Khon Kaen Zoo in northeastern Thailand has come up with an almost legal way to let the local population place bets, even though gambling is prohibited in the country, and also to attract more tourists. With the start of the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, the zoo “advertised” a predictor lion who had already made his first predictions based on the results of the matches.
As the director of the zoo, Narongwit Chodchiy assured in the local media, 9-year-old Chao Boy correctly predicts football results in 80% of cases. He does this while eating chicken. Employees of the zoo hang chickens on the flags of the countries entering the football field, which chicken the lion will eat first, and predict the winner. At the same time, the zoo authorities emphasize that “this is just fun” and in no way is gambling, which is prohibited in Thailand. “Chao Boy likes to make predictions in football, and for him this is a fun way to exercise, relieve stress, discover natural behavior and get enough nutritious food,” they say.
You can already check the accuracy of the “forecaster”. The Lion has made predictions for the November 21 matches: England v Iran at 20:00 and Senegal v Netherlands at 23:00. Lev chose England and the Netherlands as “favorites”. Both predictions were correct, England won 6-2 and the Netherlands 0-2.