Learned at a young age
I learned to beware of lotteries and the like with the example of my uncle when I was but a young colt.
At the time, the local Tattslotto was 6 numbers out of 40, instead of 45 as it is these days. My uncle somehow got in touch with someone who had a system, and needed enough investors to buy enough tickets to take it on. My uncle put in a few thousand, enough for a decent car in those days, and he was nowhere near the biggest investor. A truckload of tickets were purchased from all over the city, with the carefully worked out spreads of numbers to maximise the winnings. The odds were something like 50% chance of a moderate gain, 49% chance of a big gain. If they only did moderately well, or just got their money back, it would all be put in again for another go.
Saturday night rolled around, the numbers were drawn, the team of counters began going through the tickets.
By Monday, it was starting to go wrong.
By Wednesday, they knew it was going really wrong.
By Friday, they'd finished counting, and figured out that one of the worst possible combinations of numbers for their system had come up. The chances of losing that badly were 1 in 2 million. My uncle got back $120 from his few thousand.
(ShowPony, Tue 12 May 2009, 12:50, 8 replies)

Good luck somes with small stakes
i have an old family friend, pretty well off, but loved a gamble on the horses. He read the form and went to the bookies everyday. Now, i found this out well after he died - his bets were never over 20p. This wasn't during the blitz - about 1990 onwards.

He generally spend no more than a £1, didn't do accumulators or anything fancy. Just 5 or 6 small bets on the nose. He knew if he put hundreds on, they wouldn't come in. But in all seriousness he would get something like a 50% success rate, almost daily, and certainly over a number of years.

Amazing realy. Racing pundits would be really happy to have that sort of record. He was happy to have won. The money just didn't mean anything.

When it means little, it often comes in. When it means more - in my experience anyway - it very rarely does.

Same fella decided not to buy 2 scratchcards, just the one in the end, in woolies only to see the next card out win £50k (max prize). I was more gutted for him than he was! It still bites me how close he was.

Shame he couldn't predict the heart attack that killed him, but life is surely no fun if you are right all the time.
( bazza van der trance , ooh baby baby, baby baby. Get up on this., Tue 12 May 2009, 12:34, 2 replies)

Plain bad luck
www.studentbrakeaway.com

The above address will take you to the website of the student brake away formerly known as the student gumball rally. An awesome adventure drive around europe with 500+ students.

In 2007, 2 friends and I created 'Team Top Gun' and had an amazing time.

The tour was a 6 night organized event and then you make your own way back home. Many teams encountered problems whereby their cars broke down, they were jailed for speeding or just too drunk to drive.

Our problem came on the way home. due to the stupid french prices for petrol and spending too much money on drinking till 5 in the morning, we had run out of money. Luckily, we managed to get ourselves into a really cheap cockroach infected hostel in Nice for 2 days and time to evaluate our options on the best way home. After much deliberation we decided to use the remaining petrol in the tank and our last few quid on driving to monte carlo and trying to win enough money in the casino's to get back to blighty.

We had success on the Top Gun themed fruit machines and the black jack table and won that money to get home.

However, some people know when to quit, one of the lads...Pete doesnt. On the way back to Nice, James and I decided to go and sit in a nice little bar by the beach and chat to the french women as best we could. Pete had 'the bug' and took himself and a small amount of money to another casino.

He came back and hour later, slumped over to us looking like a wounded animal.

"Did you win Pete?"

"Yes" he replied unexpectedly " Im €50 up"

" Whats wrong then? "

" well... There I was, sitting at my fruit machine slowly winning the odd euro here and there and quite happy to do so. Along comes an old French Woman, nods a 'bonjour' my way, sits on the fruit machine next to me, rolls once.... and wins the fucking jackpot in a blaze of flashing lights and sirens"

"Shit mate...bad luck....how much was the jackpot?"

