A rush of adrenaline ran through my inebriated body when I read the Toto results one Saturday evening a few months back. Hang on, better check that again, was my thinking at the time. According to the numbers on my computer screen, I had all the day's numbers correct with only three games to be played the next day. Two of those games I had covered with doubles, so barring a minor miracle I was guaranteed to be in the money.
SHOW ME THE MONEY BABY!!!
Spent the whole next day in a zombie-like state figuring out exactly how I was going to spend my fortune. Even started spending it as if I already had it -- according to my calculations . . . I had.
The week before, three people had become millionaires cracking the code to the tune of 100 million yen each. Second place had picked up a couple of mil and third place had earned some pocket money of a few hundred thousand yen.
For those of you not well-versed in the local sports betting scene, Toto is a form of lottery in which you attempt to predict the results of a series of J. League Division One and Two games. Those that correctly predict all 13 results share the dividends of a percentage of the pool allocated for first place. One mistake will put you into the second-place pool and two incorrect results will give you a share of third place.
You may select a home win, an away win or a drawn result -- the result being taken as the final result after any extra time has been played. You may also improve your chances by including permutations of results. For example, you may choose two results for one fixture (known as a double) or even select all three possible results (triple). Having taken this extra precaution to cover my options at the additional expense of a couple of thousand yen, I figured that at worst, I would be sipping Pina Coladas on the deck of a yacht come the turn of the week.
What actually transpired made Jean Van de Velde's collapse at the 1999 British Open look tame. A combination of poor defending, even worse reffing and the wind blowing in the wrong direction manufactured a set of results that saw my two bankers blown out and me slide into third place by the skin of my teeth. OK, so forget about the yacht, but I was still looking good for a few Pina Coladas. Make that a small cafe latte from Starbucks. Apparently I wasn't the only one with an eye for some hot numbers that day as half of Japan got paid 370 yen for correctly predicting 11 numbers out of 13.
Perhaps it was my fault for overestimating my gambling prowess; perhaps I was naive enough to think that it could be that easy. Nevertheless, the episode alerted some serious warning bells in my gambling-orientated mind.
It will cost you around 50 million yen to cover every possible permutation of results -- an option that at one stage seemed worthy of consideration taking into account the fact that the first few payouts were double that figure. It seemed like you could double your money on a sure thing. I even started sending out letters to my wealthy uncles in England. They didn't respond. I'm glad they didn't. The payouts of late haven't even been enough to put a smile on the face of the guy sleeping on the bench at Yoyogi Park.
Naturally, the public's interest has waned as a result -- this fact being borne out by the figures. After hitting a peak around the seventh week of the season (somewhere around the time of my nightmare), the amount of money spent on the Toto has been in a free fall since. Gone are the queues of people waiting outside the Toto booths, gone is all the hype surrounding how many people are going to hit it big and gone even is the miracle that managed to get my girlfriend, who has about as much interest in sport as a camel in the Sahara Desert, dipping into her shopping budget to throw money at the footy.
The problem? Too easy. This may sound rich since I haven't even managed to string five wins together since my near victory, but the fact of the matter is there aren't enough drawn games to make the payout worthwhile.
Given the format of the J. League, it is unlikely matches will end in draws. Games tied after 90 minutes of play have an additional 30 minutes of extra time. If the scoreline still remains the same, only then is the result considered a draw. Out of 13 games this usually happens, on average, once or twice. So cover as many home or away wins as you can, take the loss when the one or two draws come in, and you have a decent chance of coming in third place. You and the millions of other people who have taken the same option. This is exactly why we keep getting disappointed with these Mickey Mouse payouts. The solution? Very simple. Count the Toto results as being the outcome of games after 90 minutes. That way you have less disgruntled winners and bigger payouts as there would be more drawn results.
If and when that happens, you will see the queues flocking back to the Toto booths, the payouts back in the millions and my girlfriend back in front of the telly watching J. League games.
Until then, I'm off to play Pachinko.