Can you beat the robots? The march of AI in horserace betting

Last week the BBC aired the mildly entertaining Can You Beat The Bookies? which passed the corporation's modern benchmark for celebrity documentaries with flying colours: it made the viewer's time go by a lot faster than when sitting in a hospital corridor, for example.

As an objective examination of its titular question, the show progressed further than Baha Men's Who Let The Dogs Out? but sadly not as far as Peter, Paul and Mary in Where Have All The Flowers Gone? ("Young girls have picked them, every one.")

In fairness to presenter Lloyd Griffith, nobody expected David Bowie to build the international space station just because he wailed about a Space Oddity. Comedian Griffith is a likeable, amusing chap with currency in popular betting culture, even if he isn’t necessarily the best man to leave £7,500 to bet with while you go off on holiday. That said, he did okay, thanks mostly to proving more potent after the result is delayed than Doyle Lonnegan in The Sting (nowadays, they call it 'courtsiding').