A week ago on Facebook, my brother Lee predicted that the Cardinals, Ravens, Cowboys and Chargers would win this past weekend’s NFL playoff games. I commented that he would go 0 for 4.
He went 0 for 4.
And that’s why I’m the oldest brother.
BTW, I have it in writing dated September 11, 2009, that Mack predicted the Vikings to win it all this year.
Never bet against Mack.
We took our 8-year old son Owen to Churchill Downs, and for fun we let him pick some horses to bet on. (They don’t get to drink mint juleps until they’re 10.) We talked about the horses and watched them walk down the track to the paddock. Owen picked “the tall one,” which happened to be the favorite, and it came in and he won a couple of bucks. It was fun.
In the next race he again picked the favorite and won. He was getting mighty smug, and in the third race he picked a three-legged longshot and — being the supportive father that I am — I thought, “This’ll show the smug little bastard.”
The longshot won, paying 20 – 1, and Owen was up something like $60. Meanwhile, I’m down maybe $30 and my wife is way too amused.
In the next race Owen thought long and hard and decided not to bet, explaining that he didn’t really have a good feeling about any of the horses. In the 5th race he bet on a middle-of-the-pack nag that hadn’t won in a couple of years. The horse won going away, paying — as I recall — something like 8 – 1. So Owen’s up about $75, and he’s getting kind of insufferable, doling out advice not just to his parents but to the people sitting around us.
Then he did the worst thing ever: he decided he had enough money and stopped betting. I explained to him that that was not how gambling worked, that the entire gaming economy would collapse if people stopped betting when they were ahead. I explained that he was morally obligated to bet until he lost everything.
“That’s stupid,” he said. “Give me my money.”
I never did. I told him I was putting it in his college fund. In fact, I used it to cover my own losses. He can pay for his own damned college.