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Thanks Jac, I’m very lucky too do something that I actually love. I used to skiv off work when I was younger, too do what I actually get paid for now. That’s the genius bit, money is a bonus.
All week all I’ve heard on the radio, is “come play our PaddyPower computerised games online” adverts. When are the government going to get a hold of this? The adverts should be banned, it’s clear too see what they are up too. Every single one of them is trebling their advertising budgets right now… You see, when the FOBT gravy train goes tits up… They need to get all these mug punters playing their ‘computerised’ games online instead.
When you all started horse betting, you might have a good day, you might have a bad day. Human nature dictates, that it’s the bad days that will actually make you become an addicted gambler, if you’re that way inclined. You may have three bets on a sat, one falls at the last when 10l clear, the other two get beat in photo’s. It’s days like these, that are the trigger too a problem with punting horses, it could easily be football or golf. It’s human nature. When you get so close, you feel you have been unlucky, and will go again too get it back. On random sports results, this above will happen maybe once every six months in real life… What these computer programmes have done, is allowed the bookmakers too ratchet this effect up a notch, or twenty five! You see, all of these programmes, are made to play on human nature. All of them, are actually designed too ‘play’ with a weak mind. You’re not playing a random machine, you’re playing a very heavily advanced computer programme, which is actually designed to play on the very worst traits in the human mind regards gambling. Instead of every six months, this will be happening every six minutes. Step back, look at what’s happened. The bookmakers have become, much much richer, yet swathes of the UK are now ravaged by problem gambling. You think there is no link to when ‘computerised’ results came in for them? As Jac said, we all laughed when they rolled out the virtual racing, what mug would bet on that?? Well, they found a way too get the youth of today, too swallow their, clever ways… Let’s call it clever ways. You could call it something else.
The machines have been targeted now, watch the adverts ratchet up fifty times for online casino, computerised games, sickly based on kid type themes. Have you actually seen them? Most of the ‘games’ are from films or PS4 games.
It’s not just the FOBT machines that need looking at… IT ALL NEEDS LOOKING AT, any computerised result which is being gambled on. Everyone is still in the mindset of fruit machines and Atari’s when it comes too gambling… The world has moved on people, the Russians can effect ours and the US elections. But you think that cutting edge technology, is not being used too fleece gamblers? Everyone needs too wake up. Some one in power does anyway.
great thread, i am a bit surprised though many didn’t/dont like the old betting shops. So many characters. i miss the days of going in the local bookies and discussing the evening card for ‘the stow’ before setting off on our way to the track. In those days the dog card would be carried by the evening standard.
Oh happy daysA bit too much nostalgia for bookies I feel
They were crap frankly, especially before pictures
Always one conspiracy theorist and at least one that absolutely stank like a corpse in the sewage works
Great post Naus and did you see today’s LOL special offer
50/1 Might Bite to win The Betfair for new punters only..every time they do that it’s the curse of Theresa May on the Horse, it’ll end up out the back door with no friends.
Things turn out best for those who make the best of how things turn out...The thing with those offers though Jac is the small print
Max bet of £1.00
winnings are returned in the form of 50 £1.00 free bets
stake on free bets not included in any free bet winning returns
the £50 winnings require a turnover of x250 before withdrawalEnough to make you wanna give up eh….
Gaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
What a con Nathan I never read the small print in those offers closely, unbelievable.
Things turn out best for those who make the best of how things turn out...I’ve exaggerated those terms Jac, but they all do have them to varying degrees.
Gaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
LOL Nathan….shame I couldn’t have seen your face when you posted that
made me laugh though, I’ll read the small print on everything from now on. 
JacThings turn out best for those who make the best of how things turn out...As Nathan says Jac, there’s normally always a snag somewhere with those deals. Not always, bet365 are very good I’d say at giving great bonuses. But then seeing as the boss just paid herself £270 odd million for the year, I’m sure they can afford it.
£270 million, that’s a big old wage. Must be doing great at something, I wonder if it’s the online games? I bet it has plenty too do with it. Why do I mention it? Because they do not have any shops, no FOBT’s as everyone knows them.
