One of the greatest gamblers of our time died on 26th Dec 2005. Kerry Packer – the Aussie cricket-lover, businessman and billionaire, who gambled with the way cricket was played, is no more.
Some 20-25 years ago when cricket was still played in whites, Kerry Packer intervened and changed the way cricket would be played.
| Even BBC thinks Kerry Packer was a compulsive gambler. Read Profile | Wikipedia on Kerry Packer | |
The Aussie got English cricket captain Tony Grieg to recruit talented “rebel” cricketers who were willing to dump their country. The day-night matches – to ensure more eye-balls – were telecast on Packer’s TV Channel. Viewer-ship sky-rocketed because of his innovative telecast which involved a shorter version of the game, colored clothing, drinks breaks with modified trolleys, white balls, and floodlights…not to mention top talents from West Indies, South Africa, England and Australia.
He also owned a casino…and 75% of all magazines in Australia.
Gambling paid for this man. Unfortunately, it doesn’t pay for me.
Now for what you actually came to this blog for – some humour!
The other day when, I was in Rekha`s favorite meat-shop buying a kilo of chicken, I befriended the butcher. To lighten things up…I tried entering into a bet with him but he refused to indulge saying “No sir, the steaks are too high.” I had to walk off.
The next week, I met the butcher again. This time, he had time on his hand and was friendlier. He started off saying he had been a compulsive gambler when young…had lost all his money at Las Vegas.
“Why? What happened?”
“I took my wife along and we tempted each other and before we could realize…it was all over,” he said.
“If you lost everything, how did you manage to start this meat-shop and cold storage business?” I was curious.
“We managed to leave Las Vegas with a small fortune.”
“You mean you won after all?”
“No…sir. We had entered Las Vegas with a bigger fortune.”
The butcher had tears in his eyes, and I decided to leave the ex-compulsive-gambler alone when he was upset. Especially since, he had a big butcher`s knife.
A few days back I was in a library, reading a book titled: “A brief History of the times when everything was going right and everybody was happy”
I wouldn`t have spotted this book in the reference rack if my eyes hadn`t rushed to this huge 600 page hard-bound titled “How to Hug”. Only after I took it out of the rack…did I realize it was the 7th volume of Encyclopedia, placed just before the 8th volume “Hut to Indigo”.
In the history aptly titled: “A brief History of the times when everything was going right and everybody was happy,” I read about a British archeologist who discovered Borra Caves in Andhra Pradesh. According to him…they are amazing, natural caves made 300 million years ago. It seems a few years after discovering the caves, the archeologist had also discovered a 6,000 year old skeleton between the rocks. In his Analysis Report he wrote: “We have definite proof that we have found the skeleton of a man who died of a heart attack 6,000 years back. Please find attached a gamblers receipt which says he placed 3,000 pearls on Goliath winning the David vs Goliath battle.”
Moral of the Story: No Gambler can be outstanding in his field. We all need to leave it to the farmer to be outstanding in his field.