Established in 2008, this blog is an independent, common sense, look at challenges and opportunities in sports and financial investing, with occasional diversions as my mood takes me. I am not a tipster, nor is this a Profit and Loss report either. They are boring.
While the attention of the word is on proper football, you know, that game where the ball spends most of its time in close contact with the foot, another game called football is in the news to a lesser degree. The tradition of the NFL numbering their Super Bowls with Roman numerals will come to an end after February 2015's Super Bowl XLIX. Actually, it's a one year leave of absence rather than an end, because 2017 will see its return with Super Bowl LI. The NFL has decided that a designation of 'L' 'is not pleasing to the eye'.
"When we developed the Super Bowl XL logo, that was the first time we looked at the letter L," [League Vice President Jaime] Weston said. "Up until that point, we had only worked with X's, V's and I's.
Well, that's not exactly true - Super Bowl's 40 to 49 all had the L in their designations - and does Super Bowl LI really look any better than Super Bowl L anyway? Anyone saying yes is a LIer.
All a bit strange really. As an investor, I can understand a dislike for the L, since it's use is typically to represent a loss, but if you're playing with Roman numerals, it seems to me to be something you should learn to LIV with.
Is it coincidence that no team starting with an L has ever won the World Cup or Premier League? Leicester City could become the first next season :)
I have had a life-long interest in sports and after studying Pure Mathematics with Statistics at secondary school, have been fascinated by odds and probability.
The first system I came up with was a simple one - back the favourite and double up after a loss until a winner. Simple enough in theory, and I told my Dad about it. Not being a betting man himself, he ran it by some of his colleagues, and came home to tell me that it wouldn’t work because a long losing run would mean that the bank would be empty. Then there was always the possibility that the winner would be returned at odds-on, meaning that the total returns would not match the outlay. Not what a ten year old wants to hear! Only slightly daunted, I then went on a search for the Holy Grail, the secret to riches that I knew was out there somewhere. Finally in 2004 I stumbled across an article about Betting Exchanges and four years later I was able to make a steady profit.
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