Work is still on the agenda and it’s getting busier by the day.
So I’m going to try every route possible between now and Christmas to win myself a million and give up work. Sort of like a fun gambling advent calendar to count down to Christmas here are my attempts to win a million in 31 days……
NUMBER 12: POKER (SUNDAY 18TH)
The worlds largest poker site, Pokerstars, celebrates its 10th birthday this month and today the highlight of their celebrations is a $10 million tournament with at least $2 million going to the winner. That sounds too good to miss!
Poker is a game of skill but you also need a lot of luck which makes it a perfect gambling game. To win a tournament of this nature you require a lot of the former and even more of the latter. As a poker player I’m okay and I’ve had some nice wins in my time but I’ll be a bit out of my league in this game and I’ll be relying on getting a huge amount of luck throughout the night. It starts at 7.30pm and will go on through the night for those lucky enough to avoid being knocked out. Hopefully I’ll still be going strong when I should be getting ready to go to work……
Chances of making you a millionaire?
With Pokerstars adding a lot of money to the prizepool and an expected field of around 25,000 this has to be my best chance ever of becoming a millionaire.
Xmas pud rating as a form of gambling (out of 10)

NUMBER 11: GO THROUGH THE CARD AT CHELTENHAM (SATURDAY 8TH)
The missus and I are off to Cheltenham on Saturday with my very good friend Matt and his other half Carole in what should be a cracking afternoon of eating, drinking, gambling and good company. I’m planning on going through the card with these……
12.10
It’s not often you see a 3yo hurdler with form from last Season! but Baby Mix ran in a French Novice Hurdle way back in March finishing a creditable 5th. However all looks set for Paul Nicholls’ French import HINTERLAND to continue his winning sequence after his good win in a Grade 2 hurdle at the last Cheltenham meeting.
12.45
Only 7 runners but a tough little race. I’m siding with CHAMPION COURT who ran very well behind Grand Crus last time out and had decent hurdles form last year.
1.20
Outsider of the field OISEAU DE NUIT owes me nothing after his success at the Cheltenham Festival but I fancy him to be in the shake up here even with top-weight. We know he acts on the course, the ground and at the distance and this drop in class could see him run a big race at a big price.
1.55
I’m not too keen on this race and it’s just small stakes for me here on REV IT UP who won nicely under a penalty last time out.
2.30
The big race of the day and my biggest fancy on the card runs in it. MEDERMIT is an old favourite of mine and this looks the right race for him with ground conditions looking perfect. His beating of Captain Chris last February at Sandown over this trip was undoubtedly his best performance over fences and a repeat of that run will make him very hard to beat off his rating of 157.
3.05
Grandouet gets 4lb from OVERTURN but on this ground I don’t think it’s going to be enough to reel in this incredibly game, consistent and versatile horse. His jumping this season has been fantastic and another all the way win is on the cards.
3.35
Which just leaves me getting out or increasing my winnings for the day on GET ME OUT OF HERE. He’s not the most reliable of horses but he has run some of his best races at Cheltenham and was desperately unlucky not to have won both the Supreme Novices and County Hurdle. He gets a bit of weight from the fancied runners and with McCoy on board I like his chances a lot.
NUMBER 10: THUNDERBALL (WEDNESDAY 7TH)
I’ve tried the Lottery and the Euro Millions to no avail so it’s time to have a go at the Thunderball. The problem here is that the jackpot is only £500,000 so if I want to be a millionaire I’ve either got to win it twice in a week or put £2 on instead. My chances are probably better if I put the same numbers on twice for one draw so that’s what I’ll do.
The odds of winning any prize on the Thunderball is 13-1 with the £1/2 million jackpot odds at just over 8 million to 1. Even matching the 5 main balls is a massive 620,000 - 1 which makes the £5000 prize look positively tight. It doesn’t look a great way of winning any money but here goes anyway.
I’m going to try something a little different for tonights draw. I’m going with consecutive numbers and hoping that the 5 balls that come out are all in sequence i.e. 1-2-3-4-5 or 2-3-4-5-6 or 22-23-24-25-26 or even 35-36-37-38-39. There are 35 ways this could happen and I’ll cover them all twice with number 7 as my Thunderball number. Let’s see how that £70 gets on…….
Chances of making you a millionaire?
Not good as the prizes are fixed and don’t offer any value at all. Odds of 8 million to 1 for the jackpot and all you get is £500,000. That’s terrible especially as it doesn’t rollover if nobody wins it. I doubt tonight is when I become a millionaire.
Xmas pud rating as a form of gambling (out of 10)