"...40 fucking thousand fucking euros"

It turns out that Pete was centimetres away from winning €40,000. Plain Bad Luck! Just dont make him tell the story again. He hates it!
(Eggstrovert isnt patronising you...honest..., Tue 12 May 2009, 12:07, 1 reply)

Croupiers
Any croupier that say they don't gamble is a liar.
After being exposed to vast sums of money being won and lost - it all becomes a bit meaningless and it's hard not to get involved.
Also, any croupier that says they don't enjoy taking money from punters is also a liar.
Generally, we want your money, as quickly as possible. Not everybody, but at least 95% of the clientele.

Especially when you bring your lucky beads to the table.
Or swear at us in Arabic - yes, we know what it means, but we've still got your money...
Or shout that it's all a fix - even though you're pouring your last coppers on to the table and have been playing for 6 hours.

Talking big and acting smug, abusing the staff and tipping the waitresses a fiver does not make you cool.
Losing 100 grand* on one hand of cards, not even breaking sweat and shrugging your shoulders, even though your stomach will be churning at 200mph. That's cool.

Great job though.


*Well, it was 100 grand NZ, but still...
( scoshi pretending to diet since, Tue 12 May 2009, 10:42, Reply)

da lottery
right then i'm notoriously pish with numbers but here goes...

i am told that putting on 2 lottery lines has hardly any bearing on shifting the odds in your favour.

but lets say you put the SAME numbers on on TWICE - if you do win and its split between say, 3 winning tickets - you get not one but TWO shares of the jackpot! so not only do you win the lottery, you win it TWICE in one week AND seriously piss on the other winners chips.

warrafuckingcant!
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Tue 12 May 2009, 10:11, 14 replies)

I was the class twat at school.
As such, I'd accept just about any bet, for the prize of a chocolate bar. Marathon being the fave, until they changed the name to Snickers. WTF was that all about.
Some embarrassing ones.
Pouring lighter fuel over my hand, setting it alight and putting my hand up to ask an intelligent - ha - question. Trouble is, this is only "safe" for a few seconds, then it burns you. I dunno, ask a physics person. Mr Smaller's face was a picture though. Detention.
Going up to Mr Hopkins, standing on one leg, pointing at him and saying "Ha, small cock." Cane.
Miss can't remember har name was the French teacher, who was up the duff. One of the girls ran a lottery, as to what she was having, boy or girl. Soppy cow. I wrote "abortion," and reduced her to tears. Not nice.
I always got my nutty chocolate goodness though.
(Bear Pookie The Frankly Challenged. Halloween is coming to town., Tue 12 May 2009, 9:35, Reply)

My most memorable gambling moment
This big bloke said to me once:

"I know what you're thinking. 'Did he fire six shots or only five?' Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?"

"Hell yes" said I, and Chuck Norrised him the fuck out.
( enoughblueskyforsailorstrousers, Tue 12 May 2009, 9:02, Reply)

A guy where I work has a sure-fire way of winning the lottery.
It's a guarntied winner.

You pick 9 numbers, in this example, we'll pick 1-9, so you do the following lines
1,2,3,4,5,6
1,2,3,4,5,7
1,2,3,4,5,8
1,2,3,4,5,9

1,2,3,4,6,7
1,2,3,4,7,6
1,2,3,4,8,6
1,2,3,4,9,6

...etc, basicly, every single combination.

Then if you get 3 numbers, you'll get it about 10 times.
Then if you get 4 numbers, you'll get that 1 time, and 3 numbers 13 times.

The numbers I've come up with here are wrong, but you get the idea. He said he spends about £30 each week doing this system.

He still works works with me, so I guess it hasn't worked yet, but it's still a "guarntied winner"... "I'll do you a favour, if you want, i'll let you in 50/50.".
( G/PP 💩💩💩💩💩&#128, Tue 12 May 2009, 8:30, 7 replies)

Grand National.
Every year I play the grand national, spend about £20, over 10ish horses, and every year I'm pleased if I get half of it back.

