From predicting how often the cameras will pan to Ronaldo’s girlfriend to betting on the next election, novelty spread-betting is on the up, as Stephen McDowell reports.
The late, great Peter Cook might have said of it: ‘The world is your lobster.’ Surreal as that might sound, there are few worlds in the gambling universe where punters can make their own rules.
Imagine it: invent your own game, convince someone to offer you really tempting odds on it, bet and whe-hey – clean up! You could even build into it enough fallibility that you would get it wrong from time to time, lose, still have fun and therefore not get bored.
Well, not only does this gambling utopia exist, it has, according to the people who started it, reached around about its 10th anniversary (ish). Better still, as a special birthday treat, all InsideEdge readers have been invited to have a go at this great game with a free bet. More of that later.
Sporting Index is famous for offering novelty spread-betting markets, but it can’t be sure of its age, as no one can remember exactly where and when this form of gambling was born.
‘It really came alive in the 1998 World Cup, when there was the great Ronaldo’s Girlfriend bet, which really caught the public imagination,’ says Wally Pyrah, Sporting Index’s head of PR. The great man played all the way to the final at that tournament and his bird was there – spectacular blonde Susannah Werner.
The bet was how many times the cameramen in the stadium found it impossible not to shoot her in the stands during the Brazil versus Netherlands game. ‘We said three. We won on it,’ says Pyrah.
Actually, you can trace it further back to the 1993 FA Cup Final, where Sporting Index first put up the Magic Sponge bet – that is, how many times the trainer runs onto the pitch to administer the panacea that instantly cures all injuries, especially those that threaten players with a booking.
All bets are on
Why let the truth stand in the way of a good story, though? Regardless of when it began, novelty spread-bets are a feature of every major sporting occasion of the last decade, and have created column centimetres of Hellenic proportions. They’ve created almost as many laughs. You might remember some of these classics:
Last Orders: The number of times a footie player hits the crossbar during a tournie. This sticks in my memory as I lost a bundle on it during Euro 1996 when betting on the game after the Czechs had rattled the woodwork no fewer than five times.
Three lines: How three footie players, who libel laws prevent us naming, performed in a match versus England.
Wilko. Over ‘n’ Out: Rugby, and no surprise that it related to the metres kicked by Jonny’s magic boots.
England versus Germany fixtures seem to bring out the wicked side of the spread betters, with such gems as:
Behind Enemy Lines: The number of offsides in said match.
Jerry Springers: The number of headers by German players.
‘They’re supposed to be fun and attract a lot of attention,’ says Pyrah, ‘And they do. It’s not a major part of our business but people do love them and they add spice to any sport.’
It seems the funnier the better with novelty markets, but, on occasion, the invisible line between a good chuckle and bad taste may have been crossed. ‘Knickers!’ says Pyrah defiantly. ‘Some people do like to have a bit of a moan, but we did have one market that turned out to be a bit sensitive. In the last World Cup, it was called Nip In The Air, predicting how many Japanese players headed the ball against Argentina. We do have to be careful, though. It’s only a chuckle: we don’t want to offend anyone.’
He confesses he was also overruled by the bosses at Sky Television, where he lays out the weekend’s sporting bets for punters on a Friday night. He wanted to create a Ryder Cup market on the martially challenged Colin Montgomerie called Misses Gets Half.’The powers-that-be get strange with it sometimes,’ he explains, ruefully.
That’s not the only trouble bookies can run into with their attention-grabbing novelty markets. The good news is sometimes they run into shrewd punters.
David Buik, head of marketing at Cantor Index, whose sporting arm is also a great operator of novelty bets, confesses it has had one or two unsavoury ructions over the outcomes of silly spreads. ‘We had one in a five- Test cricket series called Off With The Bails on any reason for the bails being dislodged – bowled, stumping, failed run-outs, wind and so on. Our market was 72-75, but what we hadn’t calculated was that at the end of each of the day’s three sessions, the umpires remove the bails.’
