The recent one-day cricket international between Australia and South Africa was a record-breaking feast. Australia scored 434 in 50 overs, beating the previous highest ever total by 36 runs. South Africa went on to win, scoring 438. The match had the two highest totals ever made, the most fours (87), the most sixes (26) and the most runs conceded by a single bowler (113, off Mick Lewis) in a one-day match. The match also provided a chance to beat the bookmakers, but not as thoroughly as should have been the case. The odds on real long shots are in general very bad for the punter. A horse at 66-1 to win has a much lower chance of winning than these odds suggest. The odds on South Africa to win at the start of their innings were around 150-1. Very long odds, but there had previously been 2,348 one-day innings, in none of which had Australia's total been beaten. So the true odds on a South African win were closer to 2,348-1.
Equally unequal
Just how unequal are Britain's regions? Take the average GDP per head in the old (western) EU-15 to be 100. Compared to this average, Britain's southeast has income per head of 139, while the poorest region, the northeast, is just 77. So the southeast is 139/77 = 80 per cent richer than the northeast. But it turns out that such gaps are quite normal. In Italy, the gap between richest and poorest is 104 per cent. In Ile-de-France, income is on average 101 per cent higher than neighbouring Nord Pas-de-Calais. The difference between Spain's richest and poorest regions is 75 per cent, and in Germany, excluding the new eastern states, it is 78 per cent. So the British disparity is close to the norm and satisfyingly lower than France.
