When a Mandurah man embarks on a a cruise next year to celebrate his 50th wedding anniversary, he'll have his childhood club and unlikely English Premier League winner Leicester City to thank for it.
Stories of bets at long odds abounded in the UK in the lead-up to and in the wake of Leicester City's fairytale triumph being sealed by a draw between Tottenham and Chelsea on Tuesday morning.
But Mandurah resident Keith is one of only three people in WA to have got a piece of the 2000-1 odds the local TAB was offering about Leicester City as recently as mid-August.
For his $5 spur-of-the moment outlay, Keith will pocket a cool $10,000. The other winners in the state had $1 each on the Foxes.
"It was out of the blue for me. I've never bet on football matches before," Keith explained.
"My wife likes to have a couple of dollars a day on the horses and I take her to the TAB. I was twiddling my thumbs like normal when the lady at the TAB, who is a Liverpool supporter, said 'why don't you put a bet on?'
"I still can't believe it's happened."
In earlier times Keith played - and scored - for Leicester's youth team. Since then he's seen the Foxes lose in the FA Cup Final and be relegated and promoted several times.
But it's unlikely he's ever watched a season with as much interest as this one, with Claudio Ranieri's team topping the EPL table at Christmas and warding off all challengers - including the far richer Tottenham, Manchester City, Arsenal and Manchester United - in the second half of the campaign.
Family and friends thought his bet was crazy, Keith admitted.
"It was kind of just a joke throughout the year - I never really thought it could happen," he said.
"They kept having all these 1-0 wins and [striker] Jamie Vardy got sent off [and suspended] and I thought other teams might catch them.
"But it all worked out"
Keith, who has supported Leicester City since childhood, plans very much on sharing the spoils of victory with his wife Christine, who - after all - provided his reason for being in the TAB in the first place.
"I won't get the payout until after the final game of the EPL season," he said.
"But it's our golden anniversary next year, so I think we'll go on a cruise."
Strangely, for such an unlikely winner, Leicester's title triumph marked a losing result for the WA TAB.
While less than a handful of people got the 2000-1 odds at which the Foxes started in the EPL market in May 2015, plenty more got on at 500-1, 300-1 (mid-September), $67 (November), $17 (Christmas), $9 (mid-February) and odds-on (from mid-March)
