Paul the psychic octopus is biggest English success

World Cup 2010: Paul the psychic octopus is biggest English success

Fans are now placing money on the mystic mollusc himself, rather than the outcome of the big game, while senior politicians have expressed concern about threats to his safety made by supporters of losing teams.

Paul has also become a sensation on the internet, becoming one of the most talked-about topics on Twitter and Facebook while doctored images have been created of him appearing to decide the victor of forthcoming elections around the world.

Bastian Schepers, operations manager at Sea Life Oberhausen, the aquarium in western Germany where Paul now lives, said: “It’s good for us that he’s right, but we hoped he would choose Germany. We hope it’s not only luck.”
Matthew Fuller, senior aquarist at the Sea Life centre in Weymouth where the soothsaying sea creature was born two and a half years ago, said: “I’m quite amazed at what he’s done. We’re just sorry that he left us.”
The common octopus was transferred to Germany when young, where his keepers devised a dinnertime game in which he was offered the choice of two glass boxes containing a mussel.
During the Euro 2008 football championships, flags of the competing sides were placed on the containers and it was noted that on almost every occasion, the team that Paul’s tentacle touched first went on to win their match. 

The trick was repeated at the start of South Africa’s World Cup for Germany’s games, and as the tournament progressed his uncannily accurate predictions were followed ever more closely.
Paul guessed the outcome of all Germany’s group games, including their shock loss to lowly Serbia, as well as their defeat of England and Argentina in subsequent rounds.
There was national anguish after he picked the container bearing the Spanish flag ahead of Wednesday night’s semi-final, with angry fans calling for him to be “thrown into the shark tank”.
When Spain duly beat Germany, preserving his 100 per cent record, “anti-octopus” songs were aired in Berlin while Spanish fans chanted his name at the stadium in Durban.
It prompted Spain’s Prime Minister, Jose Luiz Rodriguez Zapatero, to joke on a radio show: “I am concerned for the octopus ... I am thinking of sending him a protective team.”
Although Paul had a 50 per cent chance of getting the correct result in each game, the chances of him getting all six right in a row were 1 in 64.
William Hill has now taken so many bets that Paul will correctly tip the winner of the final between Spain and the Netherlands that they have cut the odds from evens to 10-11.
Anyone who backed each of his predictions with a £10 flutter so far would be £84 up, but if they had rolled the bets into an accumulator would have won £1,426.
Graham Sharpe, a spokesman for the bookmakers, said: “Punters are superstitious creatures at the best of times - and many have favourite tipsters they like to follow, but they tend to be human, so this is the first time we've genuinely had punters coming into betting shops and asking staff about the predictions made by an octopus.”
On Friday morning, aquarium handlers will ask Paul to decide on the winner of the third-place playoff between Germany and Uruguay by extending one of his eight suckered arms towards one of two boxes bearing their flags.
He will then be asked to decide which team will lift the trophy on Sunday. But having already eaten Paul may decline to make another prediction, plunging the worlds of sport and gambling into turmoil.