[Meerkat]

R.I.P. Akdam

We were extremel lucky to have YOU as the only fatality today. I have rarely witnessed such ugly falls at a Cheltenham Festival. It´s great that some many horses got away with their lives, but this isn`t a enjoyable sport any longer. Cheltenham Racecourse made some very intelligent modofications over the past years, but the decision not water this year is a very poor and cruel one. I don`t givea s**T if I win or not not. The pocket counts here the least. It`s the animals and jockeys that have to get home in one piece.
If you allow horses over two miles to smash the track records by 3-4 seconds then you must be dealing with some mental problems of your own. The fact the champion hurdle winner was about 3-4 seconds faster than Istabraq is some cause for concern. The best proof for that was the fatal fall of Our Connor in the same race.
What is the point in having ground as fast as lightning and bone crunching falls?
The "sport" is starting to sell itself very bad at the moment. I never thought that I would hate watching the Cheltenham Festival, but that`s the case right now.

In all fairness to Cheltenham the reason the course records are being smashed is due to a new method of timing races. Previously the time was taken from the moment the starter "dropped the flag", now the time is taken from when the horses pass the tape point. This has resulted in much faster times being recorded as the time taken from drop of the flag until the field to pass the starting point is now ignored.

And RIP Akdam, I always feel it is the worst way to lose a horse when it has been brought down through sheer bad luck.

[Meerkat]

Such a horrific accident and those poor horses and jockeys, this shouldn’t be happening on the flat.
Can’t bear to watch a re-run but does anyone think it was jockey error that caused it, I read that Joe Fanning has a ban for careless riding in the race at Hamilton where Paul Mulrennan was thrown to the ground in the closing stages of the race.
I’m worried that jockeys are getting more daring in trying to stop an improving horse as several high profile incidents of cutting across have resulted in victories when objections should have been sustained.
Poor Silvercombe RIP hope the other horses come through this ok and of course the jockeys. So sad a dreadful day.

Absolutely not a jockey error that caused the Kempton incident. It’s clear watching the video that Silvercombe suffered a broken front leg and came down and the other two horses had nowhere to go.
I also think that Joe Fanning

might

have been hard done by at Hamilton. It was such a tightly packed field even though there were only five runners and it all happened so very very fast, that in my mind there is reasonable doubt as to his guilt.

[Meerkat]

One of my local betting shop managers told me yesterday of an incident which happened last week.

A colleague of his was changing the football coupons when a customer attacked her, physically grabbing her and punching her. She had taken all the usual precautions of making sure that the coast was clear before leaving the counter area; her assailant was apparently watching from across the road and crossed over to attack her when he saw her emerge ftom the protected area. What had she done to merit this attack? Asked the customer to smoke his joint outside, not inside, the shop about half an hour earlier.

The incident took place at about ten to eleven at night, in a part of town which is deserted at that time of the evening. The question that needs to be asked is why is there any need for a betting shop in such a remote location to be open until eleven o’clock at night?

Under the law of the land no betting shop is permitted to remain open after 22.00. Something my employer (Ladbrokes) regulates very seriously. I am intrigued to know what the staff member was doing, being there with a door unlocked at 22.50

[Meerkat]

Please see story in Saturday’s RP before dishing out all the criticism of Tipperary racecourse. The jockey pulled the horse up on the first circuit as he felt him weaken. He jumped off and was leading him off the track when the poor horse collapsed and died.
At this point the field were little more than three furlongs away from the incident point on the second circuit and there was literally no time to do anything. The bravery of the track staff prevented an already tragic incident from becoming a catastrophe.

Very easy for people to criticise from behind a keyboard, maybe some research and establishing the facts first may be in order before assuming that there was blame to be attached to anybody or anything in future.

[Meerkat]

Very pleased to say that a person has been detained in connection with the tragic death of my colleague in London.

RIP Andrew

http://www.suttonguardian.co.uk/news/10 … ref=fbsend

[Meerkat]

Astonished to hear that Iain Mackenzie is no longer on the list. I assume it’s not because of age given that it is now illegal to enforce a retirement on individuals who do not want to. I wonder if his only covering NH fixtures counted against him?

While David Fitzgerald is a more than adequate replacement I would not be so sure about John Blance, a less natural commentator it would be hard to find.

As for Lee McKenzie, he is much missed from the rota and there will not be many who were at Fontwell on Thursday night and Hamilton on Friday as Lee was!!

[Meerkat]

Interesting programme, slightly less sensational than the C4 one a few months back and which highlighted a couple of issues that have always annoyed me. Those who remember my previous posts on this topic may recall I have worked for Ladbrokes for thirty years, so I can see it from both sides. As I say above there are a couple of issues which this programme highlighted.

