A 33 year old man from Cambridgeshire has struck it lucky with just his eighth ever bet by turning £1 into nearly £170,000 on the football today - in the process landing the second biggest odds in history at William Hill.

The gentleman, who wishes to remain anonymous placed a £1 10 team accumulator on Saturday morning before heading out with his family for the day.

“It wasn’t until I got back home from the park that I checked my account and saw how much I had won,” said the man who didn’t even know that it was a 101st minute winner by Dean Cox for Leyton Orient that had scooped the incredible win.

His William Hill account was set up on February 7 and was intended to be a bit of fun and a way of potentially earning a bit of cash for his five month old son’s future.

“My partner and I had a son five months ago and last week we set up a William Hill account and deposited £20. The intention was to place two £1 bets every so often on the football and any winnings would go into a savings account for him. We have only placed eight bets. We will certainly be giving him a large chunk towards his future but we also plan to buy a house with some of the winnings as well.”

A spokesman for William Hill said “a few years ago, we had a Maltese punter who turned €1 into over €500,000 and this guy, with his incredible win, has moved into second place on our list of biggest ever football winners.”

The bet:

Winnings: £169,923.01

Stake: £1.00

Selections:

23/10 Sheffield United

5/2 Leyton Orient

21/10 Crawley

21/10 Crewe

Evens Doncaster

7/2 Gillingham

7/2 Colchester

7/5 Peterborough

11/4 Scunthorpe

16/5 Port Vale