This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
John Micklethwait is a huge fan of Leicester City, so he has plenty of reason to be overjoyed at the team's amazing run to an English Premier League title. Unfortunately, he also has about 145,000 reasons to have found the whole experience exceedingly bittersweet.
That's because Micklethwait, the editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News, had placed a bet on Leicester to win its league championship every year — except this one. Having left his job with The Economist in London for a similar role in New York, Micklethwait decided there was no point in going out of his way to make his annual £20 wager on the Foxes.
Oops. With Leicester City starting its EPL season as 5,000-1 longshots, Micklethwait would have won £100,000, or about $145,000. Little wonder that, in an article he wrote about the team's unlikely success, the financial sector-oriented journalist began by confessing to his own "ineptitude."
"I assumed it was 20 pounds ($29) saved," Micklethwait wrote. "A huge mistake," he added.
At the time his article was published in late April, the Foxes had yet to clinch the title, and as a longtime supporter of the squad, Micklethwait admitted to a "persistent fear that it will go wrong." He wrote, "When it does so, I will be heartbroken, but at least I will have saved 20 pounds."
No such luck, although in fairness, the circumstances of the lost windfall could hardly have been more delightful. Before Monday, Leicester City had never won England's top league in its 132-year history, and it barely avoided relegation to the second-tier league last year.
The Foxes benefited from unusually poor seasons by some of the EPL's behemoths, in particular Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea, but Micklethwait pointed out in his article that Leicester also made its own luck. Working with a much smaller budget, the underdog team took a data-driven, "Moneyball"-style approach to player acquisitions and on-field tactics.
"Once they have the players, [Leicester City officials] follow their statistics relentlessly, with match data kept on tablets," Micklethwait wrote. "The team looks at what players do in the 10 seconds before and after they touch the ball. Leicester players even seem to foul scientifically, slowing down their opponents by taking turns to obstruct them, so that few of the Leicester players get booked or sent off."
But even if any of the team's fans could have talked themselves into the promise of what was taking place before the season began, none of them could have foreseen the incredible success that ensued. Nevertheless, enough people put money down on Leicester, either out of blind loyalty or a gambler's appreciation for those crazy odds, that British bookmakers have suffered unprecedented losses.
Just not from a certain editor-in-chief.
Micklethwait told Public Radio International that, over the years, he had bet about £400 on the Foxes. "I won back a bit a few times, but certainly nowhere near enough to justify having lost 100,000 pounds," he said.