With less than two days to go until the start of the UEFA Euro 2012 Championships my excitement levels are at fever pitch, despite England’s chances of success being at their lowest for years. Although I am not really a gambler, mainly because I am useless at it, I do like to place a few bets during a major tournament just to make the less appealing games a bit more interesting to watch.
As I started to contemplate my bets for the first few games I asked myself the question ‘What would Paul the Octopus do?’ For those of you that don’t know, the late great ‘Paul the Octopus’ shot to fame back in 2010 for successfully predicting Spain as the Winner of the 2010 World Cup. ‘Paul’ placed his bets on a gut feeling [literally] and had the luxury of his mind being clear of in-form stats or patriotic naivety. Sadly I couldn’t call upon Paul’s skills as he passed away shortly after the tournament but I found hope in ‘Fred the Ferret’ the latest unconventional psychic that has recently been touted to the media.
After watching a couple of videos of ‘Fred the Ferret’ in action I decided I didn’t feel comfortable making my gambling decisions based on what bowl of fresh beef Fred decides to devour. Instead I am going to test the psychic skills of my own small, wriggly, food obsessed animal… my 18 month old son!
Yes, I have decided to get my unruly toddler to choose which teams I will place bets on. For each fixture of the UEFA Euro 2012 Championship I will attempt to get my son to pick out a result from three flag options. There will be a flag for each of the two countries playing in the fixture and a third flag that has half a flag of each country to represent a draw. For the opening game, Poland v Greece, my son will be choosing a flag from three different piles of red seedless grapes [his favourite] after that he will be choosing a result from a mixture of healthy snacks and toddler friendly challenges.
Ferret Vs Toddler - Who will win?!
In my next blog I will be uploading video and photo evidence of the results that he chooses for the following fixtures:
Poland v Greece – Friday 8th June
Russia v Czech Republic – Friday 8th June
Netherlands v Denmark – Saturday 9th June
Germany v Portugal – Saturday 9th June
I will report back on how my son’s predictions measure up against the media hungry ‘Fred the Ferret’. I will be placing an accumulator bet on his first four predictions; after all it would be a missed opportunity if my son does turn out to be psychic. Who knows he could turn out to be the next ‘Statto’, he already has an eye for detail.
The Next Statto
