- This topic has 85 replies, 30 voices, and was last updated 17 years, 8 months ago by
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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
Thanks for the advice Fluster, it will be pondered at length.
Yep, a C pass in English Language O Level must mean my prose appears high fallutin’ to most members of the racing fraternity, particularly to those small men on horseback
And thanks very much for letting the world know I’m not ‘normal’ – you have made my year
On-course bookmakers do of course have their place on the racecourse, but they should have absolutely no input whatsoever into the SP mechanism.
Arkle
Mr Dennis stated he sold his betting shop as after the expenses he was not making enough money!I suspect he will concentrate on his well documented latest venture and that is to hand around outside the stewards rooms.
All he has to do is to await for the exit of top jockeys who will give him the nod regarding the outcome of the stewards decision before he scuttles off
and cleans up on Betfair!
- Total Posts 17716
Whats money at the end of the day?
No point being the richest bloke in the graveyard.
little point in being the poorest either
put a penny in my pot
I suppose you think old England’s done
Just testing you Wilsonps
I tried three times to write about
the naked put on the Grimes thread very last ‘night’
and three times I was denied and the post and connection were gone.
After an hour and an extra half a bottle of wine
I went to bed, checking under it for the black swan.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….
I couldn’t agree more. It’s not often you see opinions being stood oncourse either any more – although Geoff Banks often stands his opinions, in fairness.
It’s very sad to see the way it is going oncourse – the betting ring offers pretty much the most atmosphere on a racecourse, IMO.
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned Not So Great Leighs. They ran an auction for their ten pitches and the results are enlightening:
– the majority of the pitches were won by off-course interests
– the majority of the pitches now held by off-course interests have never been put into use. They appear merely to have been bought so no genuine bookie could stand there.
– the four independent bookies who actually won pitches seem to derive much of their income from quid pro quo deals with the trilaterals (ie we’ll take unders with you if you keep the horse artificially short)So Glenn you are suggesting it is
more or less a bags scenario.Slightly off topic rant..
We have lost true firm going
the good to fim is often treated.
One could argue that all ground is now
all artificial
The mix of artificial ground
with real is a difficult one
and suits the trilaterals as you call them
down to the ground.
This difficult mix puts people off
taking up the sport.
Its messy and vexing for form students
when horse change code.Harry Findlay wrote yesterday in the RP.
‘I never back any of my horses or anyone elses in the morning, either with bookmakers or on the exchanges. In fact, I promise you I never bet any of my horses or anyone elses until five minutes before the off.’
Everyone who is serious about betting knows all the trading goes on in the 3 or 4 minutes before the off. and the rest is tuck shop money and people brassing up the business’
He continued ‘ There is a real problem with the markets. There’s one real market -Betfair- and the others are so much smaller.
There are no on course bookmakers any more. What we have is home Betfair traders and on course Betfair traders.The leading (on course) independents cant lay an egg. There are no bookmakers out there’.
How long is it going to be before the Treasury starts taxing the stay at home layers with the same GPT that the on/off-course bookies contributed ? The threadbare profit margins that these boys are playing to will be gone overnight. Then what ?
I went racing at Killarney on Sunday. Not a big meeting – just some decent early season jumping with a double for Barry Geraghty and some potentially nice horses (and one Cheltenham Festival winner) on show.
Quite a small crowd – by English standards – and most of them seemed to be watching the Kerry v Cork semi-final on the big screen.
However there were (I counted them because I couldn’t believe my eyes) 52 bookmakers in attendance – 2 long lines facing each other in front of the main stand.
One or two were betting on the Curragh but the vast majority were trading on the local action. Quite a few were betting without the favourites and some even bet without the first 3 favourites to try and get a piece of the action.
I’d be interested to know what their turnover/profit on the day was compared to similar meeting at home.
Quote – The threadbare profit margins that these boys are playing to will be gone overnight. Then what ?
Then wouldn’t market forces then shift the margins people are playing at up to compensate?
Maybe so Cormack, but it might keep more money in the ring and get a few of the players from out of their box-rooms.
If any sort of betting tax was re introduced no doubt Betfair and every other exchange would move offshore.
If the Exchanges decided to stayed here and a tax on profits was introduced one could then claim tax back on any losses.
One could presumably claim for a few flat screen televisions, broadband connection charges and a nice new pc as tools of the trade.Of course if any tax was intoduced the very low margins one can currently play at would naturally increase to recover the extra expense.
I used to go racing a lot and over one Lingfield AW season went 34 times. I have made journeys from Brighton to as far as Newton Abbot in the west, and travelled to Doncaster and back in the same day in order to watch one days racing.
I now just have a few steps to my former spare bedroom where I have two televisions bolted to the wall along with a monitor a bookshelf full of form books and results books and a quick pc hooked up to betfair.
Why in the World would I have any need anymore to travel to tracks such as Wincanton where the last time I went any race with less than ten or so runners was ‘win only’ the on course betting shop was s.p. only and after petrol and admission charges and food and drink I needed to find a winner to recover around £100 in expenses before I won a penny on the day.
The liquidity on betfair seems to have been slashed in recent months on run of the mill weekday races which may or not be due to the economic downturn.
Seagull,
the plus points of the Exchanges – some of which you’ve rightly mentioned – have been given plenty of publicity by messageboards and media.
Being nosey, I’d like to know is
how does
"Commission Paid"
compare with
"Profit Made"?Reading the btfr forum, shows that many of the old lags state that the commission paid far outweighs the profit made. In other words, they’re saying that btfr does best out of the deal. Perhaps, I’m muddling up the percentages or something?
Despite the talk of transparency, I have no idea whether these guys are right or wrong, but one thing that is certain is that racing is the net loser. I would doubt very much that the supposed short-term gain , claimed by the tiny minority of winning Exchange punters, is sustainable.
The next few years will be crunch time for racing in general, imo.Btw, is the old boy with the winning fav-backing system finding he’s better off on btfr? I would think he may be happier with his old ways, but I wish him well, whatever.
Betfair wouldn`t need to move offshore,they have a Maltese licence,they are part of the EU and under current legislation that allows them to promote their product in the UK,therefore,little would change other than they would pay less tax than they do at present!!
Like it or not,the exchanges are here to stay and theirs little anyone can do about it!!
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