A serendipitous mistake

Who wants to go to the race track with me? Or buy a lotto ticket? Or go to Vegas?

I have made a recent discovery - I am (at least for the time being) very lucky. I went to the horse races yesterday with my friend, mother, and brother. I won at least 3 dollars or more on 5 out of 7 of the races we bet on. But best of all...on the second race I bet a Trifecta Box (picked 3 horses and they had to come in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in any order), which totaled to a $12 bet, on Oliver, Ginello, and Riviera Cocktail.

I was screaming at the end of the race when horses 1, 6 and 7 (the horses in my trifecta) were a good deal ahead of the rest. There was no question - I'd won that bet. But how much had I won?

The huge electronic board at the track said that with a $6 trifecta box bet, one would win $355. That was impossible. I couldn't have won that much.

My brother and friend accompanied me to the electronic betting both to see how much I had won. I put the slip into the machine which promptly spit it back out while telling me to report to an IRS table.

Now my hands were shaking with anticipation as I walked over to the nearest IRS booth and handed my ticket to the man behind the counter. "Oh boy" he said as he examined the ticket. I was anxious to find out how much I had won, but I had to fill out some paper work and fork over my drivers license before he finally ran my ticket through the machine.

My heart skipped a beat and $710.40 popped up on the screen.

I had just won back more than half of what I had recently spent on my new computer. I was so shocked that I almost walked away from the counter without my money.

This was unquestionably a fantastic day at the races for me.

What I find the most fascinating about this whole experience is that one could say I won that money by mistake. When I had placed my bet, I did a $2 Trifecta box. I thought I would only be spending two dollars on that bet - but I had no idea that a Trifecta box put $2 on each of the six possible outcomes of that bet (all the different orders those three horses had come in), causing me to spend $12 of my self-imposed $30 limit. Had I known ahead of time how much that bet was going to cost me, I would not have made that bet - meaning I would not have won that 700 dollars.
I was mentally kicking myself upon placing that bet, but after that race, I could not have been more excited.

Just goes to show that there is something to gain from making mistakes.

:)