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Ian, serious question here, how would your shoestring "hobby" exchange cope if there was a marked increase in business? Could it run into technical or even financial problems? Your assurances on probity etc. are welcome, but do they depend on things remaining much as they are (which I imagine isn’t entirely your intention)? <br>
(Edited by Prufrock at 1:46 pm on Nov. 17, 2004)
Point 506 in the JSC’s report on the draft Gambling Bill back in April recommended that exchanges should not be allowed to initiate bets themselves (I don’t have the precise wording to hand at present).
The reasons for this recommendation are now clearer, but the fact that the recommendation was made in the first place suggests that for an exchange to intitiate bets is not currently against the regulations. IMO.
(Edited by Prufrock at 10:29 am on Nov. 17, 2004)
Thanks, wit, for your very helpful reply.
Have you any idea whether Sporting Options took money on false pretences, giving people the impression that their money was ring-fenced come what may when they knew that such a promise was worthless, and do you know if doing so would constitute deception or fraud?
The recent e-mail from the Administrators for SO indicates that only about 3% of clients’ money still remains. If that money was deposited in good faith, in the honest belief that such an eventuality could not occur as a result of the ring-fencing procedures in place, then surely some redress should be available.
At the very least I would like to see the book thrown at these individuals.
Pru
I disagree with the contention that you must beat SP to achieve value- this seems to suggest that the SPs equate to the real odds of winning, or that the SP market is 100% efficient, patently not true.
More wise words.
It has always struck me as a particularly tasty paradox that people with a certain approach rely on the efficiency of the market on the one hand (favourites, second favourites, the whole damn systems kaboodle in particular) when betting’s very purpose is to exploit flaws in the market (or resign yourself to having "fun" bets).
EC, can you explain how you managed to put speed figures on the races from 6f to 7f given that such races have never before been run on the round course?
Is it from the assumption that the difference between a straight-course and a round-course 8f standard time (which is something we know) will be reflected on a pro-rata basis at 6f/6.5f/7f? If so, I reckon that could be a questionable assumption.
As a matter of interest, how many racecourses do people think would agree to staging a "Ban Hunting" race/race day or similar? It would be interesting to find out.
TDK, would you like to quantify the effect—in pounds—that "windy (bloody windy in places)" has on overall race times, assuming that the wind was behind or nearly behind the runners?;)
According to my calculations, the allowance for conditions (aka going allowance) is 28 lb faster than good to firm going.
A third option is: was that Hurricane Ivan and firm going?
:)
Don’t know what people made of the times at Newmarket today:
8f Forward Move 95.70<br>8f Titian Time 96.22<br>7f Grosvenor Square 82.95<br>8f Bunny Rabbit 95.98<br>6f King Marju 70.49<br>6f The Pheasant Flyer 70.52
Was that firm going at Newmarket or has Hurricane Ivan suddenly appeared on these shores and positioned itself directly behind the runners?
Even the arabs ran a mile in not much over 104 sec.:o
Turtle said:
To many rural people, the urban dwellers, who buy their meat sanitised and plasticised and would poison invading rats while ‘Disneyfying’ foxes, are now an alien nation.
I think the feelings are to a large degree mutual: they have certainly been accentuated by the recent behaviour of those fighting for "countryside causes".
Sorry, mate, but I just couldn’t follow all of that.
However, on the "elitist" issue, it has struck me for some time now that the people who keep emphasising this are the pro-hunters themselves. I do not doubt that there are some among the "antis" who regard this as some sort of class war.
That doesn’t apply to me, and it shouldn’t apply to the argument itself.
Whatever the motives might or might not be of the "fors" and the "againsts", the argument should be judged on its own merits not on some irrelevant side issue.
By the way, I bet many people found themselves out of a job when the Allies liberated Auschwitz. Questions of employment should never be used to justify the morally repugnant.
Grasshopper,
I would agree that there is an imbalance in the two cases.
However, the argument that many pro-hunters have made that foxhunting is "too insignificant" to be taking up parliamentary time is clearly disingenuous. The one body above all others who seem to regard this issue as significant are the pro-hunters, to the degree that they march, protest, sponsor and lobby most vigorously on the matter.