Firstly, it was claimed that they had access to a document from William Hill which stated that the police should only be involved in damage to a FOBT where the staff knew the name and address of the person damaging the machine. In Ladbrokes the situation is even worse. We are told to report the issue to our security room, and the police will only then be involved if a member of staff has actually been threatened or worse still assaulted. We are told to remain behind the counter and let the guy smash the machine up, and if he then leaves he has got away with criminal damage. In all honesty if I go in to my local Odeon cinema and smash up the self service ticket machine are they going to let me walk out scot free? They may let me go at the time but I’m sure the police would become involved. In my honest opinion they do not want this anti social and frightening behaviour to become common knowledge and for fear of losing profits.

Secondly, we have received little or no training on how we should approach problem gamblers of which sadly there are many. In my shop I have one customer who can be waiting outside the door before opening time, who goes straight on to the machine when the door opens at 10am and can be last man out at 9.30pm. This customer clearly has a serious gambling problem and, as I believe I mentioned in the past, when I approached a senior manager to ask permission (yes we have to ask permission before we approach a customer) I was told to let it go. That to me was a blatant disregard of the Gambling Act 2005. Would I feel confident approaching a problem customer? Despite thirty years service and having seen most things, no I would not be confident because I am not trained in how to react depending on how the conversation was going.

Final comment on the programme. The William Hill manager (words voiced by an actor) claimed her shop made over £500,000 last year from FOBT’s alone. That works out at more than £2403 gross win per terminal per week. She then stated that imagine multiplying that by all the Hill’s shops in the country and how much money that is.
That to me was the only sensationalistic part of the programme, giving the impression that all shops were like that. The reality is far less. Ladbrokes currently run at an estate average of around £947 per terminal per week gross profit and Hills I believe are in the high £800’s or the low £900’s. Still a huge sum of money but nowhere near as exorbitant as Panorama would have you believe especially once the costs and taxes are taken off.

So what of FOBT’s? It’s a real double edged sword isn’t it? They undoubtedly are keeping some staff in a job, without them many shops and not just independents would close. There would be job losses. On the other hand there is such a stigma hanging over them, they are obviously addictive, I am 100% convinced of that. Whilst accepting that every individual has a personal responsibility to control their gambling, something has to be done to balance the scales between providing this service to responsible gamblers who enjoy playing them, and the jobs of those in the industry who rely on the profits made by them, with looking after those who require help, support and counselling due to the problems caused by them.

[Meerkat]

A mere two to add to the list at the moment.

31/10/1990 Musselburgh (Edinburgh at the time) Dave Smith
14/06/1995 Hamilton Richard Hoiles

[Meerkat]

PS Would be lovely, of course, if Racetech could release the rosters of previous years into the public domain, as I can’t see what harm it would do. We live in hope…

I’m still waiting for the days commentators to appear in the Racing Post & BHA sites, something Rod Street said wouldn’t be a problem about 15 months ago

Who is the latest commentator on the list you haven’t heard of or don’t recall?
Mine would be Michael White.

Do you get your racecards free Paul? I stopped buying in them years ago, thought most were a waste of money.

I’m think, emphasise think, Michael White was an auctioneer, or worked in some capacity with Doncaster Bloodstock. Certainly used to hear him regularly in the 1980’s commentating at Hamilton in the pre SIS days. He was a pretty decent caller.

[Meerkat]

Thanks for that, Meerkat.

We are all agreed the fruit machines are not random? The sequences they pay are within their set payout boundaries and are pre-programmed to occur when it wants to pay a win.

I can’t knock what you say about the roulette – we would need the honest opinion of other shop anagers and the figures to compare and contrast.

I still feel the way the machine plays is more important than the way the punter plays.

My hypothesis meant that no matter what bet the punter placed, they would either hit the hot patch or get totally shafted. So whether they place a spread of bets totaling £20 or £10 on two numbers – the machine would pay out/or not to hit it’s percentage at that time.

Zip

Yes fruit machines and electronic fruit machines are set to a designated percentage payout level. Roulette is a random number game and is in reality no different to virtual racing which is also a random number game with the result displayed as a horse race rather than a wheel and ball.

[Meerkat]

Meerkat – thank you for providing those figures from your shop – which made interesting reading.

Do you see less punters win on the FOBTS, say, compared to three years ago? Do you see any unusual patterns? That a machine is either on suck mode or dump mode?

Would it be fair to say, that the way the machine plays can affect the way a percentage is reached?

The hypothesis being: That if a FOBT machine was programmed to shaft punters continuously and then throw in a big win or streak, thus making it more addictive IMHO, would that not prove the machine is not random? It is surely homologous with a fruit machine?

I thought Dispatches was OK – could have been a bit more investigation into how FOBTs work both mechanically and psychologically – but I guess until there is proof – no journalist would want to take the risk of questioning their legality.

Zip

Hi getzippy,

Just to answer the questions you have raised in you post.

