England’s bookies reported Sunday that if bettors had followed the
World Cup predictions of Paul — the remarkable oracle octopus whose
knack for predicting the outcome of games has earned him worldwide fame
as well as “revenge grilling” death threats — they would have made a
small fortune.
The odds of all of his eight
forecasts being correct, including the final, was put at 3,000-1, by
bookmakers William Hill.
“There has been a remarkable amount
of interest in Paul the octopus and I would be very surprised if there
were not some lucky punters celebrating after the final,” Graham Sharpe,
a spokesman for William Hill, told the Daily Telegraph.
Millions watched around the world as
the world-famous octopus descended upon on a tank marked with a Spanish
flag, sitting for only a few minutes before grabbing a mussel and
devouring it, while completely ignoring the Dutch tank — indicating a
Spanish victory in Sunday’s final match in Sunday’s final.
It was the first time he’d been
tasked to pick a game in which Germany wasn’t involved, as the
Oberhausen Sea Life aquarium bowed to overwhelming demand to see who he
would choose in the final.
Paul also correctly predicted that
Germany would beat Uruguay in the tournament’s third-place game on
Saturday.
Spain’s defeat of Germany in the
semifinals as predicted by Paul prompted many Germans to wonder about
how he would taste grilled for dinner.
Paul correctly predicted Germany’s
wins over Argentina, England, Australia and Ghana and the country’s loss
to Spain and Serbia.
There was national anguish after he
picked the container bearing the Spanish flag ahead of Wednesday night’s
semifinal, with angry fans calling for him to be “thrown into the shark
tank”.
When Spain beat Germany, preserving
his 100 per cent record, “anti-octopus” songs were aired in Berlin while
Spanish fans chanted his name at the stadium in Durban.
Paul first developed his abilities
during the 2008 European Championship in which he predicted five out of
six games involving Germany correctly.