Neigh! UnderCurrent loves the Spring Carnival! Champagne corks popping, bookie bags bulging and shotgun-toting stewards on standby just in case one of the nags can’t make onto the home straight come the first Tuesday in November.
It really is a magical time to be alive and UnderCurrent is eternally jealous of its Melbourne-based hipster cousin UC Bro for getting a public holiday to properly enjoy the festivities.
As reported earlier by Proper Journalist, Chinese TV brand TCL is celebrating a decade at the track this Melbourne Cup Carnival, with signage around the famous Flemington track and lots of TV sets for colourful racing identities, z-list celebrities and salt o’ the earth punters to watch, in between bets on unknown undercard runners and swigs from James Boag, the official beer of the 2014 Carnival.
But TCL is not the only TV brand enjoying the spirit of racing, Melbourne’s own entrepreneur Ruslan Kogan, he of Harvey Norman-baiting fame, is proving himself not just a champion of the grey market, but also of the grey mares, this week announcing a Melbourne Cup competition with a $1 million first prize.
To win this 7-figure sum and join Kogan as a self-minted cashed-up bogan, one only needs to correctly predict the first 10 places of the race that stops a nation, which would be quite a feat as the promotion is already up and running and the final order isn’t decided until late tomorrow (Saturday) afternoon.
Regular readers of UnderCurrent will remember that Kogan ran a similar publicity stunt promotion around the 2014 FIFA World Cup. To win that prize, entrants had to beat odds of 80 billion trillion to one, by correctly predicting the result of every match in Brazil. Has Kogan’s become more philanthropic since those heady days? Well, assuming one waits until the final running order is declared, so there are only the 24 confirmed starters to select from, you would have a (roughly) 1 in 7 trillion chance of guessing the top 10 finishers in order. Considerably more generous in turns out.
Of course, picking the first 10 finishers isn’t all about luck — there is some skill involved — so if you’re as good at tipping winners as Kogan is at generating free publicity, you might find yourself smiling just as broadly come 3:05pm Tuesday afternoon…