World

Oracle Paul gets own World Cup for winning streak

(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-07-13 14:15

Two year-old octopus Paul, the so-called "octopus oracle" predicts Spain's 2010 soccer World Cup final victory over The Netherlands by opening and choosing a mussel, from a glass box decorated with the Spanish national flag instead of a glass box with the Dutch flag, at the Sea Life Aquarium in the western German city of Oberhausen July 9, 2010. [Agencies]

Winning bets

"Paul now wants to say good-bye to the whole world," said Daniel Fey, a supervisor at Sea Life. "He really enjoyed all the media attention but now he's returning to his old job."

Yet interest in the 50-cm long octopus remained intense, especially after his last two picks on Friday were once again accurate. Germany won Saturday's match for third place and Spain won Sunday's final - as Paul had called it on Friday.

Last week Germans were shocked and distraught when he picked Spain to beat Germany in the semi-final after tipping German wins over Argentina, England, Ghana and Australia.

And after Spain beat Germany, many wanted to publicly grill him. Sea Life installed extra security to protect their octopus. "We have to remember he's quite old now - 2-1/2 years is quite old for an octopus," Fey said.

Probability experts were quoted in media reports saying the likelihood of getting eight consecutive picks right is 1/256. Sharpe said the odds of getting eight straight right were over 1/300. Humbled professors were quoted saying Paul got lucky.

The octopus, considered by some to be the most intelligent of all invertebrates, had a choice of picking food from two different transparent containers lowered into his tank - each with a national flag on it. The container Paul opened first was regarded as his pick.

Sharpe at William Hill said he had at first been sceptical about the oracle octopus. But he became a believer. "I suspect that Paul's predictions could have made about a half a million pounds," Sharpe said, adding he estimated William Hill paid out 100,000 pounds on his picks at its 2,300 outlets.

He said it was the first time in 30 years of work that he had seen "such widely orchestrated use of a non-human tipster".