Deborah Hill Cone: Whatever the odds, take a punt on life

I felt a bit flash last week; all smug with my rediscovered mojo and two rather than four eyes. On Friday night I went to the trots at Alexandra Park - never been there before - and placed my first-ever bet. At 42 years old. Yes, I know. What country have I been living in?

"The worst thing that can ever happen to someone is that they make money on their first bet on a horse," said one of my friends. But it didn't feel bad.

I'd always thought horseracing was for rotten hoorays and pretentious QCs - I guess it's that creepy word "bloodstock". The trots are different. The punters included everyone from daggy jokers to nouveau entrepreneurs, old school Kiwi blokes, lovable rogues and glam ducks in threadbare furs. (Oops, that was me.)

Despite being a trotting neophyte with no clue what was going on - what are fixed odds? - I had fun. It helped that luck was on my side. And that snazzy Mick Guerin (the Herald racing editor) gave me a tip.

So to recap: my marriage had split up, I was seeing a parade of medical specialists about whether my son has a touch of the Susan Boyles (or should that be the Paul Henrys?), but on the upside I had a fancy new photo and a winning streak. For a bit. Like that joke about the sergeant-major who has to tell Smith his mother has died: "Take a step forward all the soldiers who have a mother. Not so fast, Smith."

Take a step forward all smart-arse columnists who are not in the dog box. Not so fast, Hill Cone. This week things not looking so whiz bang. But that's the thing with taking risks. You win some, you lose some.

Tom Watson, the man who started IBM, said if you want to double your success rate you have to double your failure rate. I'm working on it. The thing that makes gambling so powerful is what behaviourist B.F. Skinner called the law of intermittent reinforcement.

In Skinner's experiments rats received food every time they pressed a lever. Then the experiment changed. Some rats stopped getting the food. They kept clicking for a while and then gave up. Other rats were no longer fed on every click of the lever, but only intermittently, after a random number of clicks. Those rats kept on pressing the lever far longer than rats that got a regular reward.

There may be a lesson there for our Stock Exchange. If only our bourse, instead of worrying how many women it has on boards, put a bit more effort into making punting on stocks a bit more exciting. Give us rats the odd unexpected pellet now and then.

And, yes, before you all write in to bollock me, I know, the journal Biological Psychiatry has published research showing that gambling increases cortisol levels which may contribute to the development of an addiction.

But this squeamishness about gambling is not entirely rational. Everything in life is about risk and reward. The curious thing is that the biggest gambles we make in life are the ones there are no computer models to predict, where the TAB won't offer you odds and you can't measure the risk: the gambles with our emotions. And going by my recent form, I'd recommend you increase your stakes in this area.

Saatchi & Saatchi's Kevin Roberts understands this. In his blog he regularly references neuroscientist Donald Calne - people are 80 per cent emotional and 20 per cent rational; reason leads to conclusions, emotion leads to action. Whether it is choosing someone to work for you and who to go home with tonight, it is taking emotional risks that delivers the biggest reward.

So go on, go large. But don't blame me if you come a cropper. Where love is concerned, the odds are more mysterious than which horse is going to win Race 3 at Alexandra Park tonight. Just pick yourself up and keep going.

dhc@deborahhillcone.com