A small wager

Ladbroke’s have quoted me odds of 50/1 that Britain will still be a member of the European Union at 09.00 on Wednesday 27 January 2117. I intend to bet £Sc20 on it.

I have absolutely no idea at all who will collect the money, or how, should I have predicted events correctly. I shall still win my bet if Britain leaves the EU, turns around and goes back in again, but what I think more likely is that Teresa May will go to Brussels and bugger about for a few months and then announce that we have left the European Union, apart from still being in it.

I shall likely give the betting slip to charity unless my children promise faithfully to live for an unusually long time. You never can tell. With this wager as an incentive, one of them may go on to develop a remarkable drug.

In the last hundred years the price of a loaf of bread has increased by a factor of seventy two, from 5d. to £1·50 (see the web site ‘Back in My Day’) so the winnings will not make anyone rich.

Loaves of bread aside, I can’t find any prediction of inflation over the next century, so I can only estimate the value of the winnings based upon inflation over the last hundred years. That data, which comes from This Is Money, tells me that in 2117, £Sc1020 will be worth £64·48 and that in turn will be worth £Sc64 9s 6d if they reinstate real money.