Jack Houghton's Betting Challenge Week 27: Absence of silly names makes Colts the bet

Super Bowl / Jack Houghton / 05 February 2010 / Leave a Comment

Peyton Manning has the goods - and the name - to lead the Colts to victory

"I've been looking through the team-sheets -- or "rosters" as they are apparently called -- and, without any doubt, the Saints employ the more ridiculous-sounding characters. Jeff Charleston (who does a mean touchdown dance) joins Drew Brees (he runs like the wind) and Reggie Bush, who presumably steers well-clear of Jermon Bushrod in the showers."

With a team of Brees, Bush, Bushrod and more, our blogger just can't take the Saints seriously. No, it's Colts all the way, says Jack

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.

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The Betting Challenge is in buoyant mood: a Serena-Federer double at the Australian Open having acted as lifeboat to jettisoned bets drawn inexorably toward a malevolent maelstrom. Now settled safely ashore, those bets have returned our bank to within an oakum-thread of profitability. Here endeth the extended seafaring metaphor. And the slightly Dickensian turn-of-phrase.

There was a great feature in the Guardian on Friday. It explained why a chap called Peyton Manning will be crucial to the Indianapolis Colts when they take on the New Orleans Saints in the Super Bowl on Sunday (live on Sky Sports from 11pm). The feature had everything: words; pictures of blue men; pictures of white men; red arrows; green arrows (straight, curvy and chequer-board); charts; graphs; and more words. A definitive medley of everything a punter could need to make an informed decision, it was.

Problem is, I couldn't understand one bit of it (for top Superbowl betting advice visit the BB Super Bowl pages, Ed). So as determined as I am to add an end-of-season ivory-sculpted gargoyle book-end of a winning bet to the one already sat proudly at the other end of the shelf -- you'll remember I tipped the Baltimore Ravens in a pre-season game; the Ravens duly destroying the New York Jets 24-23 -- I don't know where to start.

And Betfair isn't helping much. I'm all for choice, but how is a desperate-for-a-bet amateur supposed to navigate 105 markets (I think that's right; I went crossed-eyed counting) on one event?

No fear. Although the last time I watched anything to do with American football was when Dan Marino starred in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, it can't be that difficult. Anyway, I have a strategy.

I've been looking through the team-sheets -- or "rosters" as they are apparently called -- and, without any doubt, the Saints employ the more ridiculous-sounding characters. Jeff Charleston (who does a mean touchdown dance) joins Drew Brees (he runs like the wind) and Reggie Bush, who presumably steers well-clear of Jermon Bushrod in the showers. Then there's Randall Gay. Ha ha. Gay. Brilliant.

The Colts, on the other hand, don't employ anyone with a funny name. Okay, there's the expected smattering of Chads, Clints and Codys; but no Bush Gays. So on balance, they have to be the team to be taken seriously. I mean, who do you want carrying your money: Peyton Manning or Jermon Bushrod? One sounds like a warring President; the other an extra from Boogie Nights.

On that basis, the Betting Challenge is backing the Colts for £40 at [1.54] in the straight-forward Match Odds market.

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Alrighty then. Despite the fact they still fail to give their most glittering alumnus due publicity in any of their press releases; it's time for my now-annual plug of the Martin Wills' Writing Awards. If you're under 26 (years of age, not inches), and can cogently combine a thousand words or so with a broad horseracing theme, then log on to www.willswritingawards.co.uk to enter. You've got until the end of the month.

While you're there, check out the 2002 winner. Who'd have thought that nascent talent would have gone on to craft the extended metaphor of paragraph one? Concoct the inverted sentence to end paragraph two? Forge those elegant em-dashes in paragraph three? And as for that Bush gag -- pure genius.

This week's bets:
£40 BACK of Indianapolis Colts at [1.54] in Super Bowl Match Odds market.