Punters caught in a Trap but it ain't over till Turkey sings

The betting patterns:With just five hours to our deadline yesterday our biggest mistake was to ask the Boylesports spokesman how many men were backed by the company's punters, at one stage or another, to succeed Steve Staunton as Republic of Ireland manager.

"Well, there was Arie Haan, Billy Davies, Chris Coleman, Chris Hughton, David O'Leary, Didier Deschamps, Don Givens, Fabio Capello, Foppe De Haan, George Graham, Jose . . . do you want me to just email you the list?" Would you mind? A mind-boggling 49 in all. "And one of them was Pat Dolan - no disrespect to Pat, but," he said.

Nine of the 49 were favourites along the way, starting with O'Leary, Boylesports even suspending the betting at one point on Kenny Dalglish. "Two to three weeks ago Giovanni Trapattoni wasn't even in the betting with some bookies. We had him at 66 to 1 a fortnight ago."

Eoin Ryan, communications manager in Ireland with the internet betting exchange Betfair, has a similar tale to tell: "We had 10 favourites at different stages, four of them odds-on - Terry Venables, Gerard Houllier, Liam Brady and, at the end, Trapattoni. Paul Jewell went to evens and John Giles and Kenny Dalglish both got to 11 to 10."

"I thought after the betting on who would succeed Mick McCarthy we would never experience anything like it again," said Paddy Power, "but this has been amazing. There were six different favourites for the job Brian Kerr got; we took between €600,000 and €700,000. This time we had 13 favourites. We took in just over €2 million and will pay out just under €1 million on Trapattoni. Our biggest single bet on him was by an English guy; he put £150 on at 150 to 1, so he's done nicely."

Venables's failure to get the job, having featured in the betting throughout, was a relief to all three companies, Paddy Power standing to lose €1.75 million if he had been the FAI's choice. Giles, Houllier and Dalglish, too, would have been unpopular "winners" with the bookies. "€1.3 million was traded on Venables with us, €800,000 on Houllier. We were asked by a client to add Trapattoni to the market about three weeks ago, but that's not unusual. Initially we had him at 20 to 1 but there was no huge interest. He drifted out to 349 to 1 but only one person backed him at that price."

How much was the stake? €10,000? €100,000? "Two euro," said Ryan. So you'll survive? "We will. The first decent bet on him was a couple of hundred quid at 100 to 1. After that, in the last week or 10 days, the money steadily came in, but his odds, naturally, were shortening all the time."

So, how much in all was gambled on the succession race? "I would guess around €10 million," said one man in the industry, "but between all the shops and internet sites, betting from inside and outside Ireland, it's impossible to know."

Betfair can put a figure on the business they did since Staunton's departure. "The total traded volume on our website was €6,355,000, half of it from Ireland, the other half from the UK and elsewhere - but to put that in context, £7 million (€9.4 million) was bet in a fortnight on the Newcastle job, after Sam Allardyce was sacked. Even that paled next to the £18 million (€24.1 million) gambled on the Portsmouth job in 2005, when Harry Redknapp returned to the club."

Much of the bookies' activities through the saga raised a smile or two, not least the endless flow of press releases announcing a surge of bets on one candidate or another. A profitable spell, then, for the industry. Time for a holiday, Paddy Power? "That would be nice, but I can't move - I'm up to my knees in €50 notes," he said.

Boylesports? You hit the jackpot?"

"Yeah, but we're set to lose a five figure sum if Dustin the Turkey wins the National Song Contest. We quoted him at 33 to 1, and the bets have been flooding in ever since."

The revenge of the punters? Go on Dustin, ya good thing.