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With Ladbrokes Coral saying they will no longer guarantee laying the prices that appear in the printed version of the Racing Post on the morning of the paper’s publication the paper’s editor Bruce Millington has said they’ll be changing the way they report profit/loss for their tipsters.
‘As for the Racing Post, Tom Segal will continue to tip under the Pricewise banner and will hopefully continue to churn out the winners that have made him such a respected judge down the years. And we will now express individual tipsters’ profit/loss figures based on SP, even though better value will almost always be available through a combination of the competitiveness of the morning markets and the best odds guarantee.’
It’s been a no-win situation for Tom Segal for some time. Prices cut immediately after the word out on his selections and backed down to prices Tom probably would no longer regard as value.
Full article here
That’s my Saturday morning entertainment finished, I loved watching the lemmings all crowding round the cashier trying to get their £20’s on before the guarantee runs out.
I smell the beginning of the end for Pricewise. Mr Millington says Tom will carry on with service as usual but that final part Corm mentioned is probably key. Effectively they’re accepting that what is Pricewise would very probably not be Pricewise about 10 minutes after it is published, and faced with the rejigged prices TS could well pick a different Pricewise – rinse and repeat.
I don’t know what they’re paying Tom but they could be looking to cut costs in that department.
Will the Coral/Ladbroke five grand liability guarantee apply to their shops in Ireland I wonder?
Under the new calculation would be a welcome development, if the RP reported tipster profit/loss in exchange SP as well as conventional.
Prices cut immediately after the word out on his selections and backed down to prices Tom probably would no longer regard as value.
Full article here
To be honest, Segal hasn’t been doing himself any favours on this score. Especially in the last year when he has been under pressure, he has often been following-in Ben Linfoot’s tips or putting up selections that have already moved 2-4pts between the time of us sending prices to the Racing Post (5pm) and initial publication of the Pricewise column to racingpost.com (8pm). Numerous times during the major festivals, he also copied Hugh Taylor’s tips (also published at 6pm during Cheltenham & Royal Ascot).
It’s not often that Segal moves the markets alone nowadays. It’s rarely true that bookmakers are slashing prices on the back of his tips – he just has a habit of putting up selections at prices that only exist in the grids by 8pm! Renneti in the Prix Royal-Oak on Sunday was a ‘Segal original’ and it barely even wobbled at 8pm, even on the exchange in a market with very little liquidity.
Prices cut immediately after the word out on his selections and backed down to prices Tom probably would no longer regard as value.
Full article here
To be honest, Segal hasn’t been doing himself any favours on this score. Especially in the last year when he has been under pressure, he has often been following-in Ben Linfoot’s tips or putting up selections that have already moved 2-4pts between the time of us sending prices to the Racing Post (5pm) and initial publication of the Pricewise column to racingpost.com (8pm). Numerous times during the major festivals, he also copied Hugh Taylor’s tips (also published at 6pm during Cheltenham & Royal Ascot).
It’s not often that Segal moves the markets alone nowadays. It’s rarely true that bookmakers are slashing prices on the back of his tips – he just has a habit of putting up selections at prices that only exist in the grids by 8pm! Renneti in the Prix Royal-Oak on Sunday was a ‘Segal original’ and it barely even wobbled at 8pm, even on the exchange in a market with very little liquidity.
To be fair, just because one person is technically the first to tip a horse up does not mean the second or third person “copied”. Inevitable when tipping horses based on Value that the same selections are often put up independently by good judges.
In this digital age and with bookmakers not guaranteeing taking prices (and with those guarantees often meaning little or nothing)… Unfortunately Pricewise and others “Value” tipster like Hugh Taylor will no longer be effective.
Value Is EverythingWhen Segal/Taylor (and myself
) tip a horse @ 20/1 and it shortens up to 10/1 SP/BSP… Had it been 10/1 in the first place that horse would not have been tipped. Indeed, if only available @ 10/1 some other horse would’ve been selected as the tip. So including it in profit/loss statistics as 10/1 is crazy. Judging a “Value” tipster on SP or BSP is ridiculous.Value Is EverythingCome on Ginge – it happens so often with Segal that it can’t be a coincidence. I’d say that more than half of the horses he tips have already been found by an influential tipster before 8pm. Many of the grid prices he tips at are already huge arbs at the grid prices before he puts them up.
There are so few influential tipsters the evening before a race (Linfoot, sometimes Taylor, sometimes trainer blogs) that this behaviour is quite easy to spot. I hate to quote Tony Calvin (bleugh!) but he made exactly the same point on Twitter and RUK yesterday.
Judging a “Value” tipster on SP or BSP is ridiculous.
Agree with you here though.
Many of the grid prices he tips at are already huge arbs at the grid prices before he puts them up.
Doesn’t need many (possibly just one) “in the know” person to start arbing for that to happen.
