Boys Get Paid break record for NZ’s biggest bet at Karaka Millions

Luke Kemeys. Photo / Supplied

The Boys didn’t get paid after the biggest bet in New Zealand history just came up short at Ellerslie on Saturday.

But with some smart covering the Boys Get Paid betting syndicate run by Aucklander Luke Kemeys and his army of fun followers still got half their money back.

The Boys Get Paid punters club started with around $1.2m in the kitty, and returned their followers $600,000.

With the average investment being around $60, most who played along lost $30 so no punters were significantly harmed in the making of this noisy circus at Ellerslie.

True to his word, Kemeys and his team placed the biggest bet in New Zealand history by having $454,545.46 on Legarto to win the Elsdon Park Aotearoa Classic all-up into Orchestral in the TAB Karaka Millions three-year-old - the last race of the day.

The TAB kept that money after Legarto, a $1.30 favourite, could only finish second to Desert Lightning, who got too big a break for Legarto to make up down the home straight.

To add salt to the wound, Orchestral won the last race so had Legarto won, the BGP would have won $2.5m.

Despite the two-leg mega bet missing, the group were slightly up on the day going into the final race. They then put almost $600,000 - spread over two bet slips - on a prop bet which required Orchestral to finish in the top four and Talisker to finish in the top six but missed on the latter part of the equation.

“It was gutting and I hate losing other people’s money but we had a go and everybody gets half their spend back,” said Kemeys.

They did have some big wins, including a $300,000 investment on Crocetti, who won the first race into James McDonald to ride at least one winner.

“It could have been a lot worse and we live to fight another day.”