And finally…accountant’s 20p punt comes up big

The former bean counter, who lives in North London but wished to remain anonymous, placed £2 worth of 10p each way accumulators across seven horse races at his local branch of Ladbrokes.

The man bet on races at Lingfield, Doncaster and Newbury and admitted he hadn’t even realised he had won until he got a phonecall from the bookmakers.

According to reports in the Mirror, the life-long races fan had given up on checking the rest of his bets after one of his horses failed to win.

The better only found out that he was almost half a million pounds richer, when Ladbrokes rang him to say he had pocketed exactly £457,067.52.

He said: “I didn’t bother to see how the rest of the horses had got on.

“The next thing I knew, someone from Ladbrokes was phoning me to congratulate me for winning nearly half a million quid and to ask how I’d like the money. I had no idea what he was talking about!”