Ramblings

I was, I think, about five when we undertook an excursion from Oxhey to Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire. Mum, Dad, Rob and I were joined by my cousin Phil and his parents. I was in a happy, excitable frame of mind, and after we had explored the gardens and buildings and met the monkeys, we repaired to the tea room.

My uncle, probably hoping for an undisturbed cup of tea, gifted me six old pennies – which must have been weighing his pockets down horribly – to go and play on the slot machines.

I don’t remember whether it was a fruit machine style, or one where you flipped a ball bearing round a metal spiral into a row of troughs bearing different values – usually the ball would fall into one of the losing end troughs.

Beginner’s luck. My first penny won four back. I had turned sixpence into ninepence! This was easy! I anticipated a happy half hour getting more money out of the machine.

Dear reader, it did not work out that way. Soon I was back down to sixpence, and a couple of minutes later, to zero pence. It was all gone. I returned to the grown-ups sobbing bitterly. “I feel so stupid” I said. I had learned a vital lesson on investment: if a thing looks too good to be true, it probably is. And another on gambling: in the long run, the house always wins.

The pain of that tiny loss taught me indelibly that gambling was a mug’s game. Arguably I took the logic further: by working in the City for stockbroking and market-making firms, I had joined the “house” – effectively I worked for the casino, and the percentages were now on my side. I became that evil slot machine. Without doubt that was the best sixpence I ever spent. Old pence, mind, 2 1/2p these days. And it wasn’t even my money. Thank you, Uncle Selwyn.