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The combo a bookmaker called luck.
New Zealand basketball, a Greek bus stop ad, and odds of 119.
In July 2020, soon after the games, an ad went up at a bus stop in Greece. Its headline: "Our lucky shop won." A €100 ticket had paid €11,935.
The ticket was a three-leg combo on New Zealand's NBL, all on the final result:
| Game | Pick | Odds |
|---|---|---|
| Canterbury Rams vs Franklin Bulls | Rams to win (won 85-64) | 4.00 |
| Nelson Giants vs Otago Nuggets | Giants to win (won 97-74) | 7.75 |
| Auckland Huskies vs Manawatu Jets | Huskies to win (won 93-82) | 3.85 |
4.00 × 7.75 × 3.85 = 119.35. Times €100, that's exactly the €11,935 on the poster.
Three home teams, all three priced as clear underdogs, and all three won by 11 points or more.
It was my combo. I posted it on Blogabet on 24 July 2020, before the games, as a 10/10 maximum stake at Pinnacle odds of 109.00 (4.13 × 7.65 × 3.45). It won +1,080 units.
These are betslips for the same combo, eight of them at slightly different prices, accepted in a physical shop of Greece's biggest bookmaker on 24 July 2020, before the games: €500 staked, about €49,000 paid out. The bottom-right ticket, €100 at 119.35, is the one on the poster.
What the poster shows
Think about what happened. The bookmaker lost on a combo at 119, the kind of result most bettors never see once in their life. And its reaction wasn't to fix anything. It printed the ticket on a bus stop ad and called it luck.
That's how powerful they feel. Even when they lose, they turn the loss into an advert. One winning ticket sells the idea that anyone can do it, and the thousands of tickets that lost the same night never make a poster.
A combo at 119 isn't a plan. It worked once. Most combos like it lose, and the bookmaker counts on that.
Don't even start.
And if you already bet, don't let an ad tell you it was luck.