Greyville Race Course in Durban Picture: Nigel Sibanda
Saturday sees the running of the continent’s greatest horseracing event, the Vodacom Durban July and, as usual, this week thousands of South Africans will be participating in a traditional Durban July office pool.
Some pools are quite simple, involving 18 participants – the number of runners – each putting an equal amount of money into a pot and drawing the name of a participating horse. The person who draws the winning horse collects the entire pot.
Other pools are so elaborate that it takes the proverbial rocket scientist to understand the rules and scoring, especially when participants are required to make predictions for all 18 runners and are scored on total accuracy.
But no matter what the size or structure of your Vodacom Durban July pool is, the golden rule remains that you have to be in it to win it.
While most office pools involve a buy-in that can be made with a single note and the pool money is left in the office petty cash tin, there are times when things can go horribly wrong.
Earlier this year in Canada, the organiser of a high-stakes “squares” Super Bowl game played by employees at the Toron-to Stock Exchange was robbed of the Canadian $500 000 pool, reported qz.com.
That office pool had 100 participants buying blocks on a 10×10 grid at a whopping 5 000 Canadian dollars per block – with 100 dollar bills.
While details remain sketchy – and the “robbery” was apparently never reported to local police agencies, one source did confirm that the home of the organiser was trashed and the pool money was gone.
Of course, when it comes to pools, nothing beats the Vodacom Durban July Tote Pools.
Last year, for example, the Pick 6 pool on July day totalled more than R13 million. There were 47.81 winning tickets worth a whopping R276 892 per ticket.
One of the biggest payouts last year in a single race was the Quartet in Race 3, the Betting World 2200. With Head Honcho, Crowd Pleaser, Blackball and Pack Leader the first four across the line, the Quartet paid R26 342.
This year Head Honcho will again be in action, but this time he lines up in the main event, the Vodacom Durban July.
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