Why I like to gamble

23 Jul 2007

Why I like to gamble

Current mood:thankful

I love gambling and today gave me a great example of why I like it.  The first test between England and India at Lords should have been a high scoring affair if the form book was to be believed, both sides have stronger batting line ups than bowling, the England seam attack was paricularly inexperienced with one player making his debut and the Indians have one of the all time great batsmen in the form of Sachin Tendulkar.  Every player who scores a century at lords has his name carved into a board at the venue.  Sachin had never scored a ton at lords, and this was to be his last chance.  England won the toss and closed the first day at a respectable 268 for 4.  It was here that I checked the unpromising weather forcast for forthcoming days and decided to put my money on the draw.  A decision which was looking wise the next day when the entire morning session was written off due to rain, the ground resembled a lake shortly after midday and any play appeared a remote possibility but, after the drainage system worked its magic, the Test took a dramatic twist as england suffered a batting  collapse of 6 for 26.   England's innings, which resumed on a healthy 268 for 4, subsided in less than 11 overs, oh dear, well at least with England's inexperinced attack and India's great batting line up we can expect to see a couple of days of batting with India surpasing the England total.  But England quickly removed several of india's big guns and India finished the day on  145 for 4.   England and India continued to trade blows as the first Test moved on apace despite more weather interruptions during the third day at Lord's. James Anderson claimed Test-best figures of 5 for 42 as he and Ryan Sidebottom dismissed India for 201 with England securing a lead of 97. 

England then ended then day on 77 for 2.  The forth day would be make or brake.  Cricket is a curious game often in order to win a game you have to put yourself in a position where you could lose it and with this being the first test of the series it was unlikely England would contemplate letting India win by declaring for anything under 400.  But the decision of a declaration was taken out of Micheal Vaughans hands when England where bowled out for 282.  India where therefore set a target of 380, which had they achieved it would have been a record for Lords but they had plenty of time with which to make it.  India ended the day on 137 for 3.  The weather forcast was predicting heavy rain but play started on day 5 and India steadily lost wickets and  grimly hung on hoping for the weather to intervene.  The light was steadily worsening and England captain Vaughan had started to bowl his own offspin for the first time in years with Monty Panesar also spinning from the other end in order to prolong play and stave off having to leave the field for bad light.   Just before the tea interval at 3.33pm bad light stopped play with England needing only one more wicket to win.  Had the fast bowlers been operating the decision to offer the Indian batsmen the light would have been taken earlier. 

Play was halted and the question was, is there going to be any more play?  at   4.09 pm Umpires Steve Bucknor and Simon Taufel  inspected conditions, and they decided it's good for play.  Play would resume at 4.40 pm, 4.25 pm The drizzle  returned and the covers  went back on. The 4.40 pm start is doubtful now.  It continued to rain till 6.20 pm Well that's it. The match has been called off. England have been denied by the rain, India have been let off the hook, it's a draw. Lots of relieved faces in the Indian dressing room. And several frustrated ones in England's.  The rain I'd been praying for all day had finally come to my rescue and the match ended in a draw.  the bet lasted for four days and came down to a whisker of rain appearing 10 minutes before england could finally wrap up the Indian innings.  Not very patriotic you might say but then I am one of Englands most famous traitors.

Manchester was to be the home of Britains first super casino but new PM Gordon Brown has vetoed it.  Manchester, Blackpool and various other councils will have spent thousounds of pounds of council tax payers money on lobying the government to allow them to become the home of a super casino, all of which have now gone to waste.  But Gordon Brown's record on gambling is mixed, he got rid off betting tax to allow british bookmakers to take on the world and become world leaders and also because all the UK bookmakers had gone abroad to Gibralta to avoid the tax anyway.  He has also overseen a massive proliferation of the national lottery to almost daily draws and countless scratch cards.  Yet he won't allow a super casino which could regenerate run down areas, promote tourism and provide hundreds of jobs and millions in tax revenue.   None of the arguments against a super casino hold water, especially given there are already normal sized casino's and its now easier than ever  to gamble online.  The idea of a national lottery appears in George Orwell's 1984

'They were talking about the Lottery. Winston looked back when he had gone thirty metres. They were still arguing, with vivid, passionate faces. The Lottery, with its weekly pay-out of enormous prizes, was the one public event to which the proles paid serious attention. It was probable that there were some millions of proles for whom the Lottery was the principal if not the only reason for remaining alive. It was their delight, their folly, their anodyne, their intellectual stimulant. Where the Lottery was concerned, even people who could barely read and write seemed capable of intricate calculations and staggering feats of memory. There was a whole tribe of men who made a living simply by selling systems, forecasts, and lucky amulets. Winston had nothing to do with the running of the Lottery, which was managed by the Ministry of Plenty, but he was aware (indeed everyone in the party was aware) that the prizes were largely imaginary. Only small sums were actually paid out, the winners of the big prizes being non-existent persons. In the absence of any real intercommunication between one part of Oceania and another, this was not difficult to arrange.'
When the idea of a national lottery was suggested to Margaret Thatcher she rebuffed it writting at the bottom of the paper which proposed the idea 'over my dead body'