NUMBER 9: ONLINE SLOTS (SUNDAY 4TH)
When I’m in Vegas I love to play the slots. Sitting with a free bottle of Budweiser watching the reels spin for a potential million dollar payout in the greatest city on earth is my idea of a perfect and relaxing way to spend a few hours. It’s just one of those things you have to do while you’re there. So playing online in your own home has never appealed to me and is something I’ve never done before. Until now.
Betfred sent me an email last week telling me that their Beach Life slot machine hasn’t paid the jackpot out for over 6 months and it currently sits at over £3 million (£3, 433, 039 and counting). When it’s finally won it will be an online record for the highest slots payout ever. On average the jackpot is usually won around every 4 months so it’s well overdue to pay out and sounds to good an opportunity to miss…..
That’s the good news, the bad news is that when you actually click on the game to play it you find that the stake per spin is £10. Yep, £10!! To win the jackpot you have to play all 20 lines at the maximum stake of 50p. Yikes! Betfred did offer me a 100% signup bonus to their casino which would in effect make it £5 a spin but wow that’s a bit more than the fruit machine you play down the pub. Oh well, in the spirit of this blog and to save any of you losing any money on the game I’ll flush my £25 down the proverbial toilet. So with Fred matching my £25 I have £50 to play with or 5 spins. This should be quick…….
Spin 1: Stake £10. I got 2 scuba divers on 3 lines and returned £7.50 (-£2.50)
Spin 2: Stake £10. Again, I got 2 scuba divers on 3 lines and returned £7.50 (c/f -£5)
Spin 3: Stake £10. I got my 2 scuba divers again along with assorted icecreams and lollies and somehow got £25 (+£10)
Spin 4: Stake £10. Cola Lollies, Icecreams and a wild symbol in the middle reel all added up to £12.50 (+£12.50)
Spin 5: Stake £10. Nothing (+£2.50)
Spin 6: Stake £10. 3 cola lollies for £5 (-£2.50)
Spin 7: Stake £10. The return of the scuba divers and £10. (-£2.50)
Spin 8: Stake £10. Nothing (-£12.50)
Spin 9: Stake £10. Nothing (-£22.50)
Spin 10: Stake £10. OOOOOOOOOHHHHHH. 3 Jackpot Chests out of 5. Close but nothing back. (-£32.50)
Spin 11. Stake £10. 3 cola lollies=£5 (-£37.50)
Spin 12. Stake £10. Nothing. (-£47.50)
And that’s it. Done my money in little less than 8 minutes including writing the above details for this post. Actual playing time for the 12 spins was around a minute and offered absolutely no excitement whatsoever.
Chances of making you a millionaire?
To play at £10 a go you probably need to be a) mad b) rich or c) both. I’m definitely a) and certainly not C) and I’m now another £47.50 further away from being b). Thanks Fred. I couldn’t even begin to work out the chances of any one player winning the jackpot but it’s millions and millions to one. You have more chance winning the Pools, Euro Millions and National Lottery all in one week.
Xmas pud rating as a form of gambling (out of 10)

