A Day At The Races

After my last post of righteous fury and invective, on to something a little lighter. Last Saturday saw Sean, Jared and myself braving the bitter cold for a visit to Wakayama-Shi’s cycling track – not because we’re all huge fans of cycling, but to have a bit of a flutter. Yes, the huge legal grey area that is Japan’s gambling laws has resulted in a wide variety of off-beat betting opportunities, among them fights between beetles and hog racing. Cycling seems almost sensible by comparison.

With the assistance of Sean and his formidable command of all things kanji-related, it didn’t take us too long to figure out the intricacies of the betting system, which oddly only seemed to allow for spread betting. Interesting to note was also the fact that gambling addicts seem to be the same wherever you go – almost without exception, shabby-looking men in their late fifties puffing on cigarettes as though their lives depended on it, eyes dead to everything aside from the latest results on one of the many television monitors located throughout the track. Entertaining though it was, we all ended up leaving with less cash in our pockets than when we went in, though we’re already making plans for Spring when the elements are going to be slightly more forgiving of the track’s very open-plan design. Yeah, the Gods will be smiling on me then, I can just feel it…