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Man bets on his own life, wins

A British man who when diagnosed with cancer bet against his doctors' prediction that he would be dead within months looks set to win 10 000 pounds (just under R130 000), media reported Saturday.

Jon Matthews, 59, from the town of Milton Keynes placed 100 pounds in a 50-to-1 bet in 2006 that he would live to see mid-2007 despite his doctor's prognosis that his asbestos-triggered mesothelioma would end his life well before then.

Five thousand pounds richer on June 1, 2008, he made the same bet again, with this coming Monday June 1, 2009 as the target.

Matthews has now put down a final bet - at 100:1 - on surviving till the same date in 2010, thus enriching him to the tune of another 10 000 pounds if all goes well.

"I think I'm the first person in the world to bet on my own life," Matthews said Saturday, adding that physicians at London's Harefield Hospital had told him that the longest anyone survived after a diagnosis of mesothelioma was 25 months.

"I reached 26 months a year ago and on June 1 this year I will have reached 38 months," he said. A spokesman for the Matthews' bookmaker, William Hill, spoke of never before being so "pleased" to pay out for bet. – (Sapa-dpa, May 2009)

Read more:
Cancer Centre
Cancer of the Lung

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