I would definitely say that there are many more customers winning on the machines now than in the past, however that point must be qualified by the fact that there are many many more people playing them now than then. It is difficult to state exactly on a like for like basis whether there are more, less or the same number of payouts per number of players. At an educated guess I would honestly say that the number is pretty much standard. It must be remembered though that the number of receipts coming to the counter is not a true reflection of the machine payout, because if a customer elects not to print a receipt at the time of winning, then there is a very real possibility of the customer reinvesting those winnings.
To clarify the figures I gave in my first post equate to the total winnings

I don’t think the way the machine plays affects the way the percentage is reached, indeed it is much more the way the customer plays that will affect the payout. We have customers who will play the roulette very carefully, covering most numbers on the board to guarantee some form of return while putting more money on their "special" numbers for a bigger win. While these machines are random, playing this way will make the percentage payout that little bit higher due to the machine not winning all the staked money. A customer who plays on the outside bets and simply plays red and black will increase or decrease the percentage payout faster, especially at higher stakes.
It should also be noted that the slot games on the machines do payout a fixed percentage over a large number of games, and indeed pay out a higher percentage the higher the customers stake is.

E.G.
25p stake 88% payout
50p stake 92% payout
£1. stake 94% payout
£2. stake 95% payout

These are all regulated and the machines must payout this amount over a set number of games. I know on the old fruit machines the payout percentage had to be achieved over a rolling 10000 plays, I am not sure if it is the same for the slots on the FOBT’s.

Finally I thought Dispatches was incredibly poor. For those of us on the other side of the counter it told us nothing new. I thought it was sensationalistic journalism at a very low level. They tried to show that these machines, and under age gambling were major problems. My views on the machines are documented earlier in this thread, however I will state clearly now that certainly in the large area I work in under age gambling is tightly controlled. Shops are regularly age tested by a company called Market Force who send in 18-20 year old mystery shoppers to assess whether the staff ID them and the way in which it is done. Ladbrokes regularly achieve a pass rate of over 80% which is by far the highest in the industry and compares favourably with other high street retailers and supermarkets.
I always wonder when programmes like this are on what was left behind on the cutting room floor. Editing is one of the most powerful ways to deliver the message that suits the needs of the producers.

[Meerkat]

Richard Ames is one of the finest men I have ever had the pleasure of meeting in Ladbrokes and it is indicative of the new management structure within the Company that he is being dispensed with after his sideways move in 2011.
While I will make no comment on his payoff, Ladbrokes have lost a fine brain and an outstanding businessman.

[Meerkat]

First post be gentle

I work for Ladbrokes and have done so for over 25 years. I thought I would give you good folks on the site my thoughts on FOBT’s from the view from the other side of the counter.

Firstly, lets dispel the myth that these machines are not random. They are, and have to be random to comply with the Gambling Act 2005. Every machine must have a notice on it declaring that they are random and as far as I can see since they were installed I have never seen a "fixed machine"

Secondly, there have been various comments on this topic about the payout percentage to customers. Lets try and set that one straight too. Roulette on these machines does not have a set percentage. How could it if it is a random game? In my shop I am able to go into the logs on each machine to track what each machine is paying. I have four machines as most shops do.

Percentage payouts to customers on roulette.
Machine 1 99.6%
Machine 2 98.4%
Machine 3 98.6%
Machine 4 101.3%

So I have two machines operating over the period since the machines were installed (Jan 2011) at roughly what could be considered the norm, one just about breaking even, and one machine which is actually costing the company money. Over a short period of time these figures would mean nothing, over the lifetime of a machine I believe these prove the randomness of the machines.

Thirdly, much has been written about these machines causing addiction. I would have to say that I totally agree with those comments, you cannot sit in a betting shop five days a week without noticing changes to the personalities of your customers.
These machines have ruined the lives of some people and it is very sad to see that happening. Under the terms of the Gambling Act every bookmaker has a duty of care.

To keep crime out of gambling.
To protect children and vulnerable people form being exposed or exploited by gambling.
To ensure gambling is conducted in an open and fair manner.

I genuinely believe that we fall down on the second one above because people who are addicted to these machines are not being protected by the staff. In all honesty the vast majority of staff pay no attention to what is happening in the machine zone, and simply empty the machines at night. We are supposed, after discussion with a supervisor, to approach a customer we believe is having issues with their gambling and offer them assistance. Gamcare number, leaflets etc. In my experience this NEVER happens. I have asked to approach a customer and been told, let them come to you, it’s their problem. I do not know if this issue is widespread, and I accept customers have a personal responsibility for their actions, however we as shop staff MUST do more than we currently do.

Fourthly, everything now in shop is geared towards machines. We are told that we must be out on the shop floor greeting customers and talking to them almost like Captain Peacock from Are You Being Served! We must run around making tea and coffee for our machine players to entice them to stay longer. We are told to ask them if they want anything brought in while they are playing. Would you like me to get you a sandwich is an example we have been given. Again do not let them get off that seat! It is absolutely ludicrous what we are expected to do. Over the counter horse business is in terminal decline, if the major companies put as much effort into that as they do to the endless string of machine tournaments and promotions then maybe shops could start to get back to what a betting shop should be.

Sorry for such a long post, it’s a subject I feel strongly about. There is a place in betting shops for these machines, I am convinced of that, however things really do need to be much tighter in my opinion, with much more accountability for the big companies especially at all levels to ensure the duty of care is observed as it should be.

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