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Look through any window, what do you see?
Bookies reps all around blaming all the arbing hounds!Bit of a puzzler in Betting WIndow in today’s Post. Apparently arbers ‘have made it much harder for value-seeking punters to get a bet on’.
If we accept that value-achieving punters can’t get the prices the bookies display in any case (I’ll admit there appears to have been a slight thawing here since the Premium Charge) and therefore rely on getting their bets matched on the exchanges, then surely arbers help them get on.
I’m baffled. Can anyone help me out?
Presumably arbers and value-hunters are after the same thing, the difference being that arbers then lay off but value-hunters let it ride
Problem is that the bookies can’t distinguish between the 2 so they both get shut down because the bookmaker would rather lose the value-hunter’s business than accept the arber’s
They surely can’t be that difficult to differentiate. A value-seeker would bet on a far wider range of opportunities. As a value-seeker I would take even-money at a bookies rather than 2.04,2.02,2,1.99 etc
to back
on the machine. I may be even more liberal with BOG bookies or if there was only shrapnel available on the machine. An arber only steps in during the rare circs when it goes to the low 1.9s
to lay
.
All fair points there Glenn but I reckon the bookies don’t like thinking that anyone is getting a free ride at their expense so they would rather just shut everyone down, despite the fact that the arbers would be more likely to show less profit at a bookmakers than at the exchanges.
I don’t have much time for arbers myself anyway – at the end of the day they are just scummy middle-men with no opinion.
No offence intended.
Glenn – Arbers will bet on anything be it 3-2 in a German league football match, a Bandy handicap or a horse race. An arber will lay and back anything, if it’s evs with Hills and 1.98 to lay on Betfair/Betdaq/Betbull the arbers will come for it.
Good piece by the RP and honest answers from TDK.
Yeah, on reflection – you are right Glenn.
I also reckon ticket touts help normal fans get cheaper tickets at a football ground and that this tapeworm inside me is helping me put on a few pounds
I don’t have much time for arbers myself anyway – at the end of the day they are just scummy middle-men with no opinion.
No offence intended.
Well said that man!!!
Arbers are the bane of any trader/odds compiler. They’re constantly at it, all to make enough money to buy a kit-kat. They are reviled the industry over and screw up the availability of prices for genuine punters. What is the point?
It doesn’t always hold that the two are mutually exclusive. I might back a horse at 12-1 because I fancy it and make it an 8-1 shot, but if I can lay 6-1 an hour later I might sell it back to part of my stake. Also, information not availble at the time of my bet (e.g. pace or draw bias) may render my original analysis incorrect.
There are forum on some well know Money Saving sites teaching people the mechanics of Arbing and exploiting bookie sign up deals!
How can arbers possibly screw up the availability of prices for genuine punters?
I’m a genuine punter. If I make a horse 2/1 and it is 3/1 with a bookie, there is one reason and one reason only why I will ask for 3.9 on BF and create an arb: that 3/1 is not available to this genuine value-seeking punter.
Surely, if anything, the arber helps me get on.
The people that are the bane of the industry and are constantly at it are the bookies shutting me, and any other genuine value-achieving punters, down in the first place. It is those who make ‘trading decisions’ to close accounts, and they alone, that screw up the avialabilty of prices to genuine punters. They are the ones who are reviled. Arbers help me get around these people for a small fee. As a genuine punter I think arbers are great.
- Total Posts 17716
What is it with this obsession with ‘arbers’, is it not just an excuse for the bookies not to lay a decent price to a decent sum?
In the pre-exchange days, surely it wasn’t unknown for independents, or on-course bookmakers, to take what seemed to them a generous early price, and then lay it at shorter, without any of this bleating from the multiples?
If a major bookmaker has an opinion, and is prepared to support it to a decent sum, why the hell should it matter whose money it is that backs it, their bottom line will remain the same, whether they’ve laid to an astute punter or a faceless bot, so what is the real problem?I agree with Reet. If a firm holds an opinion they should lay the price up to the liability they want to the first punters in. That way no one gets their account closed. What’s the point of the likes of Skybet, Stan James and co. advertising prices they won’t lay to anyone who wins a few quid. They are in effect saying their odds-compilers can’t beat you- if that’s true they should hire better ones. Who they are laying to shouldn’t matter if they have confidence in their compilers. I have to say that Corals do take a stand and lay a bet and are hard to beat- I wish I could say the same for many of the others.
If a major bookmaker has an opinion, and is prepared to support it to a decent sum, why the hell should it matter whose money it is that backs it, their bottom line will remain the same, whether they’ve laid to an astute punter or a faceless bot, so what is the real problem?
I’m not so sure that is true Reet – and I’ll explain why…
Let’s say for example a firm takes a "view" against a horse and decides to go even money when everyone else is 4-5. They decide that they are happy to lay £100k at that price…
Who should they lay?
a) 100 regular punters and give them a £1k each or
b) Lay one bet of £100k to an arb player who will only ever have a bet with them when they are offering them an opportunity to arb?
Obviously the "bottom line" is the same on the individual race regardless of who they lay, buy what if 10 of their regulars bet with them less if they miss out on getting the price on this horse? Which decision will be better for their long-term profitability? Trading decisions aren’t always just about the race in question.
TDK,
Can you imagine a more tedious way to make money than be paid to spread black propganda that arbers are the problem? You’re better than that surely?
Has there been a secret decision between the bookies to blame everything on the arbers or have you all independently come to the conclusion that the arber makes a fantastic scapegoat for your own restrictive practices?
I was asked to give
my opinion
on arbers, Glenn and that is what I did.
Arb players only exist because of the advent of betting exchanges. Do I think arbing is tedious – yes, but it is also pretty inevitable. Do I think it has become harder for value seeking punters to get a bet on since arb players started having their cards marked by exchange punters as to which horses might be offering value with the bookies? – yes
Surely it would be far more disingenuous to give some David Hood style reply saying we only ever play the market not the man and that no value seeking punter ever gets restricted?
- Total Posts 17716
If a major bookmaker has an opinion, and is prepared to support it to a decent sum, why the hell should it matter whose money it is that backs it, their bottom line will remain the same, whether they’ve laid to an astute punter or a faceless bot, so what is the real problem?
I’m not so sure that is true Reet – and I’ll explain why…
Let’s say for example a firm takes a "view" against a horse and decides to go even money when everyone else is 4-5. They decide that they are happy to lay £100k at that price…
Who should they lay?
a) 100 regular punters and give them a £1k each or
b) Lay one bet of £100k to an arb player who will only ever have a bet with them when they are offering them an opportunity to arb?
Obviously the "bottom line" is the same on the individual race regardless of who they lay, buy what if 10 of their regulars bet with them less if they miss out on getting the price on this horse? Which decision will be better for their long-term profitability? Trading decisions aren’t always just about the race in question.
TDK
Thanks for the reply, but isn’t the principle exactly the same, whether pre-exchange or current?
If a big bettor wanted £100k on a standout even money shot 10 years ago, he would have been given equally short shrift then, no doubt, and without being held responsible for ruining the market.
Either way, the bookmaker always has the right to refuse any bet and to carry on offering the price to others, so is it really the arbers at fault, or the endemic weakness of the bookmakers "view" generally?The 100k example was perhaps over-simplified, but the principle remains – it is better for a bookmaker to ensure that as many of their decent customers get the standout price as possible…
It is no different to Tescos running a special 2 for 1 offer on some bananas. They don’t want one person to come in, scoop the lot up and then proceed to sell it for a profit somewhere else – they obviously want as many of their customers as possible to get a piece of the action while doing the rest of their normal shopping at TEsco?
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