Eight months ago doctors told Jon Matthews: "Don't make plans for Christmas." But he had already bet £100 that he would survive. Matthews said: "This time last year I rang William Hill [a major British gambling company] and they gave me odds of 50/1." Doctors diagnosed mesothelioma, a form of lung cancer, in April 2006.
"The longest they knew of anyone surviving it after diagnosis was 25 months," he said. "But today is 25 months and a week." Graham Sharpe, a spokesman for William Hill, said: "I've never been so pleased to pay a winning client £5,000."
From the UK Telegraph
Actually, isn't that sort of a mirror image of what insurance companies do? They're betting that you'll live longer than the actuarial tables suggest, while you're betting that you'll kick the bucket before your premiums add up to the value of the policy.
ReplyDeleteI'm being facetious, of course, but it may be what the Scots call "kidding on the square."