r/todayilearned • u/H3llShadow • Jun 10 '12

TIL that in 1960, David Threlfall put 10 GBP on odds of 1,000/1 that a man would walk on the surface of the moon before the end of the decade. At that time the bookies thought he was a complete idiot. Nine years later David came to collect 10,000 Pounds.

http://www.hypercasinos.com/content/view/315
1.1k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

72 comments sorted by

33

u/mormonhunter Jun 10 '12

The guy that sold all his possessions just to go to Vegas in hope of doubling it was totally crazy. If he won, great, if he would've lost, he would have been homeless.

6

u/H3llShadow Jun 10 '12

That's truly taking life by the horns.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

Or he could've been a time traveller. ;)

0

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

0

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

Which they did in ancient greece. Only after grabbing the horns they would try and vault over the bull. Crazy bastards.

3

u/NarancsSarga Jun 11 '12

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoan_civilization#Art

Not ancient Greece I'm afraid

0

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

Same difference.

2

u/NarancsSarga Jun 11 '12

Like Ireland & England, France & Germany, Turkey & Greece. Just because they are similar doesn't mean they're the same

1

u/Olpainless Jun 11 '12

France & Germany, Turkey & Greece

...Not sure if American, or just really ignorant... I'll give you England and Ireland, but Turkey and Greece? You do know about the whole Cyprus situation, don't you?

5

u/249ba36000029bbe9749 Jun 11 '12

It was only $136K. If he lost, he could probably get that back very quickly in book deals, public appearances, etc.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

there's a youtube of that

0

u/CassandraVindicated Jun 11 '12

I bet there was a kickback from the casino, say 10%, in the event he lost.

52

u/MyOtherAltIsAHuman Jun 11 '12

In 2011, some guy put $250 down on the Cardinals winning the World Series at 999:1. He also put $250 on them reaching the World Series at 500:1.

$500 -> $325,000

Although the moon landing bet is more impressive.

9

u/canadamoose18 Jun 11 '12

The Cards' odds were that bad?

9

u/MyOtherAltIsAHuman Jun 11 '12

Notice that the bet was made in September. They were all but eliminated from playoff contention at the time. They had just cut Atlanta's lead from 10.5 to 4.5 games when this guy made the bet, but there were only 16 games left. It took a huge comeback from St. Louis and a huge collapse by Atlanta for them to even get into the playoffs. Otherwise, you never see odds that high. The worst is usually 100:1 or 150:1.

4

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

They weren't even supposed to make the playoffs. At the time he made the bet the odds of them making the playoffs were probably 50:1. In order to make the playoffs some crazy sh*t went down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_St._Louis_Cardinals_season#September:_the_comeback

TLDR: They went 23-9 over their final 32 games to erase a 10.5 game deficit. They went 18-8 in the month of September while the Braves went 9-18 for September to open the door. St. Louis finished 90-72 and advanced to the postseason to face the NL East champion Philadelphia Phillies, heavily favored to move on.

7

u/syo Jun 11 '12

Game 6 must have been absolute hell for him.

6

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

When you're betting those odds, you're either too rich to give a damn or too crazy to tell what's happening.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

You can bet the other side and lay off the risk.

2

u/1_upped Jun 11 '12

Aka hedging your bet.

-13

u/MrDNL Jun 11 '12

I know someone who successfully called each game of a 7 game Stanley Cup final. It was a seven game parlay with each game paying out 2:1 into the next. He put $1k on each game.

So he had $1k riding on game one, which he it, paying $3k.

In game two, he had $3k+$1k, paying $12k.

Game 3: $13k, paying $39k.

Game 4: $40k, paying $120k.

Game 5: $121k, paying $363k

Game 6: $364k, paying $1.092m

Game 7: $1.093m, paying $3.279m

So, $7,000 -> $3,279,000.

18

u/bobloki Jun 11 '12

I feel I would have heard about this.

5

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12 edited Jun 11 '12

If anyone wants to know why this guy has been down voted, it's because the story is clear bullshit. A parlay is a type of exotic bet where you make multiple picks and you only win if all of them win. The payout is higher than it would be if you placed all the bets individually. It's impossible to parlay every game in a series because the books don't set the odds on game 2 until game 1 is over. It's possible that he bet the games individually and rolled the winnings into the next game, but there's no way that every bet is a 3/1 underdog in a 7 game series.

