Horse sense
I think this is a pretty cool story, but I'm getting tired of retelling it so hopefully I can just link everyone to this in the future.
It's all about my second job that I just started: Namely, betting on horses at River Rock Casino. They have a room upstairs with live feeds of horse racing around the world, and a couple of times now I've gone with my crazy French Canadian coworker to have some post work beer and throw money around.
Yesterday night we were a couple of drinks and a couple of races in.. the next race coming up had only 6 horses.. for some reason I was zoning in on horse #5.. I was getting serious good vibes from that selection, and I'm still not sure why. Maybe simply because it had the highest odds, and I liked the idea of having a longshot when there's only a small field.. a lot more chance of him beating 5 horses than beating 9.
So I've made up my mind, but Ronnie is on the phone, going on in Francais to someone about something.. I start nudging him and gesturing at the race.. he throws me $20 and motions to go bet it.
Fine!
I tried to place his $20 and my $10 on 3 $10 bets for horse number five to Win, Place (2nd) and Show (3rd). They wouldn't let me bet show because the field was so small, so I bet Win Place and Place.
Which turned out to be a good thing.
Ronnie finishes his call, the race starts, they are OFF!
Immediately our selection, #5 "Petite Briefs", falls behind. We can't really tell which one it is, because it's an Australian race, and they're notorious for making it difficult to see the numbers on the horses. We're obviously not doing well though, because halfway through we're still not even in the top four. In a field of six. It's just at the point where Ronnie is reassuring me that it's alright that I wasted his $20 when one of the horses starts making a run on the outside..
Is that #5?? On the outside?... passing the others like they're standing still??? It wins by a length and lo and behold, your winner is PETITE BRIEFS!
So we start whooping it up, high fiving and generally being obnoxious.. while we wait for the official results, Ronnie goes to use the washroom. While he's gone, the results come up.. and I go to cash in my Place ticket.
At 16-1, my $10 bet pays over $80! And I'm thinkin.. "Ronnie has one of these Places.. AND a Win!"
He made $300 off my uneducated, shot in the dark, dumbass bet. And he gave me $100 of that!
He may be crazy, but he's definetly a nice guy.. and generous...
So there ya go, a nice little addition to my paycheque, that. And now you know the rest of the story.
Now if you'll excuse, me, I'm going to try to install a CD drive and probably fail miserably.
It's all about my second job that I just started: Namely, betting on horses at River Rock Casino. They have a room upstairs with live feeds of horse racing around the world, and a couple of times now I've gone with my crazy French Canadian coworker to have some post work beer and throw money around.
Yesterday night we were a couple of drinks and a couple of races in.. the next race coming up had only 6 horses.. for some reason I was zoning in on horse #5.. I was getting serious good vibes from that selection, and I'm still not sure why. Maybe simply because it had the highest odds, and I liked the idea of having a longshot when there's only a small field.. a lot more chance of him beating 5 horses than beating 9.
So I've made up my mind, but Ronnie is on the phone, going on in Francais to someone about something.. I start nudging him and gesturing at the race.. he throws me $20 and motions to go bet it.
Fine!
I tried to place his $20 and my $10 on 3 $10 bets for horse number five to Win, Place (2nd) and Show (3rd). They wouldn't let me bet show because the field was so small, so I bet Win Place and Place.
Which turned out to be a good thing.
Ronnie finishes his call, the race starts, they are OFF!
Immediately our selection, #5 "Petite Briefs", falls behind. We can't really tell which one it is, because it's an Australian race, and they're notorious for making it difficult to see the numbers on the horses. We're obviously not doing well though, because halfway through we're still not even in the top four. In a field of six. It's just at the point where Ronnie is reassuring me that it's alright that I wasted his $20 when one of the horses starts making a run on the outside..
Is that #5?? On the outside?... passing the others like they're standing still??? It wins by a length and lo and behold, your winner is PETITE BRIEFS!
So we start whooping it up, high fiving and generally being obnoxious.. while we wait for the official results, Ronnie goes to use the washroom. While he's gone, the results come up.. and I go to cash in my Place ticket.
At 16-1, my $10 bet pays over $80! And I'm thinkin.. "Ronnie has one of these Places.. AND a Win!"
He made $300 off my uneducated, shot in the dark, dumbass bet. And he gave me $100 of that!
He may be crazy, but he's definetly a nice guy.. and generous...
So there ya go, a nice little addition to my paycheque, that. And now you know the rest of the story.
Now if you'll excuse, me, I'm going to try to install a CD drive and probably fail miserably.