Coral must be completely mad – at least on the facts disclosed in today’s Racing Post. A Mr Albert Kinloch, 74, of Glasgow put £100 on Glasgow Rangers being relegated in 2012 at 2,500/1. This occurred since Rangers hit financial difficulties. Any fool, even Nigel Molesworth, knows this rule. Mr Kinloch is queueing to collect.
Be it noted that staff at the betting shop in question obtained this 2,500/1 price by asking “head office”.
But Coral have not yet paid out. They claim that Rangers were demoted and not relegated. Further they point out that Mr Kinloch is a retired bookmaker and was a “semi-professional gambler” who was “trying to make a profit”. Further, Corals also question why Mr Kinloch went to a betting shop five miles from his home where he would not be recognised, rather than use his local branch where, presumably, he would be. Coral claim Mr Kinloch is “manipulating the system”.
I am sorry to have to add that Simon Clare, the Coral PR man, has testified in court that a price of 2,500/1 was only quoted for events that “were not going to happen” (whereas, if I may interject and lest there be any doubts, 5,000/1 is quoted for events that can happen – think Leicester City). Clare seems a reasonable and cheerful fellow. Why he has to be besmirched by his employer in public I have no idea.
Coral can only win this if they rely upon the sadly long-established fact that judges are often crazy. We’ll see.
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The chairman got me to go long USD .v. CAD by buying the latter at 1.3331 ahead of Trump’s speech later today.
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Finally, we are supposed to get the Mitie (LON:MTO) lowdown later today or, possibly, Monday – this is so since the independent reporting accountants should have slapped the dossier on Phil Bentley’s desk at 8.00 a.m. today.