I always anounce "I've lost the wife, she's taken the kids, going to have to remortgage the house, I'm in it bad to the loan sharks, and I'ld be lucky if I can afford a pot noodle for dinner.".
( G/PP 💩💩💩💩💩&#128, Tue 12 May 2009, 8:20, Reply)

Prague
I decided to explore Prague with a good friend of mine called Chris money was tight so we shared a twin room in a hotel on the outskirts of the city.
This meant that we had to be back at the hotel by midnight if we wanted to use the subway, Taxis were a no go because of the cost.
The hotel was quite posh and we had got a good deal so it was cheap it had all the facilities you would expect a international hotel to have, including a casino.
We get back to the hotel and I head for the bar, after a few beers Chris heads for the casino, I go back to the room.
at 6am I was awoken by Chris coming in he headed straight for the bathroom, threw up, then walked into the room and straight to bed.
I thought that can't be good. after leaving him for a few hours i quizzed him on how much he lost.
He had been playing blackjack all night and won about 150,000 Czech Koruny (£5,000)
( Terry Oblong There's nobody here but us chickens on, Tue 12 May 2009, 1:48, Reply)

The Ferrari bet.
The Ferrari bet is simple - in the car - you state who ever spots a Ferrari (can insert colour if in nice areas) does so and so - ours is always buys first round...

Hey it's not lame...
(feedingtimeatthezoo day 1 of his bikini diet started, Tue 12 May 2009, 1:37, 2 replies)

...
I farted my way out of an elevator once
(Agent Dale Pooper k in the p, Tue 12 May 2009, 1:31, Reply)

Freshman year in college
My friends bet me that I couldn't drink half a glass of a concoction of their creation - if I did, they would pay my way into a movie we were planning to see that night.

So, because we were at the dining hall, they unfortunately had many food options to choose from.

Thus, I was to drink a liquid mixture which included (but was not limited to): milk, vanilla ice cream, ground pepper, fish sticks, vinaigrette dressing, lettuce, and mayonnaise. There was probably more, but I honestly don't remember - however, I do know that the end result looked and tasted like the stuff that leaks out when you find a hole in the trash bag as you're emptying the week's garbage. Or, at least that's what I imagine said liquid to taste like.

I did manage to drink half of the mixture, which won me a free ticket to see the Fantastic Four. Looking back, I'm not sure which atrocity was more difficult to digest.
(juliajuliajulia, Mon 11 May 2009, 23:57, Reply)

I'm rather glad
I put a couple of quid on Newcastle staying up this year. Should net me a few quid :)

Hopefully, of course.
( jim_bob can herd cats., Mon 11 May 2009, 23:29, 1 reply)

I'm a professional violinist.
My violin is a bit bushed-up and raggedy looking. This is because my great-great grandfather won it at cards in 1830, and it has been passed down the generations ever since.
If this was a story I'd go on to say that it turned out to be a priceless Strad. I wish.
Well, it's not priceless--far from it, but it has a lovely mellow tone that agrees with my sensibilities.
(It would be even better if my great aunt hadn't dropped it on the floor when she was six years old)
No idea where it came from before my relative won it though.
(TheWonderfulWombat It came to me in a dream., Mon 11 May 2009, 22:11, 2 replies)

I've never gambled
though i did once bet my friend at her uncle's wedding that she couldn't get her grandmother to dance to the song "Sexy Back". It was 20 bucks well spent. :D
(Phoenix211, Mon 11 May 2009, 21:49, Reply)

Wrestling
At University, I used to sit down with a bunch of friends for WWF/E Raw on a Friday night, betting pints on matches. No-one seemed to realised for three years that the show was shown on Monday in the US, with the results easily available on the new-fangled interweb.