Value Is EverythingInstead of recording at Sp they should record the results at real price (one available to everyone) not the made up price as before but Sp for record keeping has gone the extreme the other way.
Also the Racing Post could do with a new look and is out dated either that or they should lower the price, complete rip off. A bit like Sky tv who over charge. If they were to cut prices they would sell a lot more and make more profit than over charging and selling less.
Gaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
Doesn’t need many (possibly just one) “in the know” person to start arbing for that to happen.
Being ‘in the know’ doesn’t come into it. ITV races are well-developed markets by Friday afternoon – any ‘information’ has been absorbed into the prices by that point. Most of these markets will have been up since the Monday. What I’m talking about is the exchange reacting to influential tipsters before Segal publishes his picks.
Nathan’s right though. The Racing Post itself must be on a razor-thin margin. Perhaps Segal (or the next incarnation of Pricewise) could go online-only and publish tips at 9am market prices. Pricewise doesn’t really move the markets, so I expect bookmakers could guarantee those prices for a generous amount of time.
As James K said recently on Twitter, the previous state of affairs was akin to ‘writing a weekly cheque to the arbing community’. I know the phrase ‘arber’ is overused (and indeed misused) in customer profiling departments at bookmakers, but you’re naive if you don’t think these nogoodniks exist in enormous numbers. The Pricewise period on a Saturday morning was their main earner. I logged into the MoneySavingExpert forum to gauge the reaction today – the place is in meltdown. There are hundreds of MSE wallahs who are devastated right now. These people are mindless arbers – there is a massive thread where they have been sharing Pricewise arbs, coaching others in the dark arts of bonus abuse and giving tips on avoiding detection. There’s even a thread titled ‘Is matched betting dead?’
These people don’t know one end of a horse from the other. Despite what some say, bookmakers are only too willing to lay straight bets. For win singles, we’ll lay you to lose at least £5,000 in the ITV guarantee, at least £2,000 on any Class 4+ and at least £500 on any UK or Irish race by terms of the guarantee. Try it – it’s a promise no matter who you are. Every day. However, bookmakers are understandably not happy to play the sucker for some chopper with a shopping list of arbs and a Betfair account who stops in en route to their daily fumble through the ‘Reduced!’ bin at Asda.
If you regard yourself as an honest punter then you should be very happy. No doubt bookmakers are too paranoid about arbers and some perfectly straight accounts are being closed unjustly. As a punter myself, I’m desperately concerned about losing accounts and even try to throw in ‘softener’ bets to preserve them. If the MSE crowd can be discouraged and sent back to cutting out ’30p off’ vouchers from magazines, perhaps fewer genuine punters will be caught in the crossfire.
Despite what some say, bookmakers are only too willing to lay straight bets. We’ll lay you to lose at least £5,000 in the ITV guarantee
A friend of mine asked me to go with him into a Hills where he place a bet on a 11/4 shot with an £800 stake. The bloke behind the counter hardly battered an eye lid.
Sadly the bet lost but my mate took a fiver off me as I bet him that the cashier would have to phone the bet through.Gaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
Despite what some say, bookmakers are only too willing to lay straight bets. We’ll lay you to lose at least £5,000 in the ITV guarantee
A friend of mine asked me to go with him into a Hills where he place a bet on a 11/4 shot with an £800 stake. The bloke behind the counter hardly battered an eye lid.
Sadly the bet lost but my mate took a fiver off me as I bet him that the cashier would have to phone the bet through.If known to the bookmaker as a losing punter the bookie will take the bet, Nathan.
Value Is EverythingPresumably would raise a few eyebrows if a known ‘tenners’ punter suddenly offered up £800 though!
Time of bet and quality of race would play a part too. I don’t doubt Hills would happily lay £800 on any 11/4 shot on the show mid-afternoon, but probably would have referred it to a trader if the bet was on a Class 7 and at 9:00 in the morning.
Am sure there’s a lot of arbing going on with Tom’s tips, LS. That’s not what I was refering to.
What I mean is: One or two working for the Racing Post (who are “in the know”) can get on using Betfair before tips become public knowledge.
Corals and every other bookmaker probably keep a look out on betfair. At that time there’s very little liquidity in markets and Tom’s tip is obvious because it suddenly gets a load of money stacking up. Bookmakers see this and shorten the horse without taking a penny at top price. Bookmakers are willing to then take shorter prices until the morning; at which point they revert to their advertised price for a very minimal time.
Value Is Everything
) tip a horse @ 20/1 and it shortens up to 10/1 SP/BSP… Had it been 10/1 in the first place that horse would not have been tipped. Indeed, if only available @ 10/1 some other horse would’ve been selected as the tip. So including it in profit/loss statistics as 10/1 is crazy. Judging a “Value” tipster on SP or BSP is ridiculous.
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