While nobody managed to win the record R10 million on offer for selecting all the winners on the Kenilworth Met day card, a happy Hollywoodbets Punters’ Challenge regular from Chatsworth in KZN won himself R100 000 in the special edition of the popular competition on Saturday.
The Cape Town Met day on Saturday played host to the first Hollywoodbets Punters’ Challenge held on a Cape racemeeting, and with R10 million on offer for all the winners on the day, and R200 000 shared by the top 50 finishers on the log, there was plenty of interest in the build-up to the big day.
Happy big winner – Dinell Pillay
A thrilled Dinell Pillay, who plays under the pseudonym ‘Terdin’, even had his wife excited when he checked his Hollywoodbets account and saw that he was the winner of the R100 000 first prize.
Relying on all of his experience and racing expertise, Dinell selected 9 of the 12 Kenilworth winners, including 2 places and accumulated 166.8 points on the leader board.
He finished marginally ahead of ‘Deanvz’, who won R40 000, scoring 164.88 points – and in hot form, tipping 8 winners and 2 places.
‘Enver’ was not far behind on 159.99 points, winning R20 000 for his very commendable performance of 7 winners and 2 places.
Dinell, a big fan of online betting and a Hollywoodbets customer for six years, told the Sporting Post that it was an ‘amazing feeling’ to win, and was pleased that his assurances to his wife that one day he was actually going to win big, had finally been realised!
Rainbow Bridge scores on the Cape’s big day (Pic – Chase Liebenberg)
“I am also so pleased that the major win came on such a big day on the horseracing calendar,” he said.
Dinell says that he spends hours studying form and checks factors like fastest times over the last 400m, and also studies comparable times over the various distances.
“Horse racing is a big hobby for me and I even sometimes stay up late after my wife and children have gone to bed to study the form and work out my selections. I have taken so many Pick 6’s that went out just one leg – I don’t know how many times I would have been a millionaire,” he laughs.
Besides breaking the good news to his family, the next people that he informed are the members of a horseracing group that he belongs to. They share tips and opinions about racing and were thrilled to hear that he had won.
A father of two, Dinell is a sales team leader and has been employed at the same company for thirteen years.
He has been playing the Hollywood Punters’ Challenge since it launched and concedes that the R100 000 windfall was ‘completely unexpected’. He says he would like to invest the cash – but his young sons celebrate their birthdays in February and March respectively, and those important events will be a priority!
After Sunday’s Hollywoodbets Scottsville meeting, the next edition of the Hollywoodbets Punters’ Challenge is at Hollywoodbets Greyville on Monday where R1,2 million will be up for grabs for a 100% clean sheet of winners – please click on the image below for more
