Movie star Tom Hanks has made an incredible (and quite possibly false) claim that he predicted Leicester City Football Club to win the English Premier League this season.

The 59 year old Hollywood A-lister is famous for many things over his lengthy career, but his knowledge of English top flight football hasn’t been one of them – until now, possibly. The actor, at the premiere of his new movie Hologram For the King, boldly stated he had placed a £100 bet on rank outsiders Leicester City to win the English title at the start of the season. Which would make him the greatest clairvoyant who ever lived.

Tom HanksTom Hanks claims he put a £100 bet on Leicester City to win the title

“At the start of the season I put £100 on Leicester, so I think I’ll do OK,” Hanks can be heard stating in a clip from ITN on Monday evening (April 25th). Er, really?

The Midlands team, nicknamed the Foxes, have captured the imaginations of sports fans around the world this season. Having narrowly avoided relegation last year, the unfancied outsiders have defied odds of 5,000/1 to stand on the brink of winning the Premier League, needing just three points from the remaining nine available.

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Bookmakers are rumoured to be in line to lose approximately £10 million if they achieve it, in pay-outs to wildly optimistic Leicester supporters who put a casual £5 on their team (probably out of tradition) eight months ago. But a £100 bet would generate winnings of half a million pounds for Hanks – so, was he really that confident?

“Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t,” he backtracked slightly. Ah, so the truth outs – not the kind of thing you say if you really did make a bet of that sort. He added: “You can find somebody, you know, someone local up there who decided to put £25 on their local football club and they’d be millionaires!”

Meanwhile, Hanks is ruminating on the disastrous performance of his own team Aston Villa, whom he supports. Asked about their recent relegation from the top flight, their first in 29 seasons, he told BBC Radio 5Live: “Listen. Rooting for a football team is a life lesson, the ups are ups and the downs are downs, you've just got to roll with them.”

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