Germany has a magic octopus

He swam straight over to the German glass, climbed in and even put a lid on top once he was sitting inside.”

Huh?

Yes, it’s true. Paul the octopus has been predicting German soccer outcomes for some time now, doing slightly better than random.

Here he is in action (Do watch to the end. Maybe you can explain to me who those strange people in robes are):

So, what’s an octopus going to do with one million dollars?

Comments

#1 Mike Haubrich
June 26, 2010

I think those people in robes are merely wearing the German flag.
#2 Cuttlefish
June 26, 2010

As of this writing, he has only made three successful picks this world cup, and 4 out of 5 on a previous year. “Slightly better than random” is an overstatement at this point. Especially since, as part of a publicity campaign, German zoos have been letting all sorts of animals try to predict the outcome of the matches, and Germany has only played three games so far, the odds were pretty good that at least one animal would be perfect up to now.

http://digitalcuttlefish.blogspot.com/2010/06/paul-octopus.html
includes a link to Der Spiegel online, where they have a nice photo gallery of some of the predicting animals.
#3 Greg Laden
June 26, 2010

German zoos have been letting all sorts of animals try to predict the outcome of the matches, and Germany has only played three games so far, the odds were pretty good that at least one animal would be perfect up to now.

I was wondering about that. I figured. So, what will happen to the animals that are always, consistently wrong? Will they get some kind of prize too?

Thanks for the link. I’ll FBS that.
#4 Gabriel
July 2, 2010

Put the octopus in your as.
#5 Abhi
July 3, 2010

Its nothing but just mere probability.The probabality in the case of predicting one winning team out of two teams is very high and logically its just an octopus just like any other octopus.So assuming this to be a real prediction is something irrational and irrelevant.I hope some people would agrre with me.

Abhi