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Ask yourself this – why are arbers so successful?? Because they follow the market line and for all their turnover they generate very little profit and in most cases a loss for the high street firms. So if this is where firms are losing money, why not turn it on it’s head and react to this situation as many firms are doing now such as Blue Square and Paddy Power and when there is an arb, cut the price, and use these individuals to their advantage instead of bemoaning their existence. They can then lay what they want at the reduced price to a genuine punter.
A firm that reacts to arbers, and thus the market, will be far more profitable in the long run, rather than abiding by the opinion of an individual "odds compiler", and it is for these reasons that these firms operate in this fashion and ultimately show a profit on their balance sheet at the year end.
Are Blue Square et al exposing themselves to punters spoofing out the exchange market for buttons and then getting big prices with Bluesq as their tracking software pushes the price out?
Conversely do any bookmakers use the behaviour of arb players to their advantage? I.e do they back a horse they want to lay at "under" their price on Betfair so that they will lay it to arb players/traders who follow Betfair moves?
I hope this question doesn’t come across as too stupid!
What does it matter to the high street whether a punter is backing the horse outright or backing the horse to lay it on Betfair?
If I fancy something I look for the best price (unless I think it will drift) then look to be accommodated to my chosen stake. If I can’t get it all on in one place I’ll split it up. Who I get on with is irrelevant to me. Nor do I particularly care who I’m winning and losing with. In reality the "fiddlers" make too many mistakes and hence tend to lose more to the good punters. They counter this by restricting accounts until you can have a fiver each-way. What they should do is invest in some decent odds-compiling talent then have the confidence in their people to stand up and lay a bet.
You call them "fiddlers" I called them "mickey-mouse"; they’ve always been around, but are that much more visible on the internet. I for one wouldn’t expect to be accomodated by such outfits for any length of time, and wouldn’t lose any sleep when the inevitable restrictions or closure occurred. So why bother with them Carvills, or their in-effect imaginary prices?
The ‘management’ of your accounts with the big, long established firms would seem to be fine, as most are laying what you want, so why not stick with them rather waste time chasing the uncatchable elsewhere
Ratpack’s point about the limited supply of skilled odds-compilers is well made. No different to the limited supply of skilled bettors: layer tries to beat bettor, bettor tries to beat layer – both are ‘punters’ who need and share the same skills – viz estimating risk/chance/odds/probability, call it what you will.
Idealism and realism – the somewhat seedy little world of betting requires a large dose of the latter
Supply and demand – you don’t want to sell a tin of beans for 20p if people will pay 25p for them. Equally, if there is demand to back a horse at 3.85 (on betfair), you don’t want to be laying it at 4.00 in the high street or on the net because the likelihood is that arbers will be locking in a green position.
But if, say, Ladbrokes are willing to lay the horse at 4 then what difference does it make to them who backs it.
Is it just because they now know that they should be shorter or is it because they don’t like knowing that some people are getting a free lunch on them
I’m not trying to be smart here.
The point is David that if you keep laying horses bigger than their Betfair odds in a 100% book to anyone you’ll do your dough. The skill of the odds compilers should be to anticipate which horses are too short or too long in the early thin Betfair markets and price up accordingly. If they’re accurate the firm wins.
In practice of course you end up ignoring the fiddlers prices Drone but listening to their spokespeople especially on ATR is difficult: they shouldn’t be given a platform to lie to the public about laying non-existent prices.
TDK: in the case of people pushing out the Betfair odds to get on with the fixed odds firms- I’m 100% sure this happens, especially with some of the bigger gambling stables. As long as it’s not the owner or trainer doing the laying I’d say it was a fair tactic. As for bookies doing the opposite, again fair enough- it’s up to the punter to think independently and not to follow Betfair blindly.Sportingbet are the most hilarious for blindly following blatant spoofs out. You see horses at midday for buttons that are only going to hold their inflated price if the horse in question is a laying coup, yet they invariably follow them out. I doubt they even order a copy of the Racing Post for their odds compiler to flick through. If only they would actually lay a bet.
