I don't pay attention or care about soccer outside of the WC, but I found this article on ESPN today pretty damn interesting. Hopefully it doesn't get relegated to the Soccer Board.

Apparently Leicester City is in 1st place by 5 points with 13 games left in the season. They began the season as 5,000-1 longshots at William Hill, an England-based bookmaker.

quote:
Just how crazy is 5,000-1?

Here are some other bets (legal in England, not the U.S.) offered at those odds by William Hill:

• Elvis is found alive.
• Yeti or Loch Ness Monster is proven to exist.
• Christmas is the warmest day of the year in England.
• Kanye West and Kim Kardashian name their next child Sinner.
• Kim Kardashian becomes the U.S. president in 2020.
• Barack Obama plays cricket for England after he leaves Oval Office.

The article also has a list of 10 other incredible longshots that either won or flirted with a title, including:

quote:
1,000-1
2013 Auburn Football

Odds to win BCS championship
The Cam Newton-led championship season of 2010 was nothing but a distant memory at Auburn by 2013. The Tigers went 8-5 in 2011 and 3-9 the next year, leading to Gene Chizik's firing. Auburn was unranked through the first half of the 2013 season, but new coach Gus Malzahn guided the Tigers to a 12-1 record, an SEC crown and a berth in the BCS title game. Auburn came within 13 seconds of beating those 1,000-1 odds, but Jameis Winston's championship-winning touchdown pass capped Florida State's come-from-behind victory.

quote:

999-1
2011 St. Louis Cardinals

Odds to win World Series (late in the season)
Trailing the Atlanta Braves by 4.5 games in the wild-card race on Sept. 12 with 15 games to play, the Cardinals were basically left for dead by Las Vegas oddsmakers. St. Louis was given 500-1 odds to win the NL pennant and 999-1 odds to win the World Series. But the Cardinals closed with an 11-4 run to sneak into the playoffs ahead of the Braves, who lost their final five games. The Cardinals then took down the Philadelphia Phillies in the division series and the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Championship Series. They were down to their last strike twice in Game 6 of the World Series before rallying to beat the Texas Rangers in seven games. Oh, and one happy bettor in Las Vegas turned $500 into $375,000 thanks to St. Louis' improbable run

quote:
120-1
2004 Red Sox

Odds to win World Series (after trailing 3-0 in ALCS)
Boston's 98-64 record in 2004 was the third best in baseball behind the Yankees and the Cardinals. So while the Red Sox weren't the favorites heading into the postseason, their chances weren't bad. But after they lost the first three games of the ALCS against the Yankees, their World Series odds plummeted, for good reason: No MLB team had ever erased a 3-0 deficit in a seven-game series. Not only did the Red Sox make history by coming back to win their first AL pennant since 1986, but they also swept the Cardinals to win their first World Series since 1918, finishing the postseason with eight straight wins.

LINK

ETA: Welp, apparently this thread wasn't good enough for the MSB.

JBE and finance threads all over the OT, but they police the shite out of the MSB it appears. Oh well.

This post was edited on 2/12/16 at 3:30 pm