England vs. Uruguay World Cup - H 2014
AP ImagesBefore the World Cup, when Norwegian gambling site betsson.com gave 175-to-1 odds that Uruguayan striker Luis Suarez would bite someone at this year’s World Cup, they weren’t expected to pay out.
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But Tuesday night, the man many call “the cannibal” apparently clamped his jutting teeth down on Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini and betsson.com paid up.
Some 167 people put down money on the bite bet, including one Norwegian man who pocketed $3,300 in winnings. One punter posted his betting slip on Twitter, showing a win of around $913 on a $5 bet.
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@Jensekongen regner med at den går inn da ja 🙂 hahah pic.twitter.com/aWalm9DYx1
— Thomas Syversen (@Syvers11) June 24, 2014
Another winner, Jonathan Braeck of Sweden, bet around $12 and will receive a payout of more than $2,000.
“First I thought I’d bet a little more, but a friend said I was just wasting my money,” the 23-year-old substitute schoolteacher told the SportExpressen newspaper. When Italy took over the game you knew that he could go a little crazy,” he added. “I didn’t think that he would bite, but that he’d do something stupid. Then he did the best stupid thing that he could do.”
The odds that Suarez would bite someone weren’t all that long. The controversial striker, who plays for Liverpool, has bitten two other people before on the field.
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In April 2013, Suarzez was given a 10-match ban after biting Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic during a match, and in 2010, while playing for Dutch side Ajax, he got hit with a seven-match ban after biting Otman Bakkal of PSV Eindhovern. The later incident earned him the moniker “the Cannibal of Ajax” from the Dutch media.
Email: Scott.Roxborough@THR.com
Twitter: @sroxborough
