Tiger Roll’s historic back-to-back Grand National triumph could have cost operators up to £250m.
That’s the view of Betway’s Alan Alger, who described the Aintree victory of the shortest-priced winner in a century as a “bombshell” – though that wasn’t a view shared by the entire industry.
"The quarter-of-a-billion pound bombshell has landed,” Alger told the Racing Post. "Tiger Roll has gone back-to-back and inflicted the most expensive result in Grand National history.
“People have been backing this horse since he got his head in front here last year, and he'll go down as the greatest ever result for punters.
"There have been a few favourable results across the week for us bookies, but it was always going to come down to the National and we've been wiped out."
Tiger Roll started Saturday’s race as 4-1 favourite following his win in the Cross Country Chase at Cheltenham three weeks earlier and ultimately became the shortest-priced winner since Poethlyn in 1919.
Coral’s David Stevens was more optimistic as to how the race panned out for the bookies.
“As expected Tiger Roll was a popular choice throughout the busiest day of the betting year,” he told the Racing Post. “However, there was a tremendous spread of money for many of his National rivals as well, which softened the blow in terms of payout.
"It was certainly nowhere near as bad as we'd feared in the build-up to the race."
