Bizarre Sport Betting, Paul the Octopus
Betting has been a part of sports for as long as anyone can remember. People have always been trying to use something that will give them an edge in betting and now it seems they have turned to using animals. With the sheer amount of money involved in the betting industry people are using animals to try and get some help to pick winners and make money for themselves.
The history of betting in sports seems to have started when sports became popular. It seems betting started out in the late 1800s with the rising popularity of baseball. Sports betting then came into an organised form with the rise of horse racing. People realised that they could make some money by picking the winner in a horse race and bookmakers were set up and betting got a structure. From then on the sports betting industry just grew and grew. Today the state of Nevada alone takes in $2 billion a year and the worldwide online betting industry is worth more than $63 billion a year. With this amount of money involved, people are bound to start using strange techniques to help them win.
One of the stranger techniques out there to predict a winner is to use animals. The current World Cup has seen the re-emergence of an animal star in the form of Paul, the octopus. In Germany, people have set up two jars in Paul's tank and they put flags of the two countries playing in either jar and Paul then picks a mussel from one of them. Whichever box he picks the mussel out of people assume that team is going to win. The octopus is pretty accurate; he has a record of being right 70% of the time. Over the years though he has been wrong, he got it wrong a few times during Euro 2008. He has picked Spain to win in the second semi final against Germany.
Other animals have been used over the years to pick winners. A camel was allegedly used to pick the winner in American football games and it was pretty accurate. A couple in the States have used their dogs to pick NFL winners in the past, but they have not been right too often. Sometimes using animals in betting becomes extremely bizarre like the case of people in South Africa cooking and eating the brains of vultures to help them pick a winner. This practise is an ancient form of magic used by traditional people in the country to help them predict the future. Whether it works or not is not known but it just shows to what lengths people will go to find out who will win a contest. We should all feel bad for the poor vultures in this case.
Another interesting method of trying to predict the winners in sports matches is by using mathematical formulas. In America an assistant professor at NJIT named Bruce Bukiet, has used formulas to predict the winners of baseball games with uncanny accuracy. Most people would not be able to understand the formula or be able to use it so it is best left to the experts and scientists. Another team of scientists has figured out that predicting the outcome of any football match is just a matter of applying a formula to the goal difference of each team and seeing which team will win. We can all probably hear the hardcore betting people out there rushing to find out what the formula is. Again it is pretty complicated and probably best left to the experts.
People go a little crazy when they bet on teams or sporting competitions. It can become an addiction and people can lose their homes, their life savings and everything they own in the pursuit of a game of chance and luck. Maybe this is why people have now turned to animals to help them make the hard decisions for them. If they pick a wrong team and lose all their money, they have only themselves to blame but if they get an animal to do it for them then they can blame the poor animal.
Betting will be around for as long as sports will be around. The two of them cannot be separated and because of this fact and the huge amounts of money involved, people will find newer and crazier ways to help them pick winners. Let's hope it stays civilised and does not stray into the realm of brain eating.
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