Friday, November 09, 2012

When the bookies didn’t have a prayer

'And, lo, the Son of Man did again walk upon the earth, as it was foretold. And on the first day after He was risen, He did go to the temple of chance, and said unto them, 'Verily, I ask of you this. Can I have a monkey on Justin Welby for the Canterbury Stakes at 13-8?’ ” (Pseudo-Apocrypha 2:12-13). 
You will forgive this blasphemous imagining of the earliest hours of the second resurrection, for I know not what I write. Yet had Jesus marked his long awaited return this week by rushing to Ladbrokes to back what he knew to be a dead cert, would that have been such a terrible thing? 
According to those who regard godliness and gambling as mutually exclusive, it would. A smattering of outrage greeted the revelation that churchmen with access to the news made a few bob by lumping on the Archbishop of Durham before it became common knowledge. 

While no one in a dog collar was filmed pushing a wheelbarrow full of collection plate coinage into a Betfred shop, a number of clerics reportedly opened online betting accounts this week purely to back him, while the sudden, sharp narrowing of the odds tells the tale.

Among those to get his dusty old cassock in a twist was the Labour MP and former Anglican priest Chris Bryant, who called it “pretty shabby” and demanded the selection process be reformed to prevent any recurrence. Mr Bryant is a fine man who fought the good fight against Rupert Murdoch and his satanic minions.

But in describing this as “insider dealing”, with the hint of City rogues making illegal killings, he overreacts. 

The sums involved will have been minute, because the bookies did what they always do when “unusual betting patterns” ring alarm bells. 

They closed their books before any damage could be done, and will recoup more from the free publicity than they pay out.

The holy punters have nothing with which to reproach themselves, because the essence of betting on any race, on the turf or for the highest of sees, is to find an edge in information over the other side. Any use of it is legitimate, and there are no exceptions to this rule. 

On a works outing to Wimbledon dog track, when our son was tiny and I was in the baby bore phase that blinds you to how anybody could fail to want one, I asked my then colleague Clare Balding if she was broody. She was not, she said, and never would be. 

Reasoning that women often feel that way at 28, but once they hit 33 are virtually stealing them from pushchairs, I predicted she would have a child in the next 10 years. She offered 6-4 against such a birth. For more money than is seemly to mention, the bet was struck. 

Years later, on the morning a newspaper outed her as gay, she sent a sweet email wondering if the bet was still on. Of course it was, I wrote back. She had that nugget of insider knowledge (we’ll not demean ourselves by citing the turkey-baster), and a perfect right to profit from it. 

Eventually, when the decade was up, she proposed with exceeding good grace and charity to take a small fraction of the amount in full settlement. 

Accepting that offer was a heinous betrayal of the unwritten code that governs all betting. All the guilt was and still is mine. She had behaved with unimpeachable honour in using an enhanced appreciation of the true odds over the imaginary ones (much as that legendary number-cruncher Nate Silver did to predict every swing state result from Tuesday’s US election with such bewildering accuracy). 

So did the clerical shrewdies who used their specialist knowledge to cash in on the new Archbish. Far from feeling any guilt, they should be proud of themselves. Anything that lends a little colour to the Church of England – such a noble and positive presence in national life, but often such a drab one – will enhance its dwindling appeal. 

The Roman Catholic Church has lashings of Runyonesque charm, which may partly explain its comparative strength. At the Cheltenham Festival, you will find scores of priests – those at least who didn’t do all their dough playing poker on the ferry over from Ireland – waging a crusade against the rails bookies. They understand that, regardless of Matthew 6:24, ye can serve God and mammon when it comes to modern gambling. 

Is the Almighty so joyless that He would disapprove of His servants landing the odd sneaky touch? He is not. 

Nowhere in the New Testament is there a divine edict against gaming, though dice were madly popular across the Judaeo-Roman world at the time. And who has less cause to be sniffy about using insider knowledge than the omniscient being who created these John McCriricks of the cloth, in full awareness that they would one day upset Chris Bryant? 

Gambling in moderation is a bounteous gift to us all, and nothing tastes as sweet as unearned money. Being a human, humorous sort of chap, Anglicanism’s new guv’nor will appreciate this, although it is long odds against him focusing on these points in his first sermon at Canterbury Cathedral. 

You can get 33-1 against that, in fact, but keep an eye on Betfair for any dramatic market moves. 

And if you should spot a bespectacled gent in a mitre sidling into the closest William Hill’s to Lambeth Palace with a fat wad bulging beneath his nightie, in God’s name race him to the counter before the heathens close the book.