Having already suffered heavy losses earlier in the month, the big football favourites continued to deliver on Monday with 15 of the firm’s 18 best-backed teams winning their games.

In meant a loss of more than £8million on the day as punters claimed belated Christmas presents.

The situation would have deepened had Newcastle beaten Sheffield Wednesday in the late televised game but the visitors managed to grab a 1-0 win, much to bookmakers’ relief.

mercurial vapor v red Sky Bet’s head of public relations Sandro Di Michele said: “December is the worst month in living memory for bookmakers and had it not been for Newcastle this would have been the worst day in the company’s history and probably the industry.

“Some people moan about getting socks for Christmas but we didn’t even get those!”

superfly v red The firm’s popular Soccer Special Price Boost was among the reasons for the losses.

The London win treble of Arsenal, Chelsea and West Ham has been enhanced from 4/1 to 6/1 and all three duly won to leave the Leeds-based bookmakers crying into their festive food.

With Chelsea cruising to a 3-0 win over Bournemouth and West Ham dismissing struggling Swansea 4-1, it was a late goal by Arsenal’s Olivier Giroud which proved decisive.

West Brom held the Gunners goalless for 86 minutes before Giroud headed the Gunners’ winner.

mercurial superfly cr7 blue Di Michele added: “It was another Christmas present for backers of the SSPB as we paid out again.

“It’s the third consecutive set of fixtures that the Soccer Saturday or Soccer Special Price Boost has landed and all we can do is congratulate customers and wish them a very merry Christmas.”

Meanwhile, the special £1million jackpot in the Soccer Saturday Super 6 game was not won.

elastico superfly black Three players split the £10,000 consolation prize. They were Ross Douglas, from Motherwell, Jonathan Boyd, from Jersey, and Michael Heald, from Barnoldswick in Lancashire.

16+ PureChaos white The trio all corrected predicted four scorelines and two results for a score of 24 points and also nailed the right golden goal time of 13 minutes.

West Ham’s 4-1 win over Swansea provided the biggest blow to the jackpot hopes, although more than 1,000 players still plumped for that scoreline.