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The Big Blue brollies really blow my mind. Every time I go to the racecourse I see them and I still can’t quite believe them. What’s going through the mind of a bookie putting one up? I’ll save a score on a new brolly and all I have to do is advertise my main competitor?
Dale was one of the best – sadly despatched during the morning of the long knives in Hill’s reign of terror. He got a job as interim head honcho with an internet book afterwards and I got the call for help: ‘How the feck do we make money from our sportsbook in the BF era?’ I hope you’ve kept one of those Big Blue brollies was my only reply, because The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Any More……….
Course Bookies are a major attraction to British racing. The fact you know what price you have got is something many other punters would welcome.
Cant see it getting anymore profitable for the bookies but I can’t see it stopping either.
Yes, TDK, I think the cost in time, money and hassle, of actually going racing, compared with the ease of armchair viewing, or popping down the bookies, is a major negative for , not only on-course betting , but for the whole "come racing" scenario.
Society has changed. Even the working class ( if such a thing exists nowadays) can hardly boil an egg, but are content to watch hours of tv cooking programmes while chomping at their carry-outs.
Racing, in general, suffers from the same, widespread laziness. From the armchair, it’s always somebody else’s fault. Most of these critics, however, wouldn’t have the skill or the nerve to stand a bet on a joint; ride a good finish on a racehorse; or train an Arc winner.
I think Drone’s ideas are worthy of consideration, but, realistically, we have entered the world of the cartoon make-believe and the clock won’t be turning back.
" Evolution, innit like?" Yeah, right.
A good recession may burst a lot of these theory bubbles, imo.damn good thread this , and yes Gamble steals the show again , just wonder however even if the imposible happens , fixture list gets slashed , admission prices and catering get cut to the bone , is it too late ??
HAS THE HORSE BOLTED
have folks just got used to playing in running at home , or just playing at home with the plethora of races shown on TV daily its a big tempter
In France nobody bothers going (except in some small provincials) they are all glued to terminals in PMU cafes , thing is thats ok cos the rake off is straight back to racing and prize money
Here we have become the same (glued to the telly at home
, except racing is levy dependant or some unworkable formula that amounts to that and we are struggling big time
Apart from big race days on course bookies will continie to survive for a while more , but thay need the crowds back , and frankly thats a pipe dream
cheers
Ricky
I guess the start of it all was the removal of the off course betting tax, which in an instant suddenly made sitting at home and playing with bookies (and later exchanges) a very attractive option for the bigger players
Yes the emergence of the exchanges hot on the heels of the repealing of tax was a blow upon a bruise for the on-course market.
Incidentally I don’t think it’s the bigger ‘grand’ players who have benefitted most from ‘stay at home’ punting, but rather the mid-range ‘century’ players who may have managed to turn a gross profit from on-course punting but saw that profit badly eroded by travelling/admission costs due to insufficient turnover
Maybe the oncourse ring is like the stagecoach and beta-max and is just an anachronism now, but like others, its demise saddens me. One of the things that made me catch the horseracing "bug" was ducking and diving in the betting ring, searching out the best value. Now it all seems so desperately dull.
Maybe not quite an anachronism but – like post offices and red telephone boxes – something that was once of pivotal importance no longer being required on the scale it once was due to technological advances; in the Ring’s case too many books suffering the inevitable consequences of chasing an ever-diminishing cut of an ever-reducing turnover viz a declining income but no reduction in fixed capital costs: the death knell of many a business. So like the pruning being practiced by the PO and BT, a dramatic reduction in the number of on-course bookmakers would seem the logical solution. I’ve long thought there’s been far to many dead wood ‘fiddlers’ amongst them anyway, who wouldn’t be missed.
I too in my youth was inordinately drawn to the action and atmosphere of the Rings, and have continued to be, though like those who moan about the actions of the aforementioned PO and BT, but have foresaken the written letter for e-mail and the smelly kiosk for mobiles, it would be hypocritical of me to mourn the demise of the on-course market as the number of times I’ve been racing over the last year or so is in single figures compared to a peak of circa 100 five or more years ago.
They were swell days: hither and yon with my Zeiss 10x40s, a ‘Go Racing in Yorkshire’ season ticket and a fistful of scores.
