Octopus Predicts German World Cup Games

If you’re looking for World Cup gambling advice, you could do worse than to follow the lead of Paul the Octopus. Before each of Germany’s World Cup games, his keepers at the Sea Life public aquarium in Oberhausen toss him two glass cubes baited with mussels, each adorned with a national flag. Whichever Paul eats first is, supposedly, his prediction.

Scoff if you must, but so far Paul is 3-for-3, predicting both German wins and Serbia’s upset. Not enough for you? His keepers tell Der Spiegel that he had an 80% success rate during Euro 2008. He’s certainly done better than the savants at the Chemnitz Zoo, which designates a different animal to pick each game. So far, they’ve used a monkey, a porcupine, and a pygmy hippo—and they’ve all gotten it wrong. (More Germany stories.)