There are 10 races across the day and each one has a lot of runners, so the odds of picking a winner aren't great compared to other horse racing carnivals. The main race of the day has 24 runners! It's a long race so traditionally it is really hard to pick the winner. Sometimes the favourite wins, but not often.
Office Sweeps are a tradition for the main race. Steve rang this morning to ask the kids if they wanted him to buy them some tickets in the office sweep stakes. Silly question really, asking them if they would like the chance to maybe win some free money, of course they'd say yes.
It was funny, though, Harry answered the phone and really couldn't quite get what Steve was saying. He kept glancing toward our home office and repeating back to Steve with a confused look on his face "sweets in the office?" I think he thought he was being offered a big bag of lollies that were somewhere in our office. he may actually have preferred that to winning on the sweep stakes.
I joined up with the TAB on Friday with the thought that seeing as I am home with Ellie all day I may as well watch all the races and bet on them just for a bit of fun. But betting is much more fun in a group, because then like the football tipping contests, you not only get the joy of winning, but you also get the joy of beating everyone else too......(or losing). So I figured that I'd print out all the races for the day and get the kids to pick their favourite horse for each race. Then I'd put $2 on each race for everyone, $1 on a win and $1 on a place, a bet each way. If the whole family played, excluding Ellie, it would be $100 bucks for the day....imagine how much we might win.....
Then I thought a bit harder about the $100. I'd be really happy if someone gave me $100, it's a decent amount of money. Imagine $100 bucks for me to go and buy whatever I like. So why would I give $100 away just like that, with the real possibility of losing the lot?
Instead of me parting with my money to the TAB, I have set up the mummy tote here at home. At the moment it is only Ellie and I playing, the kids can join in when they get home if they like. At mummy tote we are betting 10c pieces. We have an ice cream container full of lose change, so I am using the 10c pieces out of it. Again, we are betting each way, 10c on a win and 10c on a place. I will see who is ahead by the end of the day.
Ellie chose her horses by picking up bits of paper with the horse's number on it. I wrote all the numbers on envelopes and 'rained' then down on her head. Whichever one she picked up first was her choice, unless she picked up a handful of envelopes and then it was the last one left in her hand.
I chose my horses just by name, If I liked the name then that was the one that I picked. No science involved at all. This is a 100% gamble.
So how did we go?
Ellie won 160c, but having spent 200c she was 40c behind. I won 450 cents. I spent 200 cents so was 250 cents ahead. I guess picking horses by name works better than picking their numbers randomly.
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