The menace is not the physical machine in the shops, it’s the computer algorithms that control it. These are all on the online games too.
“PLEASE GAMBLE AWARE… The computers will get you”. It needs that little ending to it.
Spot on Nausered with this online computer games crap, at least with racing you have a competition
with man and beast. It might not be easy, but at least you can apply a bit of savvy. I have accounts
at just about all the big bookies, and the offers to get involved seem to get bigger every time. They
can offer what they want, I’d bet on Strictly first, that’s how dim a view I take of this online
robbery
Oh such nostalgia Naus !!
Like you I remember the days of struggling to get on and it wasn’t necessarily my bets.It is a long story but I will try to cut it short!!
I used to work in the late eighties , early nineties for a company called Turner and Kendrick (some on here may recognise the name) and we were one of the top credit bookmakers and all sorts of reputable and not so reputable punters bet with us and we were agents for big major bookies too!! ( we had a direct line to and from Ladbrokes and Victor Chandler)
People like Michael Tabor, Patrick Veitch and Colin Webster trusted us to get their bets on!
The tricks we used were many and varied and all the local betting shops knew us and who we worked for!!
We would send things down to the track to shorten them up and also make sure things didn’t get sent down to make them drift depending on what was needed and like you could probably write a book o the tricks used to accomplish such feats.Personally I think the rot started setting in when one arm bandits were allowed in betting shops with a bigger payout than pubs! I know for a fact that certain betting shops even in the nineties were making over £20 thousand a year from each one arm bandit and that must have given them the seed of an idea for FOBT’s .
Anyway I digress, people would ask us for two by two by two’s (eight trebles) and we would have to split them up into smaller stakes and send men all over the country around betting shops putting on individual trebles and some of these people wouldn’t even know the other horses involved in said bets. Yankees would be broken down into eleven separate bets and lumpy singles would be sent to all four corners of the country and all different shops to try to get on!
I will quote just one occasion of the big boys betting you to get to know and that was 1989 Coral Golden Hurdle at Cheltenham and our boss owned an animal called Rogers Princess which Joe Coral laid our boss at 33/1 a while before the event to get to know and it won by twelve lengths at 8/1 joint favourite!! the boss bought two brand new Mercedes with his winnings!! The other two occasions I would like to reminisce about are a horse called Daring Times at Donny at the start of the flat in 1990. The horse had six duck egss for form and we arrived for work at 9.00 am and the boss said ” one job today boys bet this horse!” Apparently Colin Webster had told him to just keep putting it on and to let him know at twelve o clock how much we had got on. We backed it with everybody in the country that we could at prices starting at 33/1 downwards. By twelve o clock we had about thirty grand on and told Colin this and he said ” what price is it now? ” We told him it was 10/1 and he said ” Keep putting it on until it gets to fives” , we did as asked and it ended up 5/1 joint fav I think and won a neck having been no nearer than eighth in its last six runs!!
The other one was a horse who’s name I can#t recall and it was a two year old trained in Wales and every bookie in Wales was ringing us up to get on at first show because the bookies didn’t price up every race in those days ! And the horse was running at Leicester in the second race at the night meeting in a Seller. Consequently as I was from Leicester and was sent to Leicester races to sort it out.
I approached Len De Costa to ask if he would bet me one to get to know and how much would he lay me at the price. I did all this without telling him at that point the name of the horse . He agreed to lay me it to lose two grand to find out and I told him the horse and he laid me £100 at 20/1 and then he went to work on it and so did I !! A seller at a night meeting is not the easiest to get on but between us we managed to get just under nine hundred quid on at varying prices down from 25/1 to about 10/1 and it won (first time out) at 8/1 by about a length and a half.That is what life in the betting jungle used to be like back in the day. It was a contest and an enjoyable one at that. Sometimes you won and sometimes you lost but it was definitely far more fun than now when everything is algorithms and the like.
