Given a closed Riemann surface $Σ$ equipped with a volume form $ω$, we construct a natural probability measure on the space $\mathcal{M}_d(Σ)$ of degree $d$ branched coverings from $Σ$ to the Riemann sphere $\mathbb{C}\mathbb{P}^1.$ We prove a large deviations principle for the number of critical points in a given open set $U\subset Σ$: given any sequence $ε_d$ of positive numbers, the probability that the number of critical points of a branched covering deviates from $2d\cdot\textrm{Vol}(U)$ more than $ε_d$ is smaller than $\exp(-C_Uε^3_d d)$, for some positive constant $C_U$. In particular, the probability that a covering does not have any critical point in a given open set goes to zero exponential fast with the degree.