One of the most incredible gambles in recent football history was under way last night as an unprecedented amount of cash was wagered on one of today's minor Scottish games. This prompted initial fears in gambling industry circles that a fix was on the cards.

The money came pouring in, both in high street chains and on betting exchanges, for Peterhead to beat Forfar this afternoon in the Scottish Second Division. Typically such fixtures would attract a few thousand pounds, or even figures in the low hundreds. But by 8.30pm last night, pounds 187,000 had been staked by punters on the Betfair exchange alone. Of this, pounds 185,000 had beenbeton Peterhead to win the game.
To put this in context, by the same stage last night, today's high-profile lunchtime game in the Premiership - Bolton Wanderers against Liverpool - had attracted pounds 77,000 from Betfair punters, while pounds 71,000 had been bet on Charlton v Arsenal and pounds 7,000 on Sheffield United v Middlesbrough.

By any standards, the gamble on Peterhead, backed down from just under evens to 1/2 by late last night, was huge.

One credible explanation for the rush of money on Peterhead is that Forfar are in the midst of such a debilitating injury crisis that their manager, George Shaw, has had to list himself as a trial- ist to make up the numbers. Forfar are second bottom of the division and Peterhead only one place higher, but such is the lack of manpower at the former that punters evidently believe the game is a gimme.