* H1 operating profit up by a better-than-expected 34 pct
* Full-year consensus seen rising 5-8 pct
* Boosted by favourable results in soccer offsets (Adds comments by CEO, analysts, share price)
By Paul Sandle
LONDON, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Soccer club Leicester City'sfairy-tale triumph in the English Premier League and surprisingresults in the European Championship boosted first-half profitsat Ladbrokes and put it on track to beat expectationsfor the year.
The Premier League victory by the 5,000-1 outsiders costLadbrokes about 3 million pounds ($4 million), it said onThursday, but the triumphs of Leicester and other underdogsthrough the season cost many more customers their bets on thelikelier winners.
The bookmakers' wins in soccer more than offset the worstresults on record for bookmakers at the Cheltenham Festivalhorse races in March and a string of wins by the favourites atRoyal Ascot in June.
Leicester's victory had also reinvigorated the market, ChiefExecutive Jim Mullen said, with fans backing other unfavouredteams in the hope that lightning strikes twice.
"History would strongly dictate that such a run of resultsin our favour would see customer staking suffer, butencouragingly these numbers firmly buck that trend and combinestrong staking and a good margin," he said.
"All 500-1 and above shots were about 10 percent of ourstakes. It's now 30 percent because of Leicester, so all thefans of Middlesbrough and Burnley are getting on," he said.
Shares in the British bookmaker were up nearly 4 percent at144 pence by 1110 GMT, as analysts at Deutsche Bank said marketforecasts for full-year operating profit were likely to increase5-8 percent.
"Favourable gross margins (football good, horses bad) do notfully explain the strong performance. We think this underscoresincreased confidence in the underlying Ladbrokes' marketing andproduct offer," they said.
Mullen also said the company has been investing in newproducts and increased marketing online and in its betting shopsahead of its 2.3 billion-pound merger with rival Coral, whichwas approved last month.
The groups have to sell 350-400 of their shops before thedeal goes ahead to satisfy the competition regulator but Mullensaid he hoped to complete the disposals by the end of September.
Ladbrokes operates around 2,227 betting shops in the UK andCoral around 1,850.
Mullen said he was particularly pleased with the performanceof its in-store business in the first half. "If you have theright product, the right environment and customer service thatis best in sector, it will come through in the customer metric,and we are now seeing OTC (over-the-counter) staking up 1.3percent," he said.
The group's operating profit in the half year was up 34percent at 52.3 million pounds, beating UBS's forecast of 49million pounds, on revenue 13 percent higher at 661.8 millionpounds.
The company said the consensus market forecast for itsfull-year operating profit was 95.5 million pounds beforeThursday's results. ($1 = 0.7510 pounds) (Editing by Greg Mahlich)