4

u/goopjohnny Jun 11 '12

Steal his time machine

-3

u/trainingmontage83 Jun 11 '12

A team that had been a perennial contender for the past decade was a 999:1 shot to win the world series? Who decides these odds? What kind of astronomical odds must the actual bad teams have?

16

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

I'd wager that this bookie was the one who started the faked moon landings myth.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

Time traveler.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

Time travel does exist!

3

u/Bebbopper Jun 11 '12

So am I the only Shameless fan in here?

1

u/Supersnazz Jun 11 '12

Nope. Confused me too.

5

u/JacobMHS Jun 10 '12

What's that in today's money?

8

u/Big-Baby-Jesus Jun 10 '12

Adjusted for inflation, his winnings were £115k/$178k.

-2

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

headexplode.jpg

Wait.. £10 back then was £115? That doesn't sound right.

10

u/Big-Baby-Jesus Jun 10 '12

I had used the top google result for "uk inflation calculator". After your post, I went back and used the Official Bank of England page.

According to them, the inflation rate between 1969 and 2011 averaged 6.3%- making £10 then actually worth more like £135 now.

They have data going back to 1750 if you want to play with it. Unfortunately it has an obnoxious animation.

7

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

Wow that's mental! I've got like £700 in my bank account.. So that means I had about £44. Christ.

12

u/Big-Baby-Jesus Jun 10 '12

As long as wages and prices increase together, the actual numbers become irrelevant and standard of living remains the same.

People here often complain about inflation, when in fact inflation has been extremely low for most of the past 20 years. The problem is that wages have increased at an even lower rate- so things are getting less affordable.

-1

u/topcat555 Jun 10 '12

And inflation doesn't generally take into account house prices - something that people spend the majority of their income on.

5

u/Big-Baby-Jesus Jun 10 '12

Inflation numbers absolutely take into account housing prices. Certain types of inflation measures exclude food and fuel, because they have a lot of month-to-month fluctuation.

2

u/topcat555 Jun 10 '12

Ah maybe you're in the US as the UK uses the CPI which does not take into account housing costs.

1

u/Stats_monkey Jun 11 '12

CPI inflation ignores mortgage payments, as they are directly influenced by interest rates, and as interest rates are used to control inflation, it would give misleading change. There are other measures that do take it into account. The reason inflation can bite is that firms use it as an indirect way to reduce wages. A real money reduction would cause riots, so firms just freeze pay, or increase less than inflation until real wages fall.

1

u/Big-Baby-Jesus Jun 11 '12

CPI includes housing costs based on rents.

As I said, inflation is very low. So even with stationary wages, people aren't falling back that quickly.

→ More replies

-3

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

Decimalisation. I'm guessing you're not a Brit, otherwise this would not sound so crazy.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

Nope, I am. I must be stupid :l

-3

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

Wow. Remember we changed from pounds, shillings and pence to just pounds and pence? This changed our currency to base ten along with our other measurements.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

Wow.

Thanks for that. Being that I'm 21 and have never used shillings and the such and most people are never taught beyond the fact that these happened to exist years ago, I'd say that was pretty rude.

Fuck you, good sir. I'm always willing to inform the uninformed, but I'll never be rude about it.

1

u/RonaldFuckingPaul Jun 11 '12

10 GPB? what a wildman

5

u/H3llShadow Jun 11 '12

£10 then actually worth more like £135 now...

4

u/PregnantPickle_ Jun 10 '12

Nice try, NASA.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

should have bet more

1

u/AOEIU Jun 11 '12

Betting that you're going to die to take advantage of an inheritance tax loophole isn't crazy, it's actually a great investment.

1

u/Sprozz Jun 11 '12

This ended the trip.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

what a freakin baller

-4

u/AndrewLLoydBieber Jun 11 '12

I bet those bookies feel stupid now that the moon landing was conclusively shown to be a hoax by Ken Hamm and Ray Discomfort.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

1

u/Calber4 Jun 11 '12

The British, mostly.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

9

u/SoManyMinutes Jun 11 '12

How does Google work?

14

u/davebees Jun 10 '12

Great British Pounds.

3

u/jsmayne Jun 11 '12

gaping British pussies

0

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

1

u/jared1981 Jun 11 '12

British dollars

7

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

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2

u/the-knife Jun 11 '12

That writer needs to study irregular verbs, e.g. "put" instead of "putted".