A LUCKY Irishman has won almost £2,000 on a £5 stake after backing Hearts to beat his beloved 69-game unbeaten Celtic 4-0 at the weekend.
The Scottish Champions hadn’t lost a domestic match in either league or cup competitions since May 2016 – but Brendan Swan lumped on the opposition for Sunday’s game regardless.
Unbelievably, Hearts ended up thrashing the Bhoys 4-0 with goals from Harry Cochrane, Kyle Lafferty and Manuel David Milinkovic.
Brendan, from Santry in Dublin, said the idea behind the bet “just came" to him and that he was no stranger to making “outrageous bets”.
The 56-year-old placed the bet with Paddy Power, just weeks after correctly predicting Liverpool’s 7-0 win over Spartak Moscow in the Champions League.
“It’s hard to say what logic, if any, goes into these bets,” Brendan told the Scottish Sun.
“Celtic were going to lose at some stage and the way I see it is there’s no point backing them to lose 1-0, you may as well go all out.
“I watched bits of the game and there were a few hairy moments. They were 2-0 at half time and I thought, hello, there’s a chance here.
“They got a penalty to make it 4-0 late on and I was sweating on the final whistle, but when you’re only putting a fiver on these bets you don’t have much to lose.”
Brendan said he bets about £20 a week and has earned over €5,000 – yes, almost £4,500 – over the past month.
“There’s no fun in throwing £100 or £200 on someone and sweating over an even money shot,” the devoted Hoops fan said.
“I would do about four £5 bets a week, just what I can afford to lose, and get a bit of fun out of it.
“Last month I won about £5,500 from various bets, I predicted Liverpool would beat Moscow 7-0, I had a golfer at 80/1 and a few other things like that.
“Last season I backed Barcelona to beat PSG 6-1 when they needed to overturn the first leg result and it came in.
“These are the type of bets that excite me. My biggest win was £11,500 from a long-shot treble. I picked Spurs to win 3-2, Man United to win 3-2 and Rangers to lose 1-0 one weekend”.
He added: “As soon as it came in I booked a holiday for the whole family, brought everyone to Spain and everything was paid for.”
The dad-of-five added that the best part of landing “crazy bets” is seeing the look on his mate’s face in the Irish capital.
He laughed: “I get it in the neck from my mates all the time when I tell them about the latest bet. They’d look at me and say ‘are you insane?’
“But the look on their face when yet another one comes in is priceless.
“It’s the best part of it all.
“I don’t even think it’s down to luck or studying, I would just say don’t even think about it because if you do then you’ll end up doing the logical thing.
“If I thought logically then I wouldn’t have backed Hearts to beat Celtic 4-0!”e
A spokesman for Paddy Power said: “This punter must’ve got his Christmas present early — a crystal ball — to pull off that bet.
“Celtic were huge odds-on favourites, even away from home, and all the money was for the Hoops. But, sometimes, you’ve got to go Hearts over head.”
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