Betting Stories: Sky Bet rub their hands as Dominic Calvert-Lewin fires a blank at St Mary's

How's your luck

Dominic Calvert-Lewin became the THIRD striker to do Sky Bet a favour when he failed to register one shot on target during Everton's 2-0 defeat to Southampton on Sunday.

The Leeds-based bookie have recently composed a series of price boosts, bumping up the odds to even-money for some of the division's most lethal front men to find the target with an effort at least once during a game. 

Earlier this month, Sky Bet offered odds of 1/1 (Evens) for Jamie Vardy to register one or more shots on target against West Ham, which on paper sounded like printing money but after a terrible team performance, where Vardy was completely ineffective during a 3-0 loss to the resurgent Hammers on home soil, it lost. 

This weekend they were at it again, and again West Ham were involved as Sky Bet priced up Manchester City's Sergio Aguero to have 1+ shot on target against David Moyes' side in Saturday's early kick-off. This bet, like the Vardy one a few weeks back, looked safe as houses. Aguero may have only just returned to the fold following a lengthy lay-off through injury, but he is still one of the best in the business when it comes to scoring goals.

Usually around the 1/10 mark for a striker of his calibre to find the target just once during a game, Sky again offered customers a delicious boost, pricing the Argentine up at Evens for 1+ SOT at the Etihad. Thousands of punters would have jumped at this, only for Aguero to put in an extremely underwhelming performance where he failed to even register a shot off target, let alone on target. 

By this point, Sky must be feeling very smug. So they test their luck again and price up man of the moment Dominic Calvert-Lewin - the division's joint-top scorer with seven goals in five games prior to this weekend - at even-money to register just one shot on target against Southampton. I looked at this and uttered the words "that surely cannot lose" - and I'm sure I wasn't alone. 

Just like the Vardy and Aguero bet before, hundreds of thousands of customers would have had a dabble on this 'foolproof' bet, only for the 23-year-old to have an absolute stinker on the south coast, barely touch the ball, get booked and fail to take a shot on or off target, in turn making Sky Bet incredibly happy (and rich).

Funny old game, betting. Just a week on from losing a reported £1 million on the 66/1 'return the favour' special after Harry Kane and Son Heung-min destroyed West Ham inside 8 minutes (we won't mention what happened next), the bookies were back on top thanks to three misfiring front men.

Whatever next?