- This topic has 115 replies, 42 voices, and was last updated 15 years, 5 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Successful turf accounting – like advertising – is essentially about enticing the gullible into buying something they don’t need and/or shouldn’t have.
Around this time each year I bite my lip and enter into the dismal confines of Netto in order to purchase seeds at 19p a packet. I won’t darken their doors again until next Spring.
Presumably it is not within the law for down-market grocers to refuse the business of well-dressed gentlemen who forego the temptation to bulk buy own-brand Cola and Crisps, as I have yet to receive a
"following a review of your account we have decided that we no longer wish to offer you a loss-leading service"
Stumping up the annual fiver as anonymous loose change helps maintain the cloak of secrecy I find
Value – on the few occasions it truly is – is a dirty word to the retailer
But betting and horseracing are related, and this thread is about bookmakers policy rather than anyones journal. The Clare Balding thread got moved because it descended into a thread about god, barrack obama, gun licenses, extreme political views and a whole lot of other things that had nothing to do either with horseracing or clare balding, and looked completely out of place in the horseracing section of the forum.
I reckon the key word is
fiction
.
Fiction wasn’t in the sentence…
Personally, I
do
believe a lot of these press releases about large Ante Post bets placed in the High Steet.
There was a thread on Betfair recently doubting the validity of Coral’s claim that we had laid 10k Paco boy in the Dubai Duty Free.
We actually laid around 30k on the horse in various shops in the Wimbledon area.
Now, I’m not pretending for a moment we would lay this size of bet on a horse as a matter of course, but you have to look at the circumstances relating to the bets that were offered
It was Group 1 race with established form for all runners – and the punters were asking between 4 and 5-1 about a horse that was generally available at 6s. Bookmakers are obviously going to accept higher levels of risk on such a horse. You simply can’t compare this to punters asking for a big bet at a standout price in a much smaller race.
the dark knight,
Would you yourself try to back a horse between 4/1 and 5/1 that was generally available at 6s?
Prufrock wrote:
I reckon the key word is fiction. CoolFiction wasn’t in the sentence…
Very well spotted. If I had wanted to say "the key word in that sentence is "fiction"" then I would have said that. What I considered, somewhat playfully, to be the key word was not in your sentence but was elsewhere on the thread. That was the point.
I trust you enough to believe you when you say you lay some of these big bets – always assuming you are not just exaggerating for effect – in the same way that I trust carvillshill not to have made up the fact that he has had his account closed.
But I would not publish what amounts to hearsay as if it was fact in a newspaper. Does anyone in these newspapers get any sort of proof that these scarcely believable bets have been struck before rushing to print?
TDK,
I’m just reading Veitch’s book on the Exponential gamble. I seem to recall David Stevens and Simon Clare offering differing, and mutually exclusive claims, on the hit No Morals took. One claimed of four bets of £250e-w@100/1 online (only achievable if you had four different accounts with ten times the standard limit), while the other said they had been largely unscathed.
The left hand obviously didn’t know what the right one was doing. A case of too many PR reps spoiling the froth.
Tell me that at least one of those two’s claims wasn’t pure invention.
the dark knight,
Would you yourself try to back a horse between 4/1 and 5/1 that was generally available at 6s?
No.
However, if I wanted to back a horse to win around £250k, then I would realise that I would probably have to. That is what was happening in this particular instance imo.
Prufrock wrote:
I reckon the key word is fiction. CoolFiction wasn’t in the sentence…
Very well spotted. If I had wanted to say "the key word in that sentence is "fiction"" then I would have said that. What I considered, somewhat playfully, to be the key word was not in your sentence but was elsewhere on the thread. That was the point.
Very well done. I didn’t say that you had claimed that fiction was in the sentence, I was merely stating a fact.
God, this pedantry is fun, isn’t it?
Glenn – I can’t remember the amounts laid, let alone what the PR men said at the time. I do, however, believe that Veitch won the amount he claimed on the beast.
My advice for what it’s worth: Open a spate of deposit accounts if you can afford to with independant bookies that lay Hills prices?. Lot more work placing your bets but they won’t be noticed so easily. No doubt some will close your account in time but there are hundreds of them in the UK and Ireland.
I don’t know if there is any way, as an individual, to avoid this outcome ?
You can mix up your play a little, but over time it’s obviously pretty hard to stay cool and be in profit. Of course, you don’t necessarily need to be in profit for a bookmaker to say ‘no dice’…
Theres a story about Tommy Hyland in Atlantic City from a while back.
He dressed as Santa Claus on Christmas eve, then went into Harrahs ,( where he had already been thrown out twice before, the third time they would arrest for tresspassing), and started firing off at the blackjack table. There were a couple of other plain clothes guys playing aggressively too, and one of the floorstaff was heard saying on the phone,”I got a guy betting two hands of a thousand down here. Another on purple chips ,and Santa Claus is going really crazy ! ”
Of course he got thrown out, but his identity wasn’t discovered until later…
My advice for what it’s worth: Open a spate of deposit accounts if you can afford to with independant bookies that lay Hills prices?. Lot more work placing your bets but they won’t be noticed so easily. No doubt some will close your account in time but there are hundreds of them in the UK and Ireland.
This sounds like good advice back in 1998. Unfortunately, it isn’t quite so straightforward in the modern era.
Taking today’s racing at N’ket as an example, I can’t see that there could be many people interested in it from a betting perspective – too many horses making their seasonal debut, trial races and not real races, races spoilt by lack of pace, betting reliant upon tips and inside information rather than solid form, short-priced favourites.
You have to be interested in it from a racing angle, and it being part of a story.What i don’t understand is why people don’t just use the betting exchanges. There is £500k+ bet on every race there with no worry about getting your account closed for winning.
While reading the book enemy number 1 i couldnt understand his constant hassle to get bets on. Exchanges nearly always offer better prices aswell and for customers with large turnover the commission is reduced to a low %
What am i missing?
You are missing the point that you want to have, say, 500 pounds on horse X at 8/1 with William Hill at 10am in the morning. Go to the exchanges and ask for 500 @ 9.0 and see how you get on.
If I could just have one account – I would rather have an unrestricted Paddy Power account than Betfair…
JamSym – if you read carvillshill’s thread in Daily Lays and Plays, a fairly substantial portion of his betting is each-way betting (both day-of-race and ante-post), something where the exchanges often offer worse prices than the high-street, especially when you are betting each-way.
Also, as the previous poster stated, the early market on betfair is sadly non-existant. The exchange needs to offer incentives to people who want to bet early (zero commission for all bets matched at least 2 hours before the off for example)
marble – don’t see why this thread should be elsewhere on the forum
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.