I currently have accounts with about twelve different bookies and if I bet a winner then I do try to give them some sweets next time to stop them closing accounts but that doesn’t happen much nowadays because I bet for pleasure now and don’t take the game so seriously and that IMO is the way it should be.
Myself and Mrsraymo enjoy horse racing and horses and apart from Golf which I play badly and bet on badly sometimes too we do try to just enjoy it.P.S. I haven’t set foot in abetting shop for about four years and the last time I did I had a big row with Corals staff regarding extra places !! The offers on the internet of extra places and BOG all races is a massive attraction and even when we went to Goodwood for all five days this year we only bet on course on the first day and thereafter only had out tote exactas and place pots for the other four days.
Oh yes after a bit of research I have got the name of the other horse. An animal call Kathanna trained by Bryn Palling, ridden by a certain J Weaver and it won first time out at Leicester in said seller and then only ever ran once more. I know not what happened to it!
Great tales Raymo. I remember that Rogers Princess coup. The trainer Martin Tate was interviewed by Ch4/BBC whatever it was back then and asked about the gamble. He was all innocence and ‘Can’t understand it, haven’t had a penny on.’
They got him again after the race and the presenter’s first comment was ‘You put us away good and proper there, didn’t you?’ Tate’s smile was something to see.
Raymo that was an absolutely brilliant read, thank you so much for sharing that!
More, more
It’s the computers mate full stop, you’re right though as well, the one armed bandits with bigger payouts showed them. Virtual racing then showed them to. Everything is controlled by computers now. A computer, can do so much more than a mans brain can, when it comes to programmed algorithms, and that is scary. Betting markets are maths, you know that. A computer can also show you what looks like its going to be a win, but turns into a loss. A computer can do so many ‘sexy’ things with the outcome of a result.
It’s not just the bookies. Go play on a big poker site. Play some hands, watch how many times you will have AK, your opponent will have K10, the flop will come K,10,10. The odds of this actually happening are vast in real life, like really big. It happens, but not every two minutes like on all online poker sites. Why do they do this? Increased rake for them. The more you play, the more they make. Computers are the scourge of gambling, and no one seems to know it much. They opened tonnes of shops, and filled them with FOBT’s. The machine is just a physical means of getting the computer programme into the shop, trust me.
It’s great for us horse punters, big bonuses, top value, we’ve never had it so good. £270 million wages for bookies bosses, say we’re lucky that the powers that be are looking at all this a bit more closely now though. I hope the correlation is made from someone at the powers that be, that the machines are not the actual problem, it’s the computer behind them. That’s the demon in the room. Getting rid of FOBT’s or reducing stakes will not solve that, they are still online with zero restrictions. Bet365 again, have no shops, no machines. Biggest online presence. Their ‘machines’ are all online. £270 million a year wage. Phew.
I could actually tell you a tale regarding the £270 million lady Naus .
Because we worked for T and K which within the industry gave us much kudos in the mid nineties I applied for a job with a company called Provincial Racing and was initially offered the job (regional manager) but was told shortly afterwards the job was no longer vacant. Rumour has it the owner had given the job to a member of his family and a female one at that!! that female was I believe Denise Coates (The £270 million lady) , so it could have been me !!
No seriously though she was super clever and used the betting shops later and borrowed against them to raise the funds to start bet365. Fair play to her! Wonderful insight and 52 billion a year turnover is some going!!I will try to remember some more tricky goings on and some of the mistakes we made as our boss didn’t always make the right decisions!! ( Nortons Coin and Saumarez spring to mind)
And Joe Martin Tate was a master at getting right for exactly the right day and the jockey got a right royal rollocking the time before it won at Cheltenham for nearly winning!! LOL
But back to online betting I have at least a dozen accounts and try not to mess each and every one of them up!! I have never bet on virtual racing or online slots or casinos or even poker although I am partial to a game or two of poker, I just would not trust the computer to play fair as they say!!
Mrsraymo is super suspicious regarding anything like that too and the only bingo we play is sometimes in the arcades at the seaside LOL
made me laugh though, I’ll read the small print on everything from now on. 
Jac
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