I have an online betting account
that I opened two years ago when I discovered that we live five miles from the
nearest betting shop and I wanted to back a “sure thing” that I had been tipped
in the Grand National. I put £5 each-way
on ‘Pineau De Re’ and it won at 25/1. That was nice!
I left my winnings from that
race in the account and I have only dipped into it once or twice since. My winnings have just sat there being slowly
eroded by inflation.
On Grand National Saturday two
weeks ago, my daughter and her family were staying with us on a visit from
Yorkshire. They invited friends from
London to come up with their three children to spend a day with us in the
country. I cooked lunch.
After lunch was finished and
cleared away, they all decided to go for a walk but I wasn’t going to go and I
told them why:
“It’s the Grand National this
afternoon and a friend of mine has given me a few horses that may have a
chance,” I explained. “I’m going to place
a couple of bets and watch the race on television.”
Suddenly, their walk was
cancelled. A gambling fever hit the five
of them. Caroline wasn’t going to miss
an opportunity to win money rather than relief from a household chore which is
all she gets nowadays when she wins a bet. (Click to see, "You Betcha")
They had a great time choosing
what horses to back. I’m not sure of the
criteria they used but Lucy, my daughter who is a teacher, chose ‘Morning
Assembly’ while David, her husband, selected ‘Rocky Creek’. I think that was because they have a dog
called Rocky but David denied it vehemently.
Caroline assured me emphatically
that her choice of ‘Gallant Oscar’ was certainly not because we have a nephew
called Oscar but because she had very carefully studied his past form.
I suggested to my daughter’s
friend, Amber, that perhaps her selection of ‘Onenightinvienna’ was not based
on any deep thought at all, because only an hour earlier she had been telling
us about the weekend she had recently spent in Vienna. She refuted that and insisted that it was a selection
based on a mixture of perception, judgement and intuition.
Ten minutes before the “off” I
asked if they were all done. “No,” said
Caroline “Five pounds each-way on ‘Ucello Conti’. I’ve got a feeling”. After a little light pressure from me, she finally
admitted that her feeling was because of the ventriloquist Nina Conti whom
Caroline thinks is very funny.
I acted as their bookmaker and
placed their bets on my online account. I
put more than £200 on 11 different horses, some of which were backed by more
than one person. The shortest price was
8-1 and the longest was 50-1. I told
Amber that if Le Reve won at 50-1, she’d have to wait for her winnings because
I didn’t have three hundred pounds in cash.
Then I started to collect their
money. “Sixty pounds please Tim.”
“No, that’s not right,” he
said. “I just backed three horses.”
“Yes,” I said, “and you put ten
pounds each-way on all three.”
“Three tens are thirty,” said
Tim.
“Yes, but three twenties are
sixty and so that’s sixty pounds please.”
Then I had to explain once again
that ten pounds each-way means ten pounds on the win and ten pounds on the
place. That means twenty pounds in total
for the ten pounds each-way bet.
Amber wasn’t happy. “I told you a pound maximum,” she grumbled at
Tim.
“Don’t worry,” I said, trying to
reassure her, “two of the three horses that Tim has picked are horses I was
tipped by my friend and he really does know what he’s talking about. One of them is the favourite and I reckon
that at least one of them will finish in the first five so even if you do lose,
you won’t lose all the sixty pounds.”
“You can’t be sure though can
you?”
“No, of course I can’t be sure but
you will be very unlucky indeed if all three of them fail,” I said.
Things started badly. In fact, it couldn’t have been much worse as ‘Hadrian’s
Approach’ unseated its rider at the first fence and at the second fence, both ‘First
Lieutenant’ and ‘Holywell’ fell.
The Grand National takes about
10 minutes to run and you usually get to hear your selection called by the
commentator at least once. However, our
horses never seemed to get a mention. The
first time that ‘Gallant Oscar’ was mentioned was when it was pulled up at the
18th fence.
An air of gloomy disbelief
pervaded the room as ‘Druids Nephew’ was pulled up at the 21st and
then ‘Onenightinvienna’ unseated its rider at 22nd.
The eventual outcome was a
statistical phenomenon.
Not one of our 11 selections was placed! Only four of our eleven horses completed the
course. Ucello Conti was the most “successful” finishing sixth. The other three were
eighth, eleventh and sixteenth.
The probability of any one of 11
randomly selected horses finishing in the first 5 places in a 39 horse race is
just over 75%. Probability of 100% means
that an event is certain to happen. A
probability of 0% means that it can never happen and so a 75% probability means
that it is much more likely to happen than not.
We would have done better if we had been blindfolded and had
chosen the horses with a pin – probably!
We certainly couldn’t have done
worse.
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