Always remember, you have to lose a few to make it convincing.
( Rev. A-MOL is lurking around these parts again, Mon 11 May 2009, 19:53, Reply)

I once went to a US Naval Base
In the coastal town of Gunsan, South Korea for those in the know. I went to their slot machines room on base. I was the only one out of my friends gambling. I put a few quarters into a machine. I won $25 in quarters. I put a few more quarters into another machine. I won $30 in quarters.

I then felt a very large rough hand on my shoulder. I was then 'led' to the cashing up place by a burlesque Naval officer, had my quarters turned into notes, then told thank you but please fuck off and do not come back, you fucking limey scam artist.

I have never used slot machines before and I didn't even know what I was doing. I did turn the cash into some awesome taco bell though.
(powervator and NONE SHALL PASS, Mon 11 May 2009, 19:43, 9 replies)

Wacko-Jacko CHAMONE
My local coffee shop has been the source of much entertainment (and since I quit uni, employment) since it opened just over two years ago.

A small amount of background here, around January last year there was a competition between the regulars involving drinks stamps (i.e. you got a stamp every time you bought a drink, buy 9 get the 10th free etc) and the person with the most stamps at the end of the month won a £20 voucher for the shop. Here's the story of the most ridiculous thing I did to get just one stamp...

The normal challenges had all been done, like necking a cap-full of 1 million Scoville chilli sauce, asking the random girl who walked past every day inside for a drink (I got a 'Rejection' stamp for that one...), but this was by far the funniest and most outlandish: The Wacko-Jacko Chamone challenge.

The town in which the coffee shop is located (PeliDeli in Matlock, Derbyshire if you're wondering) centres around a large square with four corners of pavements connected by traffic lights, quite a distance really. The challenge was for somebody to do the moonwalk around the entire square, throwing in crotch-grabbing moves, hands in the air and "tee-hee!"s at entirely random moments, all the while listening to Michael Jackson on an iPod.

I did this one sunny January afternoon, got the stamp, plenty of funny looks and a video a complete stranger took including his classic commentary of "Is that guy on crack?!".

I didn't even win the £20 voucher for fuck's sake!
(CptFantastic stopped doing work on, Mon 11 May 2009, 19:38, 3 replies)

My granddad, on my dad's side, was a bookie from the 40s and 50s (and onwards).
When my dad was a young lad, around 13 or 14, he was working on the till, taking the bets. He was quite a cocky lad, so when an Irish man came in and betted a grand (a fortune in those days) on a [I've forgotten the name of it, but when you bet 10 to get 11, or soo... basiclly, shit odds] in some obscure race in Ireland, he proudly took on the bet.

In those days, if an Irishman put on that sort of bet, it was pretty much guaranteed to be a fixed race. He sent my Dad and all his brothers all the way up'n'down the east end to place the same bet in order to make up the inevitable loss.

They ended up making a fortune that night, and started doing that very often, they became known for becoming one of the only bookies that'll take that sort of bet on, and everyone made money.
( G/PP 💩💩💩💩💩&#128, Mon 11 May 2009, 19:20, Reply)

Travelling with the in-laws,
having just graduated from being a penniless student to starting to try and scratch a living in the world, I bought a lottery ticket. As is the tradition, I selected the numbers from various significant dates and places. I meant to use the wife's birthday for one of the numbers but accidentally used the ex-girlfriend's (one day difference between them). Four of the numbers came up (winning $60 or so I think). If I had got the right birthday, it would have been five, netting several thousand dollars. Everyone around me was pleased at the $60 win but I knew the shameful truth: I'd cost us a helpful boost to our early married life because I'd had my ex on my mind.
(aardvark_hunter, Mon 11 May 2009, 18:41, Reply)

From working in a Bookmakers.
About ten years ago, I worked in a small office of one of the larger bookmakers. From that time, there's a few tips I'd share with you to make your betting experience a better one.

- DON'T BET IN A BOOKMAKERS. Seriously, if you were buying a computer or something, you'd compare prices online, find the cheapest and then get it delivered. You wouldn't go to Currys and pick one in there, so why would you do the same with a bet? Decide what you're going to bet on, look at a few major sites, find the best odds and place your bet there. OddsChecker is a good site to shop around with.

