LOOK SHARPE: Dead or Alive – Bet on It!

Sports betting PR legend GRAHAM SHARPE brings you his latest ‘LOOK SHARPE’ column…

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IT MUST BE TRUE because I read it in The Times not that long ago – yes, that August (or any other month, I’m sure) organ of truth – that a craze had developed in the Chinese city of Taichung for betting on how likely – or unlikely – hospital patients were to survive for an allocated period of time: ‘A thriving underground betting industry worth more than £20m’ had apparently grown up around this ‘in-dying’ market and, declared the story: ‘Some dying patients regaining consciousness have been stunned to find at their bedsides not only devoted relatives, but also small groups of high-rollers, there to inspect their vital signs.’

Yes, really, that is what the story said. It seemed unlikely so I did some online digging in an effort to discover more morbid details, and found a story going back eleven years, appearing in a national newspaper, (NOT the Sunday Sport, I should add) claiming that:

‘According to China Press, senior citizens’ clubs have set up more than 10 gaming houses in Taizhong City as the bizarre trend has taken off. Gamblers – including cancer patients’ family members and even doctors – have lodged NT$100m (£2.1m) with bookies.

It is reported that those who want to take part in the game have to pay a membership fee of NT$2,000 (£43) to the bookies.

The bookies then visit hospitals to seek permission from the patients’ family. Then they take the punters to the hospital on their next visit to observe the patients. According to the rules, the bookies win if the cancer patients die within a month.’

Further online searching divulged information suggesting that even doctors and nurses are getting involved – well, the implications of that are rather obvious, one might have thought!

The betting market apparently usually offers a timeframe of a month as the length of time the patient has to stay alive – or not – depending on which way you decide to wager.

The patients’ families are promised 10% of the total market should their loved one make it to what one might term as the, ahem, deadline.

The average wager, reportedly, is around £40 but one mega-morbid gambler apparently placed a bet of £215,000.

Should the patient peg it within a month the house takes the lot – the longer he or she lives beyond that, the greater the payout to punters.

‘In some cases’ concluded the story, ‘families are thought to have been offered bonuses if they instruct doctors to withhold life-prolonging treatment.’

You wouldn’t believe that such a gambling practice could exist here, would you? However, I know from a highly reliable source of my own that there is at least one thriving ‘dead-pool’ competition in existence in which the entrants, of which my source was one, are allowed to select their own ‘next high profile death’ contender.

He also told me that the pool had continued to thrive, despite there having once, in the earlier days of the competition, been a ‘rather embarrassing outbreak of unexpected celebration’ in a pub where one chap who benefited heftily financially as a result, was thrown out when he began cheering loudly as the hostelry’s tv announced the news in 1997 that Mother Theresa had left the world for a better place……’

A few years ago I was myself approached by a gentleman from near Milton Keynes, named Jon Matthews, who was suffering from lung cancer but who wanted to place a bet that he would outlive his prognosis. I was able to arrange for him to place a couple of such bets, although I must admit when he won £10,000 from his opening wager I wondered whether perhaps he just had a bad cold.

However, and by which time we had become firm friends, he fell within sight of a further £10,000 in winnings. By now I knew Jon so well that I felt I’d also lost a friend, and donated the extra ten grand he would have won, to the hospital where he’d been treated, who spent it very wisely on a much-needed item of medical equipment, which was quickly in regular use – and I was very proud to see that it also boasted Jon’s name on an explanatory plaque on its side.

Fatality wagers are no new thing, either – I have a book in which 19th century author, Ralph Nevill wrote of ‘a favourite mode of speculation , backing one man against another – that is, betting which would live the longest. Scarcely a remarkable person existed upon whose life many thousands of pounds did not depend.

‘Some would watch closely all the stages of a total stranger’s illness. more impatient for his death than an undertaker. Considerable odds were laid upon a man with the constitution of a porter, who was pitted against an individual expected to die every week…….the porter, however, unexpectedly shot himself through the head.’

So there you are – there is definitely no such thing as a dead cert!

I was saddened to hear of the recent death, last month, of racecourse bookie, Barry Dennis, who added to the atmosphere and ‘colour’ of everywhere that he stood when taking on punters, often with great humour – even when he was losing, as he was in September 2004 at Newmarket when all six favourites obliged. Declared Barry – ‘The only sensible conclusion is that God is a bookmaker – and he sends the odd rotten day to remind us he moves in mysterious ways.’

Once asked whether he thought he would have made a profitable punter himself, he declared; ‘B- – – – – – s to that – I haven’t got the balls to back horses!’

Barry, who was 83, also enjoyed teasing his female customers – ‘I do take bets from women – I even take bets from the Welsh, but never from Welsh women – cos I’m married to one and I know what they’re like!’

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

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