NUMBER 8: SCOOP 6 (SATURDAY 3RD)
As the days go by I seem to be getting further away from my goal of being a millionaire. There’s not been much to shout about and I’ve not even managed a tenner on the Lottery in the last 2 weeks. Looks like I’ll have to keep working for the forseeable future. Unless I can pick all 6 winners of today’s Scoop 6 bet…….
With no winners for quite some time it’s now rolled over to £748,718 in the pool before Saturday’s wagers are added. With the Bonus Fund also not won there should be well over £2million to play for this weekend.
Obviously it’s not going to be easy and there are some very tricky races to navigate but here goes…..
1.25 Sandown
A nice easy 20 runner handicap to kick off with! Also it’s a Pertemps qualifier which means half the field won’t be trying because their trainers will be eyeing up the final at Cheltenham next March. But which half?
It looks as if the Paul Nicholls traine Poungach will start favourite but he doesn’t look brilliantly handicapped to me and has only had 3 runs so far. I prefer the Evan Williams runner DRUMBALOO who has been highly tried throughout his career (he was 8/1 for the Champion Bumper at Cheltenham) and won a Chepstow handicap nicely last time out on his first run for the stable. He should go well off his low weight. I’m also going to throw in CANTLOW who didn’t stay 3m2f last time out at Cheltenham and will be better suited by the conditions here.
2.10 Aintree
A 15 runner chase over the National fences. Blimey they don’t make winning a million very easy do they?
Gary’s all over BALLYVESEY here so that’ll do for me and I’ll add SWING BILL who has been in good form so far this Season. He has form over the fences and should run well.
2.30 Sandown
I really like the look of GIBB RIVER here and with David Bass able to claim 3lb I see him running a big race. I’ll also put Pipe’s ENFANT DE LUNE in as well although I doubt he’ll get a soft lead like he did on his last run.
3.05 Sandown
In the absence of Tataniano it has to be SIZING EUROPE here and he’ll be a welcome banker for my Scoop 6 bet.
3.20 Aintree
FRANKIE FIGG won the race last year and at the weights should again confirm form over Nikola. Everything looks set for a big run from this one. I also like the look of Arthur Moore’s 6yo LINNEL from the bottom of the weights.
3.40 Sandown
If I get this far it will be a miracle and there’s no guarantee that I’ll get any further. The 8 runners range from 4/1 - 12/1 in price and it really shows how tight the race is. Runshaan, Prophet De Guye and Do It For Dalkey have all won their last 2 races by wide margins in eye catching fashion but all have been heavily raised in the weights as a result. Of the three I prefer PROPHET DE GUYE who looked a horse going places when winning at Ascot last time out. I have to put in MEANDUS DANDY in as well after a great 2nd at Wincanton last time out and will also take a chance with ANY CURRENCY despite his year long absence from the track.
To recap;
6 & 16 / 4 & 15 / 2 & 11 / 7 / 6 & 13 / 2 & 4 & 5
That’s 48 bets at £2 for a total outlay of £96. Gulp!
Chances of making you a millionaire?
Probably the best chance you’ll ever have. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, far from it, but the odds of success are far lower than 1 million to 1 and it’s a must bet with a chance of a big payout for a small outlay.
Xmas pud rating as a form of gambling (out of 10)
If you get the first few winners your heart will be pumping and even getting 6 placed horses usually pays okay. An all round great bet with life changing opportunities that should give plenty of excitement on a Saturday afternoon.

NUMBER 7: NATIONAL LOTTERY (WEDNESDAY 30TH)
After failing to negotiate the 116 and a half million to 1 odds of the Euro Millions on both Friday and Tuesday I’ll try my luck with the much easier to win National Lottery where the odds are only around 14 million to 1. Like most of the population I’ve been trying my luck on the Lottery since it began and like most of the population it’s been without any success. I’ve never had more than 4 numbers in any one line and I’ve only managed the 4 about 3 times. I don’t need Mystic Meg to tell me it most certainly hasn’t been me.
Chances of making you a millionaire?
I would imagine it’s easier than winning the pools but that’s not saying much. I read once that if you put your lottery ticket on a couple of days before the draw you are actually 1100 times more likely to die before the numbers are drawn than win the jackpot! It’s a pretty sobering thought and shows how hard it is to win a million. Knowing my luck I’ll get both up in the same week!
Xmas pud rating as a form of gambling (out of 10)

