Bookies were relieved on Friday as Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge pulled a name out of left field for their third child. The couple called the newborn Louis Arthur Charles and the name Louis was around 6/1 odds but at some places, bookmakers had ignored the name like at Paddy Power where it was an 18/1 in the build up to the big unveiling.
Heading up the market for the name of the next royal baby just before Kensington Palace made their announcement, was Albert at 2/1 odds. Paddy Power had suspended betting on the market early on Friday after a late flurry of action on Albert. That was after, they announced, that they had paid out on the name Arthur before the Royals had even left the hospital.
Ladbrokes had Louis at 20/1 odds after the birth and was at 14/1 early on Friday morning.
Alex Apati of Ladbrokes said: “Prince Louis has caught both bookies and punters by surprise. With it being one of Prince George’s middle names fans didn’t see it as an obvious front-runner for Kate and Wills second son.”
“It looks like we made the right decision to keep betting open until the very end for royal punters, rather than suspending the market or paying out early due to the rumour mill going into overdrive, as we so often saw over the last few days.”
Not many punters predicted Louis in the Royal baby name betting so it has proved to be a little bit of a surprise, to the relief of the bookmakers who feared the late gamble on Albert,” said Coral’s John Hill.
But one punter at Betfair clearly had a startling revelation as someone stuck a £12,000 bet at Betfair on the royal baby being named Louis on Friday morning. Betfair’s biggest winner of the day was a £3,200 payout in Leicester by a punter who bet £200 yesterday when the odds were at 16/1.
But as news of the name seemingly leaked out through this morning, the odds kept shortening.
“At 6 am this morning the name Louis was at 120/1, so a £10 bet at that time would have netted you £1,200,” said Betfair’s Katie Baylis.
“Those odds kept shortening throughout the morning and by 9 am Louis was at 60/1, at 10.30 30/1 and just 15 minutes later was at 9/1.
“By 11 am when the name was announced it was as short as 1/100 and we had had 12k bet on Louis this morning alone.”