My most profitable accounts these days are with the new generation of bookies who seem to be lulled into a false sense of security by blindly copying BF prices. The ping pong getting on can be infuriating though: 7 on BF, click the 6/1 on bluesq – odds have changed, click again now 11/2 (as it’s gone 6.6 on BF), ok I’ll take the 11/2 to save the commish, sorry price change, click for updated odds, it’s 6/1 again as it’s drifted a couple of ticks on the machine, great I’ll take that, sorry bet could not be placed as the odds have changed, ad infinitum. This can go on for two minutes of constant clicking on some horses.
Just been re-reading the article. I didn’t realise that Powder Puff were well known for their prowess in the sack. How else can you explain this?
We have a justifiably strong reputation as good layers
They surely can;’t be referring to laying bets.
Just been re-reading the article. I didn’t realise that Powder Puff were well known for their prowess in the sack. How else can you explain this?
We have a justifiably strong reputation as good layers
They surely can;’t be referring to laying bets.
Harsh Glenn ~ i once got a fiver on with them. Only so I could watch the pictures you see, but then they started knocking me back to smaller stakes than I could access said pictures for so I stopped. The irony is that I got restricted for betting on “Best Supporting Actor” in their Father Ted Market. Bishop Brennan was a steal…….
I would think the “Copy and paste“ merchants are most at risk as they have no opinion in the first place thus they will find it difficult to operate a proper risk management!!
Tracking Betfair early doors is a big mistake has theirs zilch in the way of liquidity,i should imagine it would be very difficult to get covered for any reasonable amount during the morning hours!
I would really like to take on the likes of Corals/Laddies/WHill on international racing as im convinced i have a better grip of what the real market will and should look like,however, is it really worth the effort?
One observation i would like to make is Corals are usually the first up with international racing , im almost convinced the others plod around these prices,maybe the exception is BlueSq,they tend to be first up with top German racing.
Sportsbetting is no differant,if you look at Betradar you will see circa 180 Bookmakers pricing up the top league games,the first 10 or so set the trend then the sheep follow,these tools (Odds comparison sites) have made it easier for Odds compilers and Punters alike (Maybe not Betradar as it costs 4K per month!).
I can certainly understand the Bookmakers not wanting to give the Arbers a free meal ticket , it must be a chore deciding who is what,however, i think its sad when a punter cannot get covered for a decent stake, in days gone bye Bookmakers would be happy to lay the professional to reasonable amounts and use this info to form their market,since the likes of Betfair have come along the margin for error as diminished!
I read the article yesterday and it bears little to what actually happens in the real World.
In the ‘systems’ part of this website the ‘Old Boy’ has been totally banned from two Ladbrokes shops this year.
His average bet per day is under £50.00 most bets dont need to be reffered to head office.
The area manageress banned him.Yesterday on page 16 of the Post Paddy Power who according to them ‘Have a justifiably strong reputation as good layers and dont knock back the vast majority of punters‘ had priced up a market of the next airline to go bust and had XL at 4/1.
Well armed with the knowledge that I know someone who works at Gatwick told me two weeks ago that XL were in a bad way and were cutting flights last week and were scrapping whole months of winter flights.
Last week the Scottish FA cancelled the XL flight to transport the team to the Euro match as they learned they were in a bad way and did not want the team stranded abroad. Chelsea FC who also charter from XL also knew of the problems.
I phoned Powers yesterday and requested £500 at 4/1.
The bet was turned down flat as they said it was a ‘novelty’ bet and they only laid novelty bets for small sums.The total sum they were prepared to lay was £10.00 so I never bothered.
I think that is pretty standard on novelty bets, ‘gull.
And you wanting to place that bet, doesn’t seem much different to Barry Dennis betting on the result of an enquiry!
Colin
I phoned Powers yesterday and requested £500 at 4/1.
The bet was turned down flat as they said it was a ‘novelty’ bet and they only laid novelty bets for small sums.The total sum they were prepared to lay was £10.00 so I never bothered.
Are you sure that bet wasn’t laid Seagull? Their spokesperson seems to think it was……….
Holidaymakers may have been in the dark about the imminent collapse of XL Leisure, but to City punters it was an odds-on bet – a near certainty.
Bookmaker Paddy Power had taken so many wagers on the company going bust that by 7pm yesterday it was forced to close the book. It had been taking bets on which airline would be next to fail – XL was not even on the original list but was added at punters’ requests, at a starting price of 10-1. Even when the odds came down to 4/6, gamblers were still putting hundreds of pounds on the company’s likely collapse.