NUMBER 6: EURO MILLIONS (TUESDAY 29TH)
I’ll have another go at the Euromillions with my £2 line 7-18-23-32-33
NUMBER 5: THE POOLS (MONDAY 28TH)
I have fond memories of the football pools and helping my dad fill in his pools coupon each week when we were growing up. The pools man coming to collect it and then we’d watch the results on World of Sport every Saturday afternoon with Dickie Davies. My dad was always using some new fangled perm he’d invented that covered 30 teams in groups of 3’s or 4’s or whatever he thought was best that week. It always looked a mess with x’s and brackets and instructions written all over the sheet but it was great fun.I don’t ever recall him winning though which was probably due to Littlewoods not being able to understand his coupon.
Times have changed and with the introduction of the lottery the pools has seen a massive decline in interest. The major pools companies have now all merged and you can only play online http://www.footballpools.com/cust.
The classic pools has a £3,000,000 first prize and costs £7.50 for 12 selections, £2.75 for 11 and £1 for 10. Unlike the pools my dad used to play you now how to find 8 games where there is a HIGH scoring draw i.e. 2-2 or higher. It gets worse, as in those 8 games the scores have to add up to 40 goals or more! Blimey that sounds near impossible.
Oh well, in for a penny in for £2.75. After careful analysis of the fixture list (I pressed the Lucky Dip button) I’ve come up with the following 11 matches; Blackburn, Wigan, Blackpool, Peterborough, West Ham, Stafford, St Mirren, Queen Of The South, Ross County, Arbroath and Sterling Albion.
Chances of making you a millionaire?
I’d say you’d have more chance of winning the Lottery jackpot than the pools these days and it’s not hard to see why hardly anyone plays it anymore. You’d have more fun with a fixed odds coupon from your local bookies
Xmas pud rating as a form of gambling (out of 10)

NUMBER 4: PREMIUM BONDS (SUNDAY 27TH)
A sort of lottery with a chance to win a million pounds every month with the added bonus that if you don’t win you can have your stake back! Sounds too good to be true doesn’t it? Well it is true and it’s been attracting punters by the millions since 1956. In fact 23 million people in the UK hold premium bonds which is roughly 1/3rd of the population.
Prizes are drawn monthly and range from £25 to the magical £1 million. The chances of winning any prize each month is 24,000-1 but obviously the more bonds you hold the better your chance becomes. If you simply have the minimum bond holding of £100 your chances of winning a prize in any 12 months is 3.28% or roughly 33/1. With a £1000 holding your odds increase to 28.3% (roughly 5/2) and with the maximum holding of £30,000 you are pretty much guaranteed to win at least one prize a year as it’s a 96.4% chance (that’s 1/25).
When you send off your application for Premium Bonds you are entered into the draw one month after they receive it so if I send it off now I will just about make the December draw. I won’t therefore win a million before Xmas this way but I can hang on until the New Year!
So there you go. You’d probably make more money by putting your cash in a savings account but you’ll never have the chance to win a million with your cash deposited with Santander.
Chances of making you a millionaire?
Very, very small as the odds are the number of premium bonds held to one. With around £40 billion pounds worth in existence that’s near impossible but as your stake is never lost it does make for a free way to play for a million
Xmas pud rating as a form of gambling (out of 10)
As you never lose your stake you can’t really class it as gambling. It does seem that you need to hold a lot of Bonds to make it worthwhile and the odds of winning are pretty small but it’s a safe way to dream of millionairedom……

NUMBER 3: FOUR LONGSHOTS IN A LUCKY 15 (SATURDAY 26TH)
Using my William Hill trained bet settling brain I calculate that one 20/1 winner and three 33/1 winners in a £1ew Lucky 15 will give me a shade over a million quid with the 10% Bonus being added. That’s the easy part now let’s do the tricky bit and see if we can find 4 such outsiders…..
Obviously the best place to start would be to ask Gary as these sort of prices are right up his street. He has in fact picked 5 big priced horses today which you can see by clicking on the blog tab above or going here http://nag-nag-nag.co.uk/blogs/
I’m using 3 of them for my bet and adding one of my own to make it a million pound Lucky 15 attempt……
DUNKELLY CASTLE 12.20 NEWBURY
RAVASTREE 1.30 NEWBURY
BILLIE MAGERN 3.10 NEWBURY
CRESCENT ISLAND 3.45 NEWBURY
Chances of making you a millionaire?
Slim to say the least but a few places will still pay nicely.
Xmas pud rating as a form of gambling (out of 10)
Betting on the horses can be an excellent way to win money gambling but multiple bets are not really the way to do it. It’s a sobering thought that if your first horse loses in a Lucky 15 you lose over 50% of your stake in one go. Ouch!

