Call Me Charlie

Last week, one of my coworkers approached me to see if I wanted to join an office Superbowl pool. The scheme was a 10x10 grid of boxes which would later be randomly assigned number ranging from 0 to 9. The numbered columns corresponded to the ones digit in the score for the Patriots, and the numbered rows would correspond to the ones digit of the Eagles' score. Each square could only be claimed once and each cost $3. I decided to buy three squares for a total of $9 and am I ever glad I did!

So, when choosing which squares I wanted, I purposefully chose squares that resided in three different rows and columns, so that I wouldn't be reliant upon the same number for two separate squares. The drawback here being that if a certain row was assigned a quality number - such as 0, 7, 4, or 1 - one was dependent on getting another quality number for only a single corresponding column, or visa-versa, instead of using that quality number multiple times. Since gambling was the nature of the game, I decided to take my chances.

So, 100 squares at $3 a piece yielded a total pot of $300. $50 was given out to the holder of the matching square for the scores at the end of each quarter with the remaining $150 given to the holder of the matching score square at the conclusion of the game. I held squares (P2, E3), (P6, E6), and (P4, E1). Well, as we all know, the final score of the game was Patriots 24, Eagles 21, meaning that I won the 'grand prize' of $150, netting me a pay out of 1666%!!!! After discovering that I had won, I went insane and am still in quite a hyper mood, but can you blame me? Sure I only had a 1 in 33 chance of winning anything (or a 97% chance of losing money), but it made a game that I really couldn't care less about so much more interesting, so I think it was well-worth the risk involved. And, being from Vegas, I know to quit while ahead, so instead of using my winnings to go and bet on something else, I'm going to treat myself right and blow the money on something tangible, like a pair of Nike Shox. Watch for an update about just that in the (very) near future.

So then, kids, I guess the moral of the story is that when it comes to gambling, Just Do It!