A Southern California man (supposedly) won nearly half a million dollars on Thursday betting horses online. According to the TwinSpires blog, some dude hit multiple bets on Thursday, turning $146 into $495,060.80 – and he did it by picking horses based on their names.

“The way I play horses is by name,” Hariri said the morning after his big score. “I don’t care about odds; I play names I like. The longshot who led to me getting the whole pot was Zimmer. When I saw his name I said, ‘That’s a pretty cool name.’ Normally I’ll just go with names, and if I like it I’ll play it, but when I saw Mike Smith was riding I knew I had to include this horse.”

Right. This sounds like the perfect story to put on a gambling website to lure people to make deposits, but whatever. As someone who spent the last two weekends not winning a single race at Saratoga, I want this guy to know he can go screw himself. [twinspires.com via Rovell]