These are dreary days: but the advice from the all-knowing bottom-line is ‘stay at home and press that blue button’
When i started out the idea of being an “oncourse Bookmaker“ was like a dream,however, in those days (20 years ago) the reality was something differant, it was almost impossible to get good pitches so it was dogs and “back line duty“ when the opportunity arose.
Fortunately for me i was quick in once the technology game started thus going on course was never an option once pitches came up for sale………. i must thank god for that!!
Oncourse Bookmaking as its place , it will always appeal to the day trippers and casual punters alike,however, its potential is seriously limited and commercially seen it can hardly be desribed as lucrative.
I guess the key is filling the tracks with a real audience, unfortunately, the average racing fan couldn`t afford to go to the track on a regular basis,entry fees in the UK are excessive!!
The current situation of the three markets (off-course, on-course and exchange) being entangled and more-or-less dependent on one another has become untenable in my view, particularly the archaic and increasingly unfair/unrealistic SP mechanism
The three should ideally go their separate ways and trade as quite independent betting outlets.
Off-course – to service their ‘estates’ with their own industry prices, both morning line and SP
On-course – to service the needs of the racegoing public only
Exchange – to service the needs of punters who have the but the vaguest inkling what ‘value’ meansFreed from the shackles of ‘office money’ an independent on-course market would be free to react to the market forces on the racecourse alone, and who knows, a new breed of bookmaker may reappear who will be prepared to ‘take a view’ on a horse from what he or his paddock-man has actually seen of the beast, or what his trusted form-man’s tissue says. As in days of yore.
Result: a more competitive market that just might tempt the clued-up heavier hitter to foresake an afternoon in myopic big-blue land for a venture into the presbyopic great outdoors.
Though it is doubtful on-course turnover will ever return to anything like it was was pre-exchange.
Over-simplistic? almost certainly
I don’t see how you could divorce the on-course market from Betfair: Once a ring bookie goes over the Betfair odds he’s at the mercy of the arbers. Over time, unless he’s an excellent judge he’ll go broke. Even if he is an excellent judge, he’ll make more in his front room.
Like DJ, I find myself having fewer and fewer bets on course now- I had 2 bets in the whole of Cheltenham Festival with on-course bookies and about 4 in the whole of Galway over here- the off-course guaranteed odds and morning prices get most of my cash now.
The best solution would be for a benign dictator to ban off-course bookmakers and impose the Aussie system, where if you want to bet with a bookie, you have to go racing! Otherwise it’ll be a slow and steady death.and yes Gamble steals the show again
…and I thought I had only stolen the tarts
Ricky I have just been listening to how the failing bio pharma industry are now playing war games as an aid to help address their vulnerabilities and lack of confidence in obtaining finance in the markets. This is in marked contradistinction to America which houses nineteen billion dollar pharma research companies, in UK there are none, and finance is sourced much easier.
Amazon, Ebay, and the huge sell it all supermarkets have all in-roaded on traditional markets hitting corner shops, offys, pipe shops and bookshops. As for bookmakers they have little use of war games as the enemy is too defined and too well positioned. Their only option is to cut their ranks and badger the racecourses and official bodies to improve the value of the go racing product.
Glenn you appear to know more of the inner wranglings on Betfair than I do. I know nothing of Hill, or his reign of terror, or the cullings and am mightily interested. What is more I should know this and Dale’s email is now useless to me.
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Horse Racing died the day you could start laying.
early appointment at the labour exchange, must sign on,
1/2 dozen experts on this forum can’t be wrong,
As per usual clever-dick replies only discredit you Barry Dennis
Your considered thoughts from the front line on the future of the betting ring please?
Too much to ask?
Does anybody no why William Hill has taken over the Barry Dennis shop,and when this happened, and has Barry moved to a different location
On a very minor point. Hills need to change Barry’s green metal shutter, or at least give it a coat of WH blue paint.
It really doesn’t match. It lowering the tone of Romford market.
As per usual clever-dick replies only discredit you Barry Dennis
Your considered thoughts from the front line on the future of the betting ring please?
Too much to ask?
Barry a clever dick? He isn’t the one using figurative phrases most normal people have no idea the meaning of. I for one would appreciate you taking the marbles out your mouth learn to speak and type normal/modern english so us simpletons can understand what is being said
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