BETTING, ITS A HUSTLE

The other day, my pal challenged me to come up with all the possible outcomes that you can be able to play on Sportpesa in order to win the coveted jackpot. The zeal in me got down to googling and programming and sadly, it's not as easy as we had thought. Men, being this jobless dudes, we had thought that we could easily come up with possible outcomes through permutations. As such, we took our calculators and worked out the math. Sadly, to get the possible outcomes, you need to raise the three games by the number of outcomes. If it is two games, there are a possible nine games. So for thirteen games, there are 1,594,323 possible right outcomes. Which means you need 160 million in order to win between 1 and 40 million if theoretically put. Not worth it, Right?

Damn. It looks like my dream of betting has gone to the dogs. Now I only have to concentrate on some other stuff. Even though I came up with the codes to run in the model, it was not able to fit into Microsoft Excel. Excel, unfortunately only allows for 1,048,576 cells, row-wise. I did run some input on VBA and stored it as a macro so that I could possibly view the output on Excel. Then I saw that debug error. Now I need to find a way of importing the model directly into an Excel Data Model as it can handle more than 2 million cells in a row.

What prompted my friend to ask me if I can be able to execute the outcomes? Since we had resorted to being full-time students (ideally, doing a daunting professional course can make you think you need all that time but you don’t), we sometimes found time to engage in garish banter over lunch just to sate our quest for being overnight millionaires. And in our parochial senses, we thought of investing some cash and voila, we would be smiling all the way to the bank. But the gods were not on our side. The first setback arose because we did not know how to execute the model even though he knew I had taken up some courses on programming and excel online.

So as not to shame myself, I had sleepless nights thinking how I could be able to solve the problem of aiding in us becoming millionaires. I even forgot that I had a mountain of an exam in due course and made YouTube, various betting blogs, programming sites and the knowledge I had in excel into use. After two nights of trial and error, I was able to come up with a program by modelling a seven outcome game. (You should have seen my Eureka! debut). Then a problem arose with regard to time. Even if you have all the time to play the outcomes, it will take you more than a week if betting on the games individually if you factor in you need sleep, toilet breaks, meal breaks and monotony.  My advice on this was to form a gang of like-minded pals to bet all viable games after eliminating outcomes that will not work. Like, say if Spain played with Kenya, you are sure Kenya will lose. So your bet for the game is a win for Spain.

If you choose a win for this game. You automatically reduce the chances of failure by a third. Ideally, if you can eliminate eight games which you are cock sure about in a jackpot, then you will remain with five games in the model to work with. That means with five games, the possible number of times you can play is 243 games. Those games multiplied by KSh. 100, you are sure to get your return on investments. However, you have to be contended with match fixing and the possibility of the team you had so much hope on not being in shape and therefore drawing or losing. Because football can be like an earthquake, unpredictable, right. Again, the games that are usually placed for a bet are usually very tricky to predict, zimekauka mbaya.  

So we are still stuck in a rut. I am still looking for mechanisms of running the codes in a data model as my friend looks for funds so that we can sit down and brainstorm on how to win ‘intellectually’. Given that I also performed Monte Carlo simulation on the outcomes, I am sure you can smile all the way to the bank if you muster how to work with the model given that we have been betting on a trial and error basis.

As for yours truly, I have to learn how to bet since I am not well versed with the betting industry. I should also not take for granted football noise. Noise in this case means the possibility of match-fixing, and all the various information that influences the outcome of a game. Albeit to counter this betting institutions, one only needs brainy football stalwarts who know how to predict successfully and you are good to go. This is after performing historical simulations.

Is it worth it to bet? I have been a firm believer that ridiculing that which has become a system will not eliminate it but will propagate it due to the advertisement it gets whether adverse or not. Plus, betting is for those we call risk seeking. Even though there are many people who are loss averse, the sheer aspect of not knowing the outcome makes it quite something due to the adrenaline that you might win. If my mental institutions serve me right, one day I will model a winning outcome with just 27 games. It’s possible.

Hasta La Vista Baby.

Link to outcomes of seven games

[Picture Source: My own]

Read More

Sports and Booze

Epl , booze and cheering go together. Chelsea, Manchester United and City, Arsenal, Real Madrid and Barcelona. Soccer makes me loose control. I loose myself when watching matches. I used to watch local matches till they became hazardous.They also lack the oomph and the quality showcased is below par.

Football just like any other career should be nurtured. You don't just pick up anybody because he knows how to dribble the ball and makes a some horrible challenges. You nee to make football exciting. It should capture the intrinsic desires of those watching.

My favourite league is English Premier League. A colonial relic will not go away soon. It stays with us like it is a magnetic force on some horse-show magnet constantly reinvigorated by electrical impulses.

English Premier League is a gem. It has resulted in many Kenyans being hooked to become literal fanatics. Die-hards. Some fight, commit suicide and others injure themselves because of the sport.

Even guys in my hamlet back in the shags have a penchant for football. They love the major tournaments. It makes them go gaga. They live loving it. And their numbers are ever growing.

