Elementary betting
January 13th, 2009 by Kevin Egan“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”
- Sherlock Holmes/Arthur Conan Doyle
Okay, I’ll be honest. Instead of coming up with a top class introduction of my own, I chose to go down the easy route and steal a wonderful phrase from the “man of letters”, as he titled himself. Reports of Conan Doyle applying this tenet to his personal betting habits remain unconfirmed; however it’s a good policy with which to lead off a column such as this.
GAA betting, due to the relatively small amount of events available to back, is an art which requires considerable amounts of patience and discipline. Unlike followers of racing or soccer, GAA supporters operate in a world where 90% of the games that they might attend in any given year pass under the radar of the bookmaking community. If you want to bet on a 5 runner selling hurdle from Perth, there isn’t a bookmaker in the land who’ll refuse you. Ask to be accommodated on the first round of the Leinster Under 21 football championship and you’ll usually get a derisory snarl in response. Betting events are few and far between and thus it is quite plausible that there can be a full weekend of games without a single standout betting opportunity.
