Boxing Day football kicked off the worst weekend on record for bookie William Hill (WMH) as 18 out of the top 20 backed teams winning.
The group said hundreds of accumulator bets also came good for punters - with one customer winning £103,000 from a £20 bet - while racing favourites the 11/10 Thistlecrack and 11/4 Native River won the King George and Welsh Grand National respectively.
This series of blows pushed operating profit back to £260m for 2016. Although this falls just within the company's previously announced £260m-£280m range, the shares fell as much as 4 per cent in early trading as Hill had said in November that it expected to hit the top of the range.
Interim chief executive Philip Bowcock said all four of its divisions suffered customer-friendly results at the back end of the year but he was buoyed by recent improvements in wagering online and in Australia.
