BETTING ODDITIES: Enough of Hokey Cokey ‘Goals’

BETTING ODDITIES: In his latest weekly blog, DAVID STEWART takes a sideways look at some of the stories making the news in the betting world and beyond.

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HOKEY COKEY ‘GOALS’

For the love of everything that is holy I PLEAD this week for goal flashes not to be updated until the goal is actually confirmed.

There is no bigger rubdown than seeing your side ‘score’ – the goal flash changes to 1-0 and then it reverts back to 0-0 once the million reasons for a goal not to stand are studied forensically.

It drives me INSANE and on a pure point of pedantry a ‘goal’ cannot be disallowed as technically it wouldn’t be a goal in the first place.

There must be a technical solution to this or just WAIT until it is confirmed.

1-0 then 0-0 it’s like the Hokey Cokey and it’s an utter Jokey.

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TIME TO STUDY A NEW ALGORITHM

I’ve been guilty in the past of spouting things like “exams were harder in my day” but I fully accept without any foundation whatsoever.

What can’t be denied though is that there has been ‘grade inflation’ over the years.

More importantly though, the classes of 2020 have faced a very worrying disturbance to their studies through no fault of their own.

It got me thinking that maybe instead of grades – students were allocated a numeric rating based simply on how they ranked compared to their peers. A giant leaderboard of the whole country if you like.

Then the universities could base their offers for students who are, for example, in the top 25%. After all, the Universities only have a fixed number of places every year.

There’ll be winners, losers and those that just miss the cut….. but surely it can’t be any other way?

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ELECTION DELAY

A slightly unorthodox manifesto pledge from the Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko who declared “there will be no new elections until you kill me”. Can’t quite see that printed on a rosette somehow.

The very same man who declared that sport “is the best anti-virus remedy” and was even quoted as saying drinking vodka would help combat COVID-19.

Gulp.

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WEIGH IN BEFORE EATING. YIKES

News this week that a restaurant in central China has apologised for encouraging diners to weigh themselves before ordering order food accordingly.

I couldn’t quite work out whether those that weighed more should order more or less ?

As the much missed John McCririck said: when throwing bread to the ducks – always give the FAT ones the most – as they NEED it more !!

On a (very) related theme I have decided what the breaking point is for over-indulgence in a restaurant.

It revolves around chocolate profiteroles that are bursting with cream and smothered in chocolate – delicious for those with a sweet tooth.

However – when the said dessert is served with side jugs of MORE cream and MORE chocolate that breaks the point of over indulgence.

Whether I would complain or not though is an entirely different matter, obviously.

David

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DAVID STEWART is a freelance digital betting producer and journalist. His CV includes: The Sun, The Sporting Life, Racing Post, At The Races, The Sportsman, lead feature writer for Sky’s Betview magazine and senior producer Timeform Radio.

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Views of authors do not necessarily represent views of Star Sports Bookmakers.

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