Putting down money on sporting accumulators can be described as betting's answer to "hit and hope".

Most weekends, punters will stick a couple of quid on wildly unlikely accas - on the off chance one may done day come in.

It's stories like this which fuel the fire of hope for gamblers everywhere. Take the football cash-out king, for example, or the man who beat odds of 180,000/1 last year.

And this latest monumental win will most certainly joins the pantheon of betting wonder stories.

Horse racing accas are clearly the way to go (
Image:
PA)

On Friday, one North London resident took bookies Ladbrokes to the cleaners with a gigantic win of £457,067.52 - from a 20p horse racing bet.

The retired accountant and lifelong racing fan, who wishes to remain unnamed, put on £2 worth of 10p each way accumulators, spread over seven horses in Lingfield, Doncaster and Newbury.

The winning slip

"I checked a couple of the early results on my tablet, but after seeing one of them had lost, I thought I might have only been on for a couple of places," said the big winner about his gambling heroics.

"So I didn't bother to see how the rest of the horses had got on.

"The next thing I knew, someone from Ladbrokes was phoning me to congratulate me for winning nearly half a million quid and to ask how I'd like the money. I had no idea what he was talking about!"

It's the stuff dreams are made of - so well played to the accountant who now has a lot more zeroes to preside over in his bank account.

Now if you'll excuse us, we're off to the bookies...