his powers, ranking at the number one spot for parts of the year, and no one predicted that Nadal would make a Wimbledon exit in the first round, especially given that he faced Belgium player Steve Darcis at this stage of the competition. Yet, Darcis, who, at the time, sat 130 places lower on the ATP chart than Rafa, managed to pull off a stunning upset and beat the famous Spaniard in straight sets. Sadly, Darcis could not continue in the tournament following his staggering win, as he suffered a shoulder injury in his headline-making match.

It is interesting to look back at how sportsbooks rated this contest at the time, as many gave Nadal a 99.8% probability to win and Darcis forty-five to one odds.

UMBC Shocks Virginia

Most readers likely know that March Madness refers to the American top college basketball tournament, the NCAA I single-elimination competition. In the 2017-2018 season, sixty-eight teams competed in this tournament, with the final taking place in the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, where the Villanova Wildcats claimed their third title by beating the Michigan Wolverines.

Nevertheless, the most memorable game from this season is, without question, the UMBC Retrievers defeating the Virginia Cavaliers seventy-four to fifty-four in the south regional first round. The reason this was such an upset was because UMBC was the sixteen seed, and Virginia was the first one, with bookies giving the Retrievers twenty-five to one odds to shock the world, with some US bookmakers, like William Hill, listing Virginia as the -10,000 (1.01) favorite.

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