Good day one and all.

So every year I make a sweepstake for the good people of MafiaReturns to allow us all to participate in the Grand National. For those of you unfamiliar with the Grand National, its the UKs biggest Horse Race and this year it takes place tomorrow afternoon 14/04.

if you want any further details, please go here

For anyone that doesn't know what a sweepstake is - i'll explain..

There are 40 horses running in the race, rather than people telling me which horse they want, all the names are thrown into a hat and pulled out at random. I've done this already and the resulting names are now listed in a Back Alley thread. Everytime i get a payment from someone paying for a horse, they get the next one in line. I will repeat that everytime I get a payment. If someone sends a mail saying "i'll take two horses" - thats great, but you wont be allocated any until payment is received.

This is to ensure that all horses are sold and not just the favourites to win - although with this horse race in particular the favourite doesn't always win as there are quite a lot of hurdles to overcome and its not uncommon for an outside to win the race.

The price per horse is $250,000. I've tried to set this high enough that a decent pot is made, and low enough that most if not all can participate. Crewleaders are welcome to purchase on behalf of their members, but must tell me who to allocate each consecutive horse to. Winnings will go to the named parties. Each person may only hold 2 horses in their own name.

The pot for winnings will be as follows;

1. 6,250,000
2. 2,500,000
3. 1,250,000

That will be the total pot of 40 * 250,000. I dont take any commission from it at all and do this just to inject a little fun. Please feel free to send forth your bets, I may pop offline here and there and not respond immediately, dont worry i'll be back - just remember the horses are allocated from funds received only and not from when you mail or reply here.

Thanks and best of luck everyone!! 

Gambling on some ponies.

It's like .org all over again

Made my bet, hope it will be a good race with not much damage on horses like to many broke legs and so on, the jockeys if they gets injured I dont give a damn, theyr paid for this :p

What time (in-game time) does the race start, Sir TyrionLannister? 

Cool. I already have my 2, but I'll spread around the odds and get 3 more for people in our organization. 

Your accountant makes note that $750,000 has been wired to TyrionLannister from your account. The note "2 for Syndicate 1 for Sho_Nuff" was included.

...

Buys 2 horses for himself, gets okay horses. 

Buys 2 horses for Syn, Syn gets the favored horse to win it all. 

Shakes fist in the air.

Your accountant makes note that $6,250,000 has been wired to Syndicate from your account. The note "Grand National Winnings" was included.

...fucker </3

Winner as you may have guessed have been paid now :).

We sold 32 out of 40 horses, as mentioned earlier by myself any that went unsold I was going to pay for to ensure the winnings could be given out in full. Luckily for me, one of those unsold came 2nd, so this helped to offset the lack of sale for the remainders and allowed 1st and 3rd prizes to be paid in full with only a little left over.

Thank you to all that participated! In a moment i'll stick up a link to my Back Alley showing the allocation of horses etc and the funds received from all participants - I like to be completely transparent in my endeavours.

Did any horse get injured badly or did the race going well for all, interested since often horses get injured in this race which is why Im always worried about this.

One Horse that fell on the 15th Hurdle required Medical attention on course, but was Ok to walk back to the Stables. no serious injury or deaths from the main race this year.

It is a 3 day event though and there was a horse on the first day that fell and died as a result. This was the only fatality.

Always a bit sadly when a horse get big damage or even more when they die on course, its a pretty hard course they have to go through so not so hard to think any horses now and then get those bad injured if they arent so good trained for this Grand National