A good sports fanatic watches the sport in a club or a joint where ale is served. If you are a soft drink chap, you are bound to find these crowd very gauche. Never mind that some of those in watching the game are elite. When cheering your favourite team, you become subservient to the footballers.

SITUONANE.

Read More

Borrowed Accents

I love YouTube. At least I am able to enjoy the latest music and old school songs that have been uploaded by caring men and women of wit, talent and skill. Another noble thought after sliced bread owing to the fact that one can watch the latest movie trailers, video songs and home learn since the relevant videos are just a click away.

The other day I was glued to the box watching Coke Studio. It was the season grand finale uploaded in their YouTube account. It was however a lackluster video if the number of viewers is to go by and the lack of chutzpah it was to showcase. But I did hang on for a while till I could not condone the motion pictures anymore as it had the impact of making me smoother in a peaceful lull like an insomniac having been infused with bouts of sleeping pills resulting in amnesia.

Coke hired a certain young sweet voiced heavily borrowed accented chic (I don't know from where) to be the lead presenter of the show. Every time I went on YouTube and the 'Ada Ada' song renditioned by Flavor and Victoria Kimani played as an ad, I sat down and watched. The version was a success having more than a million views in the few months after being uploaded. Not many Kenyan artistes have a million views. A friend who knows one of the biggest artiste in the country once said the artiste found them watching Diamond in the office and bemoaned. He wanted comments and views on his YouTube account. You know what that means, more mullas from YouTube.

That's probably the song that made me subscribe to Coke Studio. It was electrifying and oozed symphony. Those tasked with creating the afro beats did not disappoint either and the two had the requisite connection expected of a 9ja broda and a Kenya diva of majuu pedigree fused to create a modern and authentic beat with seamless flow in sound on Kenya soil in a stage that was neatly strewn with resplendence, ample lighting, enough props and a vibrant audience that did not disappoint in this aural environment. The performative context of the song made it sound like a love ballad easily capturing one’s attention even if moody.

The three ladies who sang the background vocals did an awesome job and knew how to be in sync with the musicians on stage contributing in the stage having a vibrant appeal. But the most exhilarating part was the fact that the guitarists and all those involved in the acoustics produced pulsating beats leaving one to yearn for more. 

So while watching the season grand finale, I must admit I was really irritated when the presenter referred to ‘Iyanya’ as ‘Iyaya.’ Hitherto my African proclivity and to be precise my opine was that the right articulation of the stage name of the West African heartthrob was ‘Iyanya’ and not ‘Iyaya.’ The former (Iyanya) means ‘you are verbally spewing insults on me’ in jang. So after watching another video where he introduces himself, I came to learn that he is ‘Iyaya’ and not ‘Iyanya.’

Initially I found the lady just alright considering I am a great fan of Capital fm which has a couple of newscasters and radio presenters with Bri’ish and Uncle Sam brogue of words which are uttered as if one is suffering from an acute cold blocking the nasal cavity preventing flow of air to adequately access the vocal cords. This ultimately results in the pulmonary pressure provided by the lungs generating sound by phonation in the glottis in the larynx that then is modified by the vocal tract into ersatz American sounds in lieu of genuine Kenyan vowels and consonants.

I wonder why those of oriental inflection never get preferential consideration especially now that the top two countries we import from are Tigers.

One of my cousins who knows Mandarin once told us about the queer tendencies of some peeps from the renowned Asian giant. He was once told to go and serve himself food as he was working in one of their firms. Apparently, their numbers have proliferated in the recent past as a result of the many tenders they get. Unbeknownst to him, he thought it was a normal delicacy that he is accustomed to. He was shocked to find reptiles that had sumptuously been prepared staring at him like a tot does without blinking the eyelids even if you fake a prod. At least the for the short period he served, he became a proficient Mandarin speaker by design.

I have never understood why people develop accents when they speak in the Queen’s patois. One of my sisters was in a local university where almost all the comrades had gainfully acquired American umlaut.

Kenyans are a very funny people. One can stay in India for over ten years but still never acquire the Indian diacritic while another whiling away years in academic pursuit in the desertish and highly segregative Kasarani school of higher education can easily outdo an American when it comes to twanging by default association.

The few Americans (whites) I have interacted with don’t twang like some of the ladies who want to appear cooler do. They are easy with life and none has ever admired acquiring a Kenyan accent.  Who will tell our ladies and some cheap publicity seeking boys that an accent is not a measure of how sophisticated or cool you are.

Ideally, if you acquire such accents by association and not as a result of nurture, then it only means we are still slaves of our own creation. That is the reason I usually admire South Africans and Nigerians. Just by the tone of their voice, one can easily tell the nationality of such a person.

In Kenya, a patois of American descent can easily earn you a job if you have fluency and diction in some of the local TV and radio stations even when lacking solid content between the ears. 

I still don’t know the person who made it fanciful to speak in foreign accents (I would have hanged him with tissue paper). The culprit made us loose one thing that could have easily aided in giving Kenyans identity, voice intonation and tonal variation. Sad we pride in other people’s accents yet the Italians are still thought of as romantic as they carelessly and spitefully express themselves in English.

Read More