Average Pairs

Although often misquoted, the words of Mark Twain - "The report of my death was an exaggeration" - are relevant here, as I prematurely wrote off Big Pairs' blog, which is still alive and well:

The blog is actually still running but I've made it 'by invitation only' to avoid any further aggravation. My journey continues! You would of course be a very welcome reader.

The latest post actually recorded a loss after many winning weeks, but Big Pairs is still well ahead. The most eye-opening blog post of the week was once again from Australia, where Steve M revealed a couple of surprises.

One was this:

My own personal experience with problem gambling started when I was 18 and I started playing the poker machines. I lost hundreds of thousands in my early 20’s and fortunately for me I looked into the maths and psychology behind the games and realised that I was never going to win.

Strewth, that was a shocker! While the source of Steve's bank is his own business -I'd always assumed he'd sold his grandmother - I was somewhat surprised that someone who is usually so disciplined in gambling once had a problem with it. The other surprise was this:

I’m your average aussie dad who likes to bet as a hobby. I see it as a mental challenge and believe that given the chance, I can use skills in maths and other areas to make a small profit from betting. I am a bit different in that over the past 5 years I have managed to make a profit. The numbers thrown around are that only 2-5% of people make a profit from betting. I don’t always win, over the last year if we added my sports betting and Horse race betting together, I made a loss.

While Aussies like a bet as Steve mentions in his post, I wouldn't agree with Steve's self-assessment that he is an "average Aussie Dad betting as a hobby". The sums that Steve puts down on outright punts are, to my mind at least, huge!

The post is actually an open letter in connection with an Australian government inquiry into offshore / on-line gambling, so Steve has every reason to play up his 'averageness' and play down his winnings, but if betting AUD 12,000 a day (£5,500) is "average", Australia has a few more problems than I knew. Next thing he'll be telling us he has 2.4 children.