Five tests, each up to five days, three sessions in a day. ‘The cricket anoraks got hold of it and the final make-up was 206. Big trouble. Major steward’s enquiry over that one.’
Wide of the mark
Novelty bets are notoriously difficult to price up. ‘Way too volatile,’ says Buik, with impressive candour. This is another snippet of good news for the astute punter, and the odd disaster is by no means unknown.
The biggest kicking the bookies have taken on a novelty bet was, again, on cricket. The only bet that attracts significant financial action is the aggregate number of wides in a game.
‘In the Cricket World Cup, our spread for wides in the tournament was 244-247,’ explains Pyrah. ‘I think it was the first time the white ball had been used, and the day’s weather meant the ball was swinging all over the place, plus the umpires had tightened up and the final result was 998. We lost just under half a million. That was a disaster.’
Wides, and the faintest sniff of not all being rosy in the novelty-market garden, caught out Cantor, too, when it offered a ball-to-first-wide spread of 23-26 in a major cricket tournie a few years back. One opening bowler (see earlier comment about libel) slung his first ball practically off the pitch; umpire imitates Christ. Result 0. Ker-ching! Slam! Next please.
‘Another steward’s enquiry there,’ says Buik, ‘We paid out, but I don’t think you’ll find another bookie to offer you that bet.’
The now-famous incident where spread betters used to offer time to first throw in – how long until the football was physically thrown back into play by a player, was given the general spread of 70-80 seconds. That is, until a Premiership match when the ball was booted into touch straight from the kick-off. The make-up was four seconds. Party time for all interested punters.
‘The funnies don’t attract a huge amount of money, with the possible exception of wides in cricket matches, but they’re a brilliant marketing tool, and they bring people to the phone or the web in droves,’ says Buik.
It’s not just sport that attracts a worthwhile novelty punt. Spreads on the length of the Chancellor’s speech on Budget Day are as common in the City of London offices as secretaries from Southend-on-Sea.
The 1997 Budget brought the How Many Sips spread on how often the Chancellor would take to the glass under the dispatch box in his first Budget. Given his Tory predecessor’s predilection for drinking whisky during the Budget speech, it seemed a fair bet. Happily for the punters, Brown is a near-teetotal bag of nerves, who downed so much Evian he might have caused a drought in the Alps.
Bets on markets like the forthcoming US election, or next year’s General Election, however, are considered ‘proper’ and not novelty markets. True novelty markets are those defined by their purpose – or lack of one. They exist because they are funny.
It’s in that spirit, and the spurious tenth anniversary of the novelty bet that Sporting Index has generously extended an exclusive offer to InsideEdge readers. That is, if you have an idea for a novelty spread bet and it’s considered a goer by Wally Pyrah, he will give you a free £10 bet. Good man, Wally.
Send your ideas to wpyrah@sportingindex.com – if it’s any good, you get your free bet
SPREAD ‘EM
Some of Sporting Index’s classic novelty spreads:
The Magic Stretcher
How many times players will be stretchered off in a football tournament only to run back on again seconds later, looking sheepish.
Sing With Pride
How many of the 22 footie players are caught on camera actually singing their national anthem?
Sea Of Red
How many players would get the red card in the 1998 World Cup Iran versus the US match, or lose their heads in one way or another?
Guess Becks’ Barnet
What haircut Beckham would have in the 2002 World Cup. Or, by 2008, how many kids he’ll have.
What a Pair of Benders
Number of free-kicks scored by Beckham and Roberto Carlos. In very tight shorts.
U Boats
Number of German subs used in a match, who then sink without trace.
Larry’s Carries
Number of metres Lawrence Dallaglio carried the ball in a Rugby World Cup – not counting down to the Cape Town nightclub and back.
Fab Signing Or Not Worth The Hassel?
Barthez v Hasselbaink bet on who would come out on top when they lined up in the Charity Shield Match between Manchester United and Chelsea.
Railway To Hell
11th Hole bet at Royal Troon, if you can stay awake.
Bellyflops
How many players would be booked for diving in Euro 2004. Or how much of Diego Maradona’s belly flops over his tracksuit.
