Leicester's fairy tale saddles bookmakers with biggest loss in Premier League history

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REUTERS - The bookmaking industry faces its biggest loss in Premier League history with Leicester City just one win away from clinching a shock first title, major bookmaker William Hill said on Tuesday.

So unexpected was their title chase that William Hill had quoted Leicester as 5,000-1 outsiders at the start of the season. Now the loss to bookmakers stands at some 10 million pounds ($14.55 million), William Hill said in a statement.

A man from Guildford, England stands to earn the highest individual payout after he wagered 75 pounds at 1,500-1 just a few weeks into the campaign, it said. He has not cashed out and so now stands to win 112,500 pounds.

In total, William Hill face a final payout of a little over three million pounds if Leicester beat Manchester United at Old Trafford on Sunday.

"We stand to lose a small fortune if Leicester do what everybody must now be expecting them to do. 5,000-1 is the biggest priced winner in betting history!" William Hill spokesman Joe Crilly said.

($1 = 0.6874 pounds)

(Reporting by Shravanth Vijayakumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Mark Heinrich)