Gam Bling

We’ll take a half-time break from my Group Guide to chuck in an article on gambling. I wont have the group guide finished before the first match as originally planned, but will post Groups E,F,G,H within the next week. I hope you have found them educational, especially the information on random porn stars (did you also know that Stephen Clancy Hill played Barrack Obama in a “Nailin’ Palin” porno?).

Last World Cup I placed a heap of small bets on the games I watched – about 14 bets in total ranging from first goal scorer to final score. None of these bets were actually winners, but the final 5 quid bet I placed on the final game came agonizingly close to giving me a 250 pound win. You can relive that exciting post by clicking here, and holy shit, the shoddy blog has been running for so long now that I can reference posts from last World Cup.

I decided to take a different route this year, and outlay $125 right at the start and leave it at that. The bets are as follows:

The Patriotic Bets:

These bets are unlikely, but bare large dividends and give me that soothing feeling of having put some cash on the home side:

Outright Winner: $5 for Australia to win (fuck it, why not): pays $505 (I did this a few weeks ago so got 101 to 1, odds have since dropped to 81 to 1)

Group Exacta: $10 Germany to finish the group stage first, and Australia second: pays $70

Stage of Elimination: $10 Australia to be eliminated in the Quarter Final (and thus go one round further than their last World Cup effort): pays $120. Unlikely, but once again: fuck it, why not?

The Big Bet:

I wanted to place a larger bet that would run for most of the World Cup, one that had multiple options and would keep me involved once Australia have dropped out (which could happen as early as the first round) and England have fucked up the penalty shoot out (which could happen early in the piece as well). I heard you could bet on a past winner winning again and was interested in that bet, as that would give me seven teams (including three of the top four favourites) – but that was only paying 1.67 to 1.

Instead, I’ve gone practically the opposite route – and put $100 on “the field” against the top four favourites at 2.2 to 1.

So if Spain, Brazil, Argentina or England don’t win the World Cup, I’ll win $220. I now have 28 teams to follow, and what I would like to happen is a top four team to face one of “the field” in the final, giving me a financial interest in the entire run of the World Cup tournament.

That’s me chatting with an Eskimo made out of Calamari rings. The Eskimo has a point though, it seems a little redundant to follow a team, but then bet against them. But I’m always doing shit like that, I’m more into gambling for the new slant it puts on situations rather than financial windfalls. It’s been a useful hobby considering the lousy year the Crows have been having, you can still pay attention to the game due to your bets on margins and goal kickers, even when the Crows are getting their arses kicked. Fuck it, I’d be happy to see England win even if it means the 100 buck wager fails anyway.

That’s enough chatting about the subject anyway. There’s probably more than a few of you who have no interest in sports or gambling, so here’s a picture I found of the Futurama characters turned into The X-Men. Click to enlarge.

Gottabecarl is responsible for this, Zoidberg-Wolverine FTW