- BET ON WHAT YOU KNOW. You'd think this would be an obvious one, but the number of people who came into the shop and didn't follow this was astounding. They'd come in at opening time, and place bets on whatever was running on the screens - horse racing, dogs, golf, football, whatever. A bet's essentially you pitting your knowledge against the bookmaker, so you want as much of an advantage as possible.

- DON'T BACK IF THE ODDS ARE BAD. If you think that half the time the team you're backing will win the match, and the odds are 4/5, then don't place the bet. You think it's going to come in one out of every two times, then less than evens (1/1) is a return that is worse than your prediction. Easier way to think about it is with a coin flip - the bookie is telling you that if the coin comes up heads you give him £10, but if it's tails he'll give you £8. See why it's dumb to not think about if the odds match your predictions?

- BET WITH YOUR HEAD, NOT YOUR HEART. I don't care if you're a fourth generation Wolves fan, you'd still be an idiot to put any money on them winning the Premier League next year. Relates to the above, if it's less than thousands and thousands to one for something that unlikely, then it's a dumb bet.

- THINK ABOUT ALL THE OUTCOMES. Number of bloody people who do this. If you back Newcastle to win tonight with one bookie, and Middlesbrough to win tonight with another, you can almost guarantee that the match'll be a draw. Don't be that idiot, think about everything that can happen.

- KNOW THE RULES. This is something that applies mainly to in shop betting, as most sites will cross check bets automatically, but it's not impossible for something to happen. Gambling debts are not legally enforceable, and the wagers are covered by the bookie's own rules. You'll find there are rules surrounding things like related contingencies, which is the main one. A related contingency is where the first bet in an accumulator affects the second one - like if you'd placed Barca to beat Chelsea in the semi-final, and Barca to win the Champions League before the semi. The odds at that point for Barca to win the whole thing are a combination of them winning the semi and the final, so putting that in an accumulator with them to win the semi would be in effect having the same bet twice in the accumulator. Don't think that if you get this past the assistant in a shop you'll get paid out on it either, there's also normally a rule that covers palpable error. If the shop assistant makes a mistake in taking your bet, then the bookie doesn't have to pay out.

- KNOW WHAT YOUR BET IS. Kind of goes with the above, but make sure you know what you're backing. Using the Champions League matches again, check to see if you're backing the result at 90 minutes, AET, for the full tie, or whatever. If you're betting in a shop, make the slip very, very, very clear. Because if you aren't, you run the risk of it being interpreted in some other way - a 90 minutes bet on a draw being settled as an AET draw when one team's won for example.

- STAGGER YOUR ACCUMULATORS AND LAY OFF. If you're putting together an accumulator, try to avoid having every result coming in at the same time. I'll use football as an example here because it works very well for it. If you place a £5 accumulator with four matches kicking off on a Saturday afternoon at 3pm, you're dependant on all four coming in at the same time, and have no control. However, let's say you have an accumulator with a Friday evening match, a Saturday afternoon and evening match, and one on Sunday. The Friday and Saturday results all go your way, and now you've got a £67 pay out riding on the Sunday result to win. You know what you do? No, you don't bloody pray for your team to win, you back the draw and the other team. If the odds for that are evens and you put £10 on them, you're going to be up either way. This is called laying off, and it'll save you money in the long term.

The last two are pretty simple, but are probably the most important. Take these with you if nothing else.

- THIS IS ENTERTAINMENT, NOT A MONEY MAKING ENTERPRISE. Working in that bookies, I reckon there were possibly three or four regular customers out of around 100 to 150 who actually made money. These were people with massive amounts of knowledge on the subjects they bet on, one was an ex-golfing pro for example. They weren't the average person walking in off the street. Again, it's pitting your knowledge against the bookmaker, that's all.

