A lifetime Newcastle-based punter struck gold in the Hollywoodbets Punters’ Challenge on his 57th birthday on Thursday when he found all eight winners on the Vaal card to walk off with the all-or-nothing bonus jackpot of R760 000.
The divorced Grandfather, who plays the popular free-to-enter competition under the name of Ash66, was over the moon when the Sporting Post called him, declaring the windfall ‘a lifechanger’ and his biggest win in 45 years of horseracing.
“It’s my birthday. I have had terrible toothache for a few days. It’s been exactly a year since I gave up drinking too much! I got home today and saw I had five from five. I sat down to watch the racing and sweated through to the last. Bob’s Your Uncle moved up, but then started going backwards. Then loadshedding kicked in. I scrambled around for the result. I couldn’t believe Craig Zackey got my horse home. My toothache has disappeared. My 57th birthday feels like my 21st. I feel like celebrating with a double whisky! Thank you Hollywoodbets. I am numb,” enthused the man who is involved in training students in the Northern KZN town.
He has enjoyed the Hollywoodbets Punters’ Challenge since it started and confirmed that he was a 12 year old who learnt horseracing from his family before he knew anything about life.
“I study form and enjoy the exotics, but the Hollywoodbets Punters’ Challenge is great fun and it costs nothing. Unfortunately I had no money in my account to use the Bet Slip card to spend the fifty bucks and double my win. But God is good. I am so grateful!” he added.
The Bet Slip, which is generated on entry to the competition, gives the player an option to spend a minimum of R50 to double his potential prize.
“I believe what will be will be. My tooth-ache prevented me from popping into Hollywoodbets after work on Wednesday. Otherwise I would have had some cash in my account. It’s God’s will.”
Ash66 said that the win could not have come at a better time.
“Ever since I got divorced, I have been under pressure. I want to sort my bond out and my finances in general. It feels like a weight off my shoulders today – on my birthday!” he laughed again as he recalled how he almost flippantly selected Bob’s Your Uncle in the last.
“I thought, that will be fun – it’s a good name. Little did I realise what an enormous decision it was going to be!”
Another winner on the day was Cape Racing presenter Grant Knowles, who scooped the R500 daily cash as he tipped five winners and beat his fellow professionals in the Racing Stars, a new fun competition hosted within the Hollywoodbets Punters’ Challenge platform with South Africa’s racing presenters, personalities, commentators and journalists competing.
The competition pits the faces and voices of racing against each other, competing on every South African race meeting, covering KZN, Western Cape, Gauteng, and Eastern Cape.
Have a look at the leaderboard and the progressive standings.
For regular players the Racing Stars are also in position on the daily leaderboard – so it’s a chance for every punter countrywide to pit their individual skills against the professionals!
The Hollywoodbets Punters’ Challenge is run on all local race meetings, as well as on Singapore and Hong Kong fixtures.
This long weekend from Friday to Monday, players have six chances to win big on all of Fairview, Kranji (Singapore), Turffontein, Sha Tin (Hong Kong), Hollywoodbets Scottsville and Hollywoodbets Greyville.
If you are busy travelling, or pressured for time, you can utilise the ‘quick pick’ option and there is scope on the Hollywoodbets Punters’ Challenge platform to also capture your selections in advance for future race meetings. Your selections can be changed up to five minutes before the off of the first race.
The new Hollywoodbets Punters’ Challenge prize payouts formula means that besides the R5 000 daily must-be-won prize, which is allocated to the top 20 finishers on the leaderboard for every challenge race meeting, the all-or-nothing 100% clean sheet jackpot prize will now be determined by the number of runners at the race meeting, multiplied by R10 000 per unit, for all venues.
For example, there are currently 88 starters for Friday’s Fairview meeting.
At R10 000 per starter, the Fairview jackpot prize will potentially be R880 000. And as an added incentive, as already stated, every player who wagers R50 or more on the Bet Slip generated by the Hollywoodbets Punters’ Challenge entry, will automatically have their potential winning payout from the competition, doubled!
So now, the Fairview Friday jackpot is potentially R1 760 000!
