This came in a soccer betting newsletter I subscribe to...made me smile, thought you all might enjoy it too.
GREAT BETS OF OUR TIME
Remember that scene in 'Only Fools & Horses' when Del Boy and Rodney had a double headed coin and lost ?200 after calling 'tails'? Not the greatest bet ever struck was it? After watching that episode for the 348th time it occurred to me there must have been plenty of other ridiculous bets over the years.
Of course there has been plenty of instances when gamblers have wagered on raindrops running down a window or which fly would land on a table first. Come on, admit it, we've all done it! Internet gamblers have had the chance in the past year to bet on Hamster or snail racing but the antics of some of our brethren are so ridiculous, not to mention bizarre, they need to be recorded.
Possibly the most infamous wager ever recorded was in the nineteenth century when two gentlemen played a friendly game of golf. The loser was to forfeit his life, which the hapless Sir David Moncreiffe duly did. And footballers today talk about pressure.......Not quite so drastic are the bets on Tiger Woods to become US President at odds of 1000-1. Punters who took those odds may be on a good thing as Woods is now in to 250-1, I mean, whose finger would you rather have hovering over the button, Bush jnr or Tiger?
The number of people willing to bet that Elvis is alive is staggering. I imagine one of those eager punters is the poor deluded soul who has turned
their house, near Orients Brisbane Road ground, into a shrine to the 'King'. They may even be the person behind the most outlandish bet I've ever heard of. You can get odds of around 15 million to one that Elvis will be the pilot of a UFO which crashes onto the Loch Ness monster. Honest. You think I'm making this up don't you?
Away from Elvis, currently working as a turnstile operator at Cresty Road, people love to bet on themselves. A guy called Paul Khanna has placed a bet at 10 million to one that he will live to be 127 years old. What a birthday party that will be! Plenty of others have backed themselves to reach 100 and some have even lived to pick up their winnings. Most haven't been so lucky.
Examples of ridiculous bets are legion, too many to include here, but probably the most absurd happened just a couple of weeks ago. A punter
staked ?10,000 at half time that Spurs, leading 3-0, would go on to beat Manchester United. Taking odds of 1/16 the punter stood to collect just
?625 profit for his mammoth wager against the champions. Of course United stormed back to win 5-3 to leave the bookies toasting themselves in champagne and the bettor, ten grand out of pocket, to reflect that the wifes idea of putting the money into the building society wasn't such a bad one after all.
Kron
GREAT BETS OF OUR TIME
Remember that scene in 'Only Fools & Horses' when Del Boy and Rodney had a double headed coin and lost ?200 after calling 'tails'? Not the greatest bet ever struck was it? After watching that episode for the 348th time it occurred to me there must have been plenty of other ridiculous bets over the years.
Of course there has been plenty of instances when gamblers have wagered on raindrops running down a window or which fly would land on a table first. Come on, admit it, we've all done it! Internet gamblers have had the chance in the past year to bet on Hamster or snail racing but the antics of some of our brethren are so ridiculous, not to mention bizarre, they need to be recorded.
Possibly the most infamous wager ever recorded was in the nineteenth century when two gentlemen played a friendly game of golf. The loser was to forfeit his life, which the hapless Sir David Moncreiffe duly did. And footballers today talk about pressure.......Not quite so drastic are the bets on Tiger Woods to become US President at odds of 1000-1. Punters who took those odds may be on a good thing as Woods is now in to 250-1, I mean, whose finger would you rather have hovering over the button, Bush jnr or Tiger?
The number of people willing to bet that Elvis is alive is staggering. I imagine one of those eager punters is the poor deluded soul who has turned
their house, near Orients Brisbane Road ground, into a shrine to the 'King'. They may even be the person behind the most outlandish bet I've ever heard of. You can get odds of around 15 million to one that Elvis will be the pilot of a UFO which crashes onto the Loch Ness monster. Honest. You think I'm making this up don't you?
Away from Elvis, currently working as a turnstile operator at Cresty Road, people love to bet on themselves. A guy called Paul Khanna has placed a bet at 10 million to one that he will live to be 127 years old. What a birthday party that will be! Plenty of others have backed themselves to reach 100 and some have even lived to pick up their winnings. Most haven't been so lucky.
Examples of ridiculous bets are legion, too many to include here, but probably the most absurd happened just a couple of weeks ago. A punter
staked ?10,000 at half time that Spurs, leading 3-0, would go on to beat Manchester United. Taking odds of 1/16 the punter stood to collect just
?625 profit for his mammoth wager against the champions. Of course United stormed back to win 5-3 to leave the bookies toasting themselves in champagne and the bettor, ten grand out of pocket, to reflect that the wifes idea of putting the money into the building society wasn't such a bad one after all.
Kron
