Bookies rake it in as Mayo and Fermanagh upset the odds

FANS of Mayo and Fermanagh were not the only ones smiling at the championship results of the weekend.

Irish bookmakers enjoyed a rich pay day following the defeats of Armagh and Tyrone, the two favourites fro the All-Ireland SFC title.

“It was a great weekend for us with the two favourites being beaten,” Paddy Power of the bookmaking giant confirmed adding that Mayo have now moved into joint favourites with Kerry to lift the Sam Maguire Cup.

“It is strange to see Fermanagh being written off again, but I’m sure they won’t mind. They’ve certainly upset the odds at the weekend where no-one gave them a chance against Armagh.

“We had a lot of pundits who doubled up Tyrone and Armagh along with the Kilkenny hurlers but surprise, surprise, it was the football counties which left them down.

“It’s strange how it works out for us. We don’t have any shops up North, yet we had a huge number of people from there betting on the matches.

“Before Saturday’s quarter-finals, Armagh were 9/4 favourites to win the All-Ireland while Tyrone were 5/2 to retain their title. At the beginning of the championship both these counties were joint favourites to win out.

“Last Saturday we had several bets of 5,000 on both reaching the semi-finals. Nobody could have forecast Armagh and Tyrone being beaten but that’s the beauty of the game.”

Last year the bookmaking giant was involved in a controversial sponsorship deal with their logos displayed on the hurleys of a number of Cork and Wexford players, but there will be no repeat performance.

“We did it for the All-Ireland semi-final against Wexford, but had to tell the players not to use the hurleys for the final as they had come under enormous pressure from various quarters.

“Those involved got paid and were happy to be involved with the idea. We certainly got a huge amount of publicity out of it which benefited us greatly.”

According to Power, Kilkenny will be clear favourites to win the hurling title while Cork will be favourites to beat Wexford in Sunday’s semi-final.