Oscars / Jack Houghton / 07 March 2010 /

After a bad few weeks dabbling in the world of racing, Mr Houghton is off to Hollywood for some betting redemption

There is a truth professional gamblers hold to be self-evident: to be profitable, you must specialise. Losers gorge themselves of all that the great buffet of betting has to offer; winners only ever eat the cheese and pineapple sticks. Who knows what might be lurking in that couscous salad? Therein lies uncertainty, and winners have no truck with uncertainty.

Jack Houghton was a long-time follower of the specialisation theory. Many learned academics credit him with its invention. But now he's turned his back. August 2009. Armed with a £1,000 bank and oodles of likely misplaced confidence, he sets out to prove that, in a year, betting on everything Betfair has to offer, he can turn a profit.

* * *

There's no way to spin this. Last Saturday was a disaster. If my experience of the Racing Post Chase was turned into a movie, it would star Billy Bob Thornton; have an Aerosmith theme-tune; be laden with CGI-constructed scenes of destruction; contain no semblance of believability; and cost $200m to make.

Yes, the Betting Challenge deity is stricken: a penniless actor peddling a tired body to keep alive a long-dead dream of movie stardom. And the editors at betting.betfair are towering over me as I lay on their casting couch, beads of sweat dripping from their creased temples, enjoying this moment of domination. Yet somewhere in the ether plays a song of redemption. Perhaps this isn't the end? Will there be yet a changing of fortune? Is that Hollywood Boulevard Star a reality, however distant?

So I drag myself from beneath their heaving, grotesque bodies. I don't have to submit to their wicked intentions. Not yet. There is still hope of profit come August. I'll just have to follow a strategy employed by successful punters the world over: when you're losing money, increase your stakes. Simple.

And when betting certitude is needed, up step the Oscars -- the epitome of predictability. Lucky for me, of all the films nominated in any category, I have seen only one, Fantastic Mr Fox. Which I thought was fantastic. But then I did watch it in some fancy-pants cinema in Hampstead that offered table-service, meaning I was drunk even before the pe-pe-pe-pe-pe-pe-pe-pe bit was over; and, if I'm honest, I could have watched Dirty Dancing and thought it a potential Oscar winner.

Earlier that evening I'd seen Ricky Gervais jogging through Hampstead Park. Exciting times.

To business. Nothing says night-out-with-the-wife quite like a film about a bomb disposal unit operating in a warzone, and so The Hurt Locker must be a shoo-in for top-honours this Sunday. It's only genuine opposition comes in the (futuristic life-) form of Avatar: the highest-grossing film in US movie-history.

In years' past, Avatar would be long odds-on to collect the gong, because history tells us the Academy prefers the feel-good to the feel-depressed. That's why Rocky, Dances With Wolves, An American In Paris, and How Green Was My Valley (I dunno, British Racing Green?) all won Best Picture awards when more critically-acclaimed productions were expected to prevail.

But in recent renewals there seems to be a trend toward the more worthy. Crash and American Beauty were both unexpected winners in years where more populist options were available and -- surveying the list of recent winners -- the move seems to be away from the sanitised banality of shrink-wrapped Hollywood; and toward films that men with kooky spectacles purr about on film studies' courses.

So the Betting Challenge is jumping in to The Hurt Locker with both feet, hoping to walk out the other side as a betting biped. Kathryn Bigelow will win Best Director. She's carefully assembled all the necessary ingredients: arty-looking cinematography; a cast delivering tortured characters; and a "seriousness" that makes people nod sagely whilst trying to look learned. Her odds of [1.3] look massive, so we're having £100 on at the price.

And although Avatar's technological wizardry and commercial success makes the Best Picture award less certain, The Hurt Locker should still prevail. We're having £60 on at [1.9].

My star awaits.

This week's bets:
£100 BACK Kathryn Bigelow at [1.3] for Best Director at Oscars.
£60 BACK The Hurt Locker at [1.9] for Best Picture at Oscars.

'.$sign_up['title'].'

'; } } ?>

:

:

:

?

: