LAS VEGAS — I recently shopped to invest in Nottingham Forest and didn’t exactly obtain Leicester City-like, sprinkled-with-stardust 2015-16 English Premier League (EPL) odds.
Even being late to the Tricky Trees’ party, however, didn’t dampen the potential sweet dividends I secured at two sportsbooks.
Forest’s 1-0 home triumph of Tottenham on Boxing Day, the day after Christmas, fueled me. On Dec. 28, I hit the books en route to a holiday dinner.
First, at 4:51 p.m. in the Circa Sports outlet at Tuscany, on Flamingo near the Strip, I grabbed 85-to-1 odds on Forest winning the EPL title. At 5:17 inside the Westgate SuperBook, I nabbed a 150-1 ticket.
Forest had opened the season, at the SuperBook, at 2,000-1, shaved to 500-1 by Dec. 1. Before the campaign began, Circa had Forest 500-1, 1,000-1 at the South Point.
And on Dec. 29, Nottingham responded to my support with a 2-0 victory at Everton that situated Forest in second place of the 20-team EPL.
Heady stuff for the minnow in its second EPL season, having battled relegation tide pools since the summer of 1999, whose claim to fame was consecutive shock runs to European glory decades ago.
In 2015-16, behind splendid striker Jamie Vardy and the rest of a side immortalized as “The Unbelievables,” Leicester won England’s top flight for the first time since its 1894 inception.
On July 15, 2015, a William Hill patron at the Silver Sevens property in Vegas had plopped a tenner on Leicester, at 2,500-1, to win the EPL. That fortunate customer cashed for $25,010.
Another Hill bettor put two bucks on the 2,500-1 proposition, while someone else risked a fiver. In sum, Nevada books lost about $1 million on Leicester.
In England, Ladbrokes and William Hill had posted 5,000-1 preseason odds on the Foxes. They finished with 81 points, atop second-place Arsenal’s 71.
Twenty-five Hill bettors had bought the 5,000-1 odds, the largest stake being £25 from someone in Manchester, netting £125,000. A customer from Surrey staked £75 on the Foxes at 1,500-1, winning £112,500.
Ladbrokes had 47 customers back Leicester at 5,000-1 odds.
Jessica Bridge of Ladbrokes called it the biggest sporting upset since David beat Goliath. “We can only doff our cap,” she said, “to the brave punters who had the foresight and confidence . . . on the Leicester fairytale ending.”
The total payout of £25 million wasn’t, though, the largest in British bookmaking history. On Sept. 28, 1996, Italian jockey Frankie Dettori won all seven Ascot races, costing bookies £30 million.
A Ladbrokes broker told Business Insider that a single pound on Leicester winning the EPL, Britain voting to leave the European Union and Donald Trump’s first victory, all in 2016, would have won £4.5 million.
Brian Clough was an arrogant, mouthy footballer and moody, unpredictable gaffer, or manager. He possessed no filter between his thoughts and words. In 2004, at 69, he succumbed to stomach cancer.
At Forest, however, Clough (pronounced KLUF) fashioned his fairytale.
Fifty years ago this past Monday, he joined second-division Forest. Two full seasons later, Forest earned promotion to the top flight, which it won (seven points clear of second-place Liverpool) in 1977-78.
In 1979, it won the European Cup, which became the Champions League, over Malmö of Sweden in Munich. It defended that trophy by winning it again, over Hamburg in Madrid.
Before both of those title matches, both Clough and assistant Peter Taylor wagered £1,000 on Forest’s foe, at 3-2 odds, as a hedge against the £5,000 bonuses each would receive with victories.
Our kind of managers. Author Jonathan Wilson definitively documented Clough’s life in his 2011 biography, “Nobody Ever Says Thank You.”
Nottingham named its largest City Ground stand after Clough. There are statues, plus an expressway and a commuter train in his name.
In 1996, in London after seeing the pyramids in Egypt, I took in Euro 96 — staged all over England, including City Ground — with fans in pubs and returned with a much-cherished Forest cap.
This Forest squad, under Nuno Espírito Santo, features striker Chris Wood, but it’s mettle is a world-class set of defenders.
Nigerian Ola Aina, Serbian Nikola Milenkovic, Brazilian Murillo and Neco Williams, from Wales, rate among the top five in the Big Five (England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain) in interceptions and clearances.
All dominated last Monday, in a 3-0 Forest victory at Wolves that settled Nottingham into second with Arsenal (40 points), behind Liverpool (46).
That was Belgian keeper Matz Sels’s ninth clean sheet, tops in England and tied for second (with Inter Milan’s Yann Sommer) in the Big Five, behind Real Sociedad’s Alex Remiro’s 10.
Tuesday, DraftKings had 40-1 odds on Forest winning the EPL, +300 (or risk $100 to win $300) on it finishing in the top four, with automatic Champions League qualification for next season.
NBC studio pundit Danny Higginbotham, a former EPL defender, said, “They remind me of 2015-16 Leicester.”
Forest has already won at Liverpool, and it had two difficult road matches, 3-0 defeats at Man City and Arsenal. Its fate will be determined in home matches Tuesday against Liverpool, and Feb. 25 (Arsenal), March 8 (Man City) and April 1 (Man United).
By then I’ll know if my two Nottingham Forest ducats are worth their weight in stardust.
