Revealed: Who are Ireland’s gutsiest World Cup punters?

Despite unceremoniously crushing Ireland’s dreams of being involved in the World Cup, soccer fans here appear to bear no ill will against the Great Danes – as Denmark are the best backed team amongst Irish punters in the group stages.

We can reveal that a significant sum of punters are supporting Ireland’s playoff foes, who kick-off their campaign tomorrow evening against Peru, even though they killed our hopes of qualification with a devastating 5-1 pounding in the Aviva Stadium last year.

And punters here are also showing huge support for our UK neighbours, with a substantial number of customers supporting Gareth Southgate’s boys to go all the way for England.

Tyrone are by far England’s biggest supporters, with 16% of all bets being placed in the county on Southgate’s squad. They are followed closely by Monaghan (10%) where one in ten bets are on England to win, with Co Clare hot on their heels at 8%.

But, when it comes to which county contains the gutsiest punters, Antrim have come out on top as the most courageous backers of them all in World Cup betting, with 26.47% of punters there having a flutter on an outsider in the contest (any team outside of Germany, Brazil, Spain, France & England).

They are followed by Galway (26%) and Wicklow (25.71%), Sligo (25%) and Cavan (24%) and Longford (24.59%).

But according to our extensive research, the most cautious counties have shown themselves to be Derry, with just 12.38% of bets registered there with us on an outsider, followed by Kerry (18.31%) and Meath (18.61%).

In the outright betting markets, favourite’s Brazil and Germany are unsurprisingly amongst the most heavily backed nations to win the tournament across the boards.

“It’s fascinating to find out who really are the ballsiest of them all when it comes to World Cup betting. And we were shocked to find that the gutsiest and the most cautious punters were two Northern Irish neighbouring counties. However, learning that Cavan natives were willing to risk their hard earned cash on an outsider was probably the biggest surprise of all. That lot would peel an orange in their pocket!” according to our spokesperson.