- DO NOT BET WHAT YOU CAN'T AFFORD TO LOSE. This is the saddest one to see people not following. Please don't go to bookies and put down money that you need to pay your rent, even if you know it's a sure tip that your mate gave you. What if this is the one time that it doesn't come in? Don't be the person who's standing there shell shocked, staring at the monitor after seeing the easy money favourite fall after they'd put the deposit for the flat you and your fiancée are buying on it (saw this). Set your limits and stick to them.











~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Couple of bonus semi-gambling related ones.

- DON'T EVER START PLAYING FRUIT MACHINES. Horribly addictive flashing lights and noises, with a sign on them telling you they will keep 30% of your money. I wish I had never ever played the damn things. Start playing them and you run the risk of putting money back in after winning £15, because you just really need to get that jackpot and see the lights all start flashing, really need to see it. Horrible, horrible things. Manage to go cold turkey for months at a time, and then end up playing one in a pub to kill time and get sucked back in. I need more willpower.

- IF YOU ARE EVER 14 YEARS OLD AND FIND A CHANGE MACHINE IN AN ARCADE ON A FERRY THAT WILL GIVE YOU £20 OF CHANGE WHEN YOU PUT A £10 NOTE IN IT AT EXACTLY THE TIME THE DISPLAY SHOWS WHAT YOU GET IF YOU PUT A £20 NOTE IN, THEN KEEP CHANGING THE COINS BACK UP FOR NOTES AT EVERY SINGLE SHOP ON THE FERRY AS LONG AS YOU CAN. Couple of us ended up coming home from that French exchange with more money than we took. Wheeeeeee...!
(MattWPBS, Mon 11 May 2009, 16:46, 8 replies)

"I bet you 50p I can make your boobs move without touching them"
I saw this done once, when I was training as a chef. Fortunately for the head chef (who was playing the joke on one of the catering managers) she didn't understand the jape first time round so he had to do it all over again - the second time for free!
(chipfatbob, Mon 11 May 2009, 16:43, Reply)

Cigarette Penalty
It was the year 2000, and I arrived in a Spanish coastal town completely alone to start a six-month study placement. As usually happens, I quickly found another lost and lonely soul to pass the time with, and also get hideously drunk.

Jonas (yes! Real name!) was insane and would do anything for some cash. I had more money than sense (even though I only had about 100 pesetas to offer usually) so I would finance his daring pursuits to become infamous. Throughout our time there his feats included diving into the rat-infested port, walking the 20minutes home from the clubs starkers at 8am in the morning on a weekday, eating rubbish, setting fire to his pubes, and downing pints of Jack Daniels. The last one cost me more than 100 pesetas and a new pair of trousers after holding back his hair.

His addiction to risk grew on me, and I started accepting bets myself. I called a massive burly woman "a fucking poof", I ate rubbish, I did some skinny-dipping.

We started playing cards when we had no money to go out. These card games would go on for hours and hours and usually involved simple games like "Snap"for such poker-retarded people as ourselves. We started doing forfeits when we lost. That's when I had to do the worst forfeit of my entire life upon losing three games of Snap in a row. I had to sit and smoke one after the other a pack of cigarettes. Now, I'm a smoker so it wouldn't usually be a hardship. But we'd agreed on Satan's tobacco, the devil of all cancer-sticks.... the Spanish brand of black tobacco "Ducados". If you've never had to smoke one of these devils in stick form, you cannot understand the absolute horror of smoking 20 in a row. I puked for about 3 days, and even now 9 years later the smell of a Ducado is enough to make me gip uncontrollably. I feel sick now.
Good times.
(The Apeface Cherub is not a cunty-uber-cunt, Mon 11 May 2009, 16:35, 11 replies)

i've only gambled in a casino once
in monte carlo with my dad and brother for a day trip.
i won about €4o on the slot machines and my dad won somewhere around €150 on the roulette, this still didn't pay for all of lunch for the 3 of us.
(Just Harry What should I put here?, Mon 11 May 2009, 16:31, Reply)

