- This topic has 25 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated 8 years, 10 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
A friend of mine is petitioning the Gambling Commission that Bookmakers must lay advertised odds to any customer up to a £500 liability on single bets.
If you are interested please see link below
So, your friend believes that if 1 million punters want 500 each on a 4/1 chance on a Tuesday at Plumpton, bookmakers should be legally obliged to accept a liability of £2 billion on that horse?
Does he say who he intends to bet with and what he intends to bet on once the bookmakers are all bankrupt and racing, because it has no Levy, becomes bankrupt itself?
I think you, your friend, and anyone else signing this petition should open up a bookmaking business, lay horses to the advertised price to a liability of £500 to every customer who asks and see how well your business does.
Sheer fantasy – advertised prices are an “invitation to treat” and are not legally binding.
Welcome to the real world.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ian_Davies_
https://www.facebook.com/ThePointtoPointNHandFlatracingpunter/
It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"My apologies for not reading the initial post carefully enough: your friend said liability: I illustrated stake. Nonetheless, while I’m all for punters getting as many advantages as possible, and I can understand frustration at having stakes limited, proposals like your friend’s show a fundamental misunderstanding of how bookmaking works.
There’s also no concept there of how business in general or regulators like the GC work. What is being sought in such proposals is that the regulator imposes price-fixing on behalf of the consumer to the detriment of the businesses it regulates to such an extent that the business is endangered (and therefore future consumers in that market)
When I was a regular on-course (prior to circa 2010) Tatts bookmakers had a bold sign stating how much they’d lay to lose, usually with the qualifier ‘at least’. £1000+ was the norm, £500 in places and that little guy from Doncaster, whose name I forget – Turner? – who inhabited the far reaches of the back row, alone with a paltry £200
I’m not one for imposing statutory minima but feel any bookmaker worthy of the name should be prepared to lay a bet to lose a monkey; ’tis only a 500/50 for goodness sake
Are hedging are laying-off to balance the fieldbook no longer part of the complex bookmaking art?
I clicked to read the petition wording just in case I was missing something. A section at the end allows for the odds to go “down as well as up”
How would that work?
It is different on course where a bet is being laid to just one person at a time. Odds can be adjusted after each individual transaction and the guarantee renewed.
What does an online bookie do when he is serving millions of customers at, potentially, exactly the same time?
whatever happen to bookmakers having a opinion? They stand there like rows of robots changing a price if they hear the joint next door have taken a bet.
I loved the the 70s when you could get a decent bet on,ask for fractions etc.Dont like digging out bookmakers but surely there is a market out there for someone who has an opinion and will take a bet,then balance their book.
Shops/online really is hard work,all they want is FOBT players or online casino players.I have yet to see a ‘stranger’ in a shop turned away if wanting a monkey in machine number 2,but by christ try and get a few bob on a 6/5 shot in boxing,you’ll get the third degree.
Anyway not long now to my annual dante trip(in fact even doing the 4 days ebor as well this year) lets hope for a wind of change in the bookmaking business
It is different on course where a bet is being laid to just one person at a time. Odds can be adjusted after each individual transaction and the guarantee renewed.
What does an online bookie do when he is serving millions of customers at, potentially, exactly the same time?
Use very, very, very quick thinking software to manipulate the fieldbook rather than a very quick thinking clerk with biro and ledger?
No matter how quick thinking the software, what decision does it make when those 1 million punters click on the ‘advertised’ 4/1 at exactly the same time?
whatever happen to bookmakers having a opinion?
Bookmakers with an opinion are called punters
steeplechasing those ‘punters’ were far better than the robots we have now.The likes of Stephen Little etc are sadly missed imo
A friend of mine is petitioning the Gambling Commission that Bookmakers must lay advertised odds to any customer up to a £500 liability on single bets.
If you are interested please see link below
Bookmakers could guarantee laying “advertised odds to any customer up to a £500 liability on single bets”. I believe Australian bookmakers have a similar rule, but they do not work to as good over-rounds. Almost inevitable every bookmaker here would need to compensate for greater liabilities in the same way. In turn cutting down on the number of profitable punters too. However, it is difficult enough for our bookmakers to compete with exchanges these days, this reduces further their share of Horse Racing business. Perhaps they’d give it up entirely?
Personally, I’d love to be able to get all my stake on every time or even half the time; but there will be consequences to a rule like this. It is getting bad though. May be they could just do it to £250?
That’ll be something at least..Value Is Everythingsteeplechasing those ‘punters’ were far better than the robots we have now.The likes of Stephen Little etc are sadly missed imo
On course bookmakers like Freddie Williams used to go out on a limb by offering a bigger price on something. But in doing so he was effectively becoming a punter.
Value Is Everythingyou say that gingertips but then he would balance his book(alot of the time) by pushing out the next two in the market
decent books in the past read the form book,took a view, thought we can ‘get’ this,now most can only read betfair
No matter how quick thinking the software, what decision does it make when those 1 million punters click on the ‘advertised’ 4/1 at exactly the same time?
Firstly, there’s no such thing as ‘exactly the same time’ when a computer is dealing with an order book. Try taking the same Betfair offer simultaneously across a hundred PCs and see how far you get.
Secondly, anyone rustling up a million beards for this is more likely to get investigated for a DDOS attack than get his bets down.
But as soon as you turn to a formbook, you are a punter. Your sign might say ‘bookmaker’, but you are a punter. You might be a great judge, but you are a punter.
A bookmaker’s job is to balance a book. He need not know one end of a horse from another. If he can adjust his book and attract enough business to that book, he wins money. But a balanced book is a very hard thing to find in day to day racing.
Online has brought many benefits to punters, not least, the skinniest ever bookmaker margins. The way bookies manage limits and advertised prices is very far from perfect, but you simply cannot legislate to force any business to structure things in a fashion which could cause major losses.
They are not buying a pint of milk at 50p and selling it at £1. Their whole business model revolves on the concept of managing liabilities.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.