The £10 to £10k Challenge Part Deux: Back with a vengeance
Never one to let common sense or the odds of probability get in his way, John Baines returns with the second instalment of the previously ill-fated betting mission.
Well folks, the £10 to £10k challenge perished pretty quickly in the end. I just about scraped by the first two bets (thanks, England and Man City) when, not for the first time, I was humiliated by a load of American teenage girls.
I chose to see the £10k challenge as something like a bucket list goal, something to do before you die, like a skydive or reading a Piers Morgan column. It wasn’t so much that I expected it to come off, it was more that I wanted to give it a go. It was Alfred Lord Tennyson who said that it was better to have tried and failed than to have never tried at all – and boy did I try.
In hindsight, 73 bets of 1/10 was always going to fail at some point, so it’s safe to say I’ve learnt from my past mistakes… and will now give it another bash!
Because what I didn’t tell you was that the first stab at the challenge was nothing more than a dummy run. I was dipping my toe in the water to test the temperature and after a thorough evaluation of where it went wrong, I’ve decided to resurrect it, like some kind of modern-day Lazarus rising from the dead.
| Premier League | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chelsea win | £33.00 | (13/20) | ||
| Draw | £75.00 | (11/4) | ||
| Everton win | £100.00 | (4/1) | ||
| Chelsea | 0-0 | Everton | £200.00 | (9/1) |
| Chelsea | 1-0 | Everton | £160.00 | (7/1) |
| Chelsea | 1-1 | Everton | £140.00 | (6/1) |
So folks, welcome back to the £10 to £10k challenge. Twice a week I’ll put a tenner on bets at prices as short as 1/10 and continue to re-invest all the winnings on every subsequent punt.
But this time, instead of trawling through the Finnish lower leagues and the minefield otherwise known as the Women’s U20 World Cup, I’m going to stick to stuff I ‘know more about’, which admittedly isn’t a lot, but better to have tried and failed and so on and so forth.
Starting with a clean bill of health and a fresh page, I’m off again, and instead of going purely for results and expecting the favourites to get the job done, I’ll be adroitly perusing bwin’s many, many football markets for signs of good investment. And by Jove, I think I’ve found one this weekend.
Down at Stamford Bridge, free-wheeling attacking artists Chelsea host Newcastle and bwin have it at 9/50 that there will be over 1.5 goals in the game. Now considering that 13 goals have been scored in the Blues’ opening three fixtures – and that they boast a legion of nifty, fleet-footed forwards coupled with a defence which is creakier than an Ikea wardrobe – I find it hard to imagine that I’ll come a cropper on this one.
The Magpies have enough attacking enterprise themselves to get at Chelsea down the other end (they won 2-0 at the Bridge just under four months ago) and all in all, I reckon my initial tenner will comfortably make a reappearance for the second episode of the challenge dressed as £11.80.
But let it be known, this is the last go I’m having at this ludicrous pursuit and should I fall on my sword early again, I will state on record that I’ll be hanging my odds coupon up and retiring to the hills with a copy of Les Dennis’ autobiography, a deck of Marlboro and some of that under-the-counter Lithuanian vodka that made me think those mean U20 female American footballers would beat China.
If you register with bwin you can claim a free £20 bet and are entitled to put that on something likely to pay out. Like this challenge failing again….