Bartender's NFL picks net $444,186 prize
Oct. 25, 2006. 08:21 AM
CURTIS RUSH
STAFF REPORTER
Sarah Mabee, a 21-year-old bartender from Newcastle, Ont., doesn't know a lick about football.
Yet, through what she calls "random luck," Mabee picked all 13 NFL winners last weekend in only the second time she has tried the Pro*Picks Pools lottery game.
That $5 wager earned her $444,186, the largest Ontario sports pool lottery prize ever, eclipsing the previous top prize of $404,452 in October 2004.
"It proves my point: you don't need skill to win," Mabee's 36-year-old boyfriend of a couple of years, Ron Meredith, joked at the cheque-presentation ceremony in downtown Toronto.
Meredith tried to talk Mabee out of at least one of those picks. He advised her to take the Dallas Cowboys over the New York Giants in the Monday night game.
He knows football, but admits he hasn't won anything on the NFL. Still, he advised her to go with the favourite.
"They've got Bledsoe (quarterback Drew), they're playing at home and they're playing for their playoff lives," he told Mabee. But Mabee had confidence and sheer luck going for her when she stuck with the Giants.
One key pick was taking Tampa Bay to beat Philadelphia because, her boyfriend joked, "they had prettier uniforms." Tampa won it with a last-second 62-yard field goal.
Mabee also picked Kansas City over San Diego. That was another close escape when the Chiefs won on a last-second field goal from 53 yards.
And she chose underdog Oakland to beat Arizona because she said it was her grandfather's favourite team.
In the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation's Pro*Pick Pools game, players with the most correct selections win or share equally in the prize pool.
In an unusual week of upsets, Mabee was the only bettor in Ontario to have picked all 13 NFL games played Sunday and Monday correctly. Normally, many people share in the prize pool.
She and Meredith didn't know about the jackpot until they woke up at 6 a.m. and checked her ticket on a computer.
Having won enough to quit her job in a Pickering restaurant and replace the 1993 Grand Am she bought for $500 in August, Mabee now is talking of bigger game. "We're going to Vegas next month," she said.
Meredith, a truck salesman, playfully suggested that he might need a new set of golf clubs for the trip.
Meredith was still shaking his head at his girlfriend's good fortune when there are so many more knowledgeable football fans out there. "There are going to be a lot of guys upset with her today," he said, laughing.
Especially galling to fans who study the form charts every week is the fact that, during the pivotal Giants game, Mabee had trouble staying awake.
"I had a long day at work and I was falling asleep for the last quarter," Mabee said.
---------
now why the fuck cant i have any luck like that
Linear Mode