A spokesman for the betting firm said today that it would be paying out a total of £10,000 to punters. The largest single wager on XL was £500 at 4-1, which paid out £2,000.
The rising price of fuel has led to persistent rumours about the health of the airline industry. But the specific focus on XL could have been sparked by a little-noticed announcement to the Icelandic stock exchange on Wednesday.
The announcement was made by Icelandic transport group Eimskipafelag Islands – known as Eimskip – and referred to a loan it had made when it sold XL Leisure to a management buyout in 2006. Eimskip had made a loan guarantee of €207m (£165m) to the buyers of the airline and was concerned that the “conditions in the aviation market and information of the operation of XL” would make it more likely that it had to honour the guarantee.
To protect itself, Eimskip had lined up a group of “significant investors” – led by local multimillionaire businessmen and father and son duo Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson and Bjorgolfur Thor Bjorgolfsson to takeover the loan.
The decision by the pair to step in is no coincidence. They are both investors in Eimskip.
The older of the pair – Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson – is known to West Ham fans as the owner of the club since he bought a stake owned by another Icelander Eggert Magnusson. XL also sponsors the club’s kit. He is better known in the business community as the chairman of Landsbanki, the Icelandic bank which backed the buyout of XL two years ago. With his son, he controls 40% of the bank which no longer has any direct exposure to XL.
OK lets have a reality check. A good few years ago, I had a rare run at Coral’s at my local in Whitchurch Cardiff. Probably was winning about £15K over about 3 months when they stopped me taking early prices – I wanted to bet an exposed horse of the TInkler’s called Macgillcuddy Reeks one day, with no inside knowledge other than I like backing my opinion. Wouldnt lay me, only at SP. So I went round a few other Corals, trying to get on £25 multiples. By about the eighth shop (by this time I was in Newport!) my description had been circulated to all managers and was told on no account to lay me any price – the price was there on the screens as an invitation to treat for all Coral punters – except me.
About 3 weeks later, with the run continuing unabated, I approached the till to have £800 on a Cecil 2-y-o at Sandown at SP (it was an even-money shot) only to be told I was now limited to £50 stakes, even at SP. The manager said I was making the shop uneconomical, but if that was so, why was I being limited at other shops too? I thought it was particularly petty as it gave me no time to get to Hills or Ladbrokes to place the bet, the manager could have told me as soon as he saw me enter the shop.
Coral’s want to beat every customer, they do not operate a book on a race as anyone else would know it. I have never, EVER had trouble getting on with Hill’s or Ladbrokes, other than @ guaranteed odds, which I think is fair enough.
NQ
Powers may have said they took the sum I requested on XL but it was not from me and I dont think one single punter got that sum personally.
As soon as I read the price was 4/1 in The Racing Post I told a freind of mine and he phoned in the same request as me he also was offered £10.00.
If they claim city traders knew it was nigh on a certainty that XL would be the next player to fall why was the max sum they claimed to have laid not far higher and the book closed early morning?
This was a 1/1000 shot with anyone who knew someone working for XL or who watched the airline industry.
They may wish to come over as the bookmaker that will price up any event but unless you want to bet peanuts you will not get accomodated.
Not really relevant to the wider discussion though Seagull- I have some sympathy with them ducking big bets in a thin market they alone are trading- would you like to be laying bets to people with inside information on something like that? The real issue is firms not taking a proper bet in widely traded markets such as horse racing.
Carvillshill
Although by name this is a horse racing site the subject was about getting bets on in general as was the Racing Post feature.No one forced Paddy Power to price up that airline market and they are still quite happy it seems to keep it running.
They seem to me to price up strange markets as just a way of gaining publicity.
So anyone with the slightest knowledge of any of the other airlines they list as the next possible casualty should attempt to profit from their knowledge or judgement.
Its the same as Barney Curley stating ‘ my job is to know a little more about my horses than the bookmakers do’.
Powers seem happy to stand alone and bet on markets Ladbrokes and others would never dream of forming.
They are currently offering members of their website the chance to win prizes by suggesting markets for them to bet on.
For a large bookmaker such as them it was a disgrace they could not offer me more than £10.00.
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