NUMBER 2: EUROMILLIONS LOTTERY DRAW (FRIDAY 25TH)
I’m not a big fan of the EuroMillions. The £2 cost per ticket is too high and the prizes are distributed poorly with a top heavy payout designed purely for advertising purposes. In fact 32% of the weekly take goes towards the win prize fund which seems scandalous when the odds of actually hitting the jackpot are a massive 116,531,800 - 1! Would it really matter if you won £10m or £100m? Probably not but I guess it is a chance to join Europes mega-rich if you so wish.
The odds of winning any prize is 13-1.
The game is open to residents in Austria, Belgium, France, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. For some reason the Germans don’t play it. The French are the biggest spenders followed by Spain and then us.
And if you’d like to know who your £2 entry fee goes to it breaks down like this; Camelot get 1p, operating costs are 9p, 10p goes to the retailer, 24p goes to the Government in duty, 56p goes to the good causes fund and £1 is put into the prize pot.
I’d be happy with the £1m raffle which was introduced in November 2009 to guarantee at least one UK resident would be a millionaire each week. Tonights draw is a Superdraw with 18 first prizes up for grabs. I’ve done a bit of research and it seems the odds of winning the raffle is around 1 in 3,500,000 for a Tuesday and 1 in 9,500,000 for a Friday draw. Even allowing for an increase in activity due to the enhanced chances to win I reckon it’s about a million-1 to win a million quid.
Chances of making you a millionaire?
It’s a longshot but it should be a genuine true odds chance of making me a millionaire.
I’ve had 5 lines at £2 a go. 4 lucky dips and 1 line with my 5 lucky roulette numbers 7-18-23-32-33
Xmas pud rating as a form of gambling (out of 10)


NUMBER 1: NATIONAL LOTTERY SCRATCHCARDS (THURSDAY 24TH)
I started my mission this afternoon in Cardiff shopping centre by purchasing 2 scratchcards from the National Lottery stand. A bit sad but apparently 5 people a second win on a scratchcard every day which means the odds of winning something must be pretty decent.
The first one promised a top prize of £40k a year for life which meant that as long as I can avoid the grim reaper for at least another 25 years I’ll get my million. I’m 43 now so I reckon even with my poor diet and lack of regular excercise I must be a shade of odds on to make it to the age of 68. According to the National Lottery website the jackpot prize is still waiting to be won which also increases the chances of actually winning a million - although it doesn’t say how many cards are still unscratched. Still, It could me heh?
Errrrr…. no. After some rigorous scratching I had nothing to show for it except little bits of silver foil all over the table.
The second card was a straight hit for a million. No messing. All or nothing. It was called Instant Millionaire and was pretty much all I needed to know although it was handy to note that the NL Website claim that all 4 jackpots are still to be won (you can’t win something if someone’s beaten you to it).

For anyone who’s prone to a bit of scratchcard action you’ll be glad to hear that all 4 jackpots have still to be claimed!
In the 60 or so seconds it took for me to find out I was a loser 300 other people up and down the country were celebrating some sort of scratchcard win. Typical of my luck really……
Chances of making you a millionaire?
Slim to say the least. I have no idea how many cards you would have to scratch before you won the jackpot but it must be 100’s of millions and even their claim of 1 in 3.8 cards wins is misleading as a win can constitute you simply getting your money back. I don’t know about you but when I back a non-runner in the bookies it never feels like I’ve won. I also have to say that it’s the least exciting form of gambling possible. There’s no tension or excitement involved whatsoever. It’s as if you know you’ve lost before you’ve even started scratching. Oh and you get a horrible load of silver filings everywhere as well.
Xmas pud rating as a form of gambling (out of 10)

It also makes me a little bit further off millionaire status as I’m now in deficit of £10
I’ll be back tomorrow, with a little help from Gary, as we have a crack at 4 big outsiders in a Lucky 15.
Good luck,
Gavin