dumb bets
i do these quite often at work, the dumbest was the 'first blood thing'.
the other guy i work with in my kitchen at work(adam) and i always come up with silly bets...anything from what will that person be drinking today to i bet you won't eat this (btw the way frozen mash is quite disgusting) when it's frozen. so one day we came up with the idea that whoever accidentally drew the others blood first would win £10 off the other. for the next few weeks we both avoided doing anything silly as it would void the bet if we injured the other on purpose. i eventually won when i swung a fly screen door at him a bit too hard.
(Just Harry What should I put here?, Mon 11 May 2009, 16:29, Reply)

Wobblers post about a mate eating pigeon poo reminded me…
….of a bet put to a punk friend of mine called Dean. We were at a rock bar a year or so ago when a mutual friend, Sam, offered Dean 3 pills if he licked and ate Sam’s snot off of the mirrored walls behind us (classy my mates you know).

A few of us were sat in the top deck of the Exchange pub in suspense whilst Dean considered his options and decided to go agree to the bet. To this Sam snooked up and spat out a massive greenie and spat it on the mirror.

As Dean looked at Sam’s vile gremmie slithering down the mirror I was sure he would back out but instead he said “Fuck It!”, marched up to the mirror and licked it all off and swallowed! I didn’t know whether to be proud or disgusted but either way I had to go and promptly be sick in the ladies loo’s.
( DUMBLONDE is a rubber lover girl, Mon 11 May 2009, 16:20, Reply)

Many, many years ago..
Back in the spring of 1966, my Dad was sitting upstairs on the no 35 bus, as it headed back home from work, when he could hear an altercation downstairs. A man's voice started singing in a fine tenor style, singing a song about the lovely weather, and how everyone was nice etc etc.. The voice got louder as it's owner climbed the stairs and it's owner, a small, slightly deranged looking man emerged onto the top deck.

Now the bus was full, taking workers home after a day's toil, and there was only one seat vacant, it was next to my Dad, so thats where the singer placed himself, and having got to the end of his song, he introduced himself to my Dad as "Max".

Dad and Max proceeded to pass the time of day with comments about the weather, going to the seaside, and the other usual things that would occupy any self-respecting public transport eccentric, since that's who this gentleman was. If it helps, my parents had been married for a little over a year, and they lived near to the local Mental Hospital, where some of the patients were allowed to go out into the community and perhaps hold a job down, or do a little shopping, Max had been shopping, and he showed my Dad the things he'd bought proudly. My Dad being a sociable cove, he always loved a natter, and was thoroughly enjoying the conversation. Until matters took a strange turn.

"It's the Grand national tomorrow, isn't it?" asked Max

"It certainly is!" replied my Dad

"You got an 'oss? You've gotta 'ave an 'oss!!" exclaimed Max

"I haven't, as it goes, I'm not much of a gambler" said my Dad

"Right then.." Max lowered his voice to little more than a whisper
"Don't tell anyone I told you this mate, but you wanna bung the lot on Anglo!"

"Anglo? Why Anglo, it's well down on the list, though?"

"Anglo, mate, can't lose, and don't tell anyone that old Max told you!"

Then, winking, and tapping his nose with his finger, he jumped to his feet and ran off down the stairs. Leaving my Dad wondering how much of the last ten minutes he'd imagined.

The next day dawned bright and breezy, a great day for horse racing. My Parents settled down on the sofa with cups of tea to watch the Grand National. At the last fence, a little known horse emerged from the pack, and romped down Aintree's long run in as if it were equipped with wings. It won, by three clear lengths. A horse called Anglo, barrelled home at 50-1.

No he didn't back it, they were skint, just married with a baby Sparkie.

Edit date's better
(Beer Elf Thought this was like a campfire, anyhow, on, Mon 11 May 2009, 15:00, Reply)