My Favourite Story Proving There Are No 'Sure Bets'

Punters lose a lot of money believing in 'certainties' and 'sure bets'. Always remember that anything can happen - we are dealing with humans not machines. If you are ever tempted to take some very short odds about something you believe is a certainty then bear in mind the story of Ajax.

Many years ago there was a horse race in which only three horses were taking part. One of the horses was called Ajax and was a champion. The other two were not even close to being in Ajax's class - one was ok but nothing special, the other was an out and out donkey.

As you would expect Ajax was a raging hot favourite - 40 to 1 on. In other words if you had $100 on it your potential profit was $2.50. Horse racing prices don't come much shorter than this.

Away they went and the hopeless horse's jockey decided to go at a ridiculous and unsustainable speeed. Rather than just letting it go, Ajax's jockey started to get nervous - here he was riding the shortest priced favourite in racing history and some donkey had opened up a lead of eight lengths!

After a few more strides the jockey decided he had to do something and so he accelerated. Ajax had to use up a fair bit of energy but and as they rounded the home turn Ajax had caught the donkey, with the ok horse lingering back in last position.

In a few more strides the donkey hit the wall, as he was always bound to having gone at such a crazy speed, and he dropped further and further back and finished last by miles. At this stage it looked good for Ajax, but, it too had spent too much petrol. The ok horse, which had run the race at the right pace, began making up ground and in the shadows of the post caught and passed Ajax and won! Ajax had been beaten by a horse that it would normally thrashed and the punters who'd taken the 40-1 on all lost their money.

There is no such thing as a certainty.

Return from sure bets to professional gambler