Where the government and Iraq is concerned, it has to be pointed out that The Labour Party allowed its own members to debate a resolution on the subject at the Party Conference in 2002 (I spoke out against the government line) and allowed a debate in parliament some months later (after which I finally resigned from the party), though in neither case as openly or as thoroughly as you and I might have liked.
(Edited by Prufrock at 5:25 pm on Sep. 16, 2004)
Grasshopper said:
<br>One final question. How many people have died in Iraq (whether they be "Coalition" soldiers, "insurgents" or just plain run-of-the-mill Iraqi’s), since this Post was kicked-off yesterday.
Sorry, I can’t help you on that one.
If the implication is that we shouldn’t be troubling ourselves with discussion of this issue, I would say that this is a Racing Forum. Due to jump racing’s historical association with hunting—an association which those who are interested in hunting have fought assiduously to maintain to the arguable detriment of racing itself—this is still an issue where racing people are concerned.
I’m afraid I can’t find a racing angle among the sad events taking place in Iraq.
Karly Flight said:
Racing fans who cannot see that a ban on hunting is the beginning of a slippery slope are very short sighted.
People who cannot see that the possibility of racing being targeted as a consequence of its "support" for hunting has increased markedly are "very short sighted" in my view.
As can be seen from this thread and from the Letters Page of the Racing Post over the years, there are many different views within racing about hunting. It is nothing short of scandalous that the BHB, without consultation, saw fit to state on everyone’s behalf that racing supported hunting.
I wish to support racing, you, presumably, wish to support racing and hunting. You are entirely free to hold that view, just please don’t pretend that I have to do likewise. ÂÂÂ
If the "antis" come after horseracing next I know exactly who I will blame. I also know that I will feel justified in defending the existence of horseracing, with a few modifications, in a way that I could never possibly do with hunting.
This is an excellent thread that shows The Racing Forum and those who post on it in a very good light. There is a wide variety of opinions on the subject matter and yet, despite that subject matter being highly-charged, everyone has been civil and coherent.
As someone who is very much opposed to hunting and yet has been involved in racing all my adult life, I would just like to make a couple of points.
I think the likelihood of the "antis" moving on to try to ban horseracing, once very remote, is much greater now as a consequence of the racing authorities’ unjustifiable and very public support of hunting in recent years.
The fact that jumps racing had its roots in hunting has been trotted out time and again in an attempt to justify jumps racing still having its roots in hunting. That simply doesn’t follow. A clean break with the past should have been made a long time ago. There are plenty of people who were making that point, say, ten years ago for instance. The conservatism of those in charge and the apathy of many who follow the sport has meant that horseracing has arguably been seriously stigmatised by its association with hunting.
By the way, I do not go jumps racing any longer for the simple reason that I can’t stomach the endless pro-hunting propaganda I see there. Many years ago I took a novice racegoer to a meeting at Hexham and they were so turned off by the sight of the local Hunt strutting their stuff that they swore they would never go racing again (which to the best of my knowledge they never have).
I can honestly say that I’ve found this year’s Doncaster St Leger Meeting just about the most interesting and informative one from a time point of view in my experience (and that comment wins the Ian Davies Prize for Saddest Anorak Comment of The Century).
A tailwind on the first two days, no wind on the third day and a headwind on the final day, talk of the grass being too short, subtly different ground on the round course to the straight, the draw having an effect, and then not………..
Faced with all this, the temptation was to give up. But the no-wind situation on the Friday gave me a reasonable handle on the respective surfaces on the round and the straight courses, from which I could attempt to extrapolate information about the effect of the wind on other days.
It’s odd how some of those who were stating that the amazingly fast times were a consequence of short grass rather than firm going seem to have changed their tunes.
And there were, seemingly, some notable time performances over the four days as well, not least those of Etlaala and Iceman in the Champagne.
They play around with the length of the grass at Doncaster more than most courses it seems.
You may remember a meeting towards the end of last season when the going was given as something like "good, good to firm in places" but the times suggested it was good to soft if not softer. It transpired that, mindful of a winter’s jump action around the corner, they’d left the grass growing longer than usual.
Precisely what difference this makes I cannot pretend to know, but I’d have thought it’d have to be up to their necks to make that much.
According to some, but not all, reports the grass is shorter than usual now (not that you could tell that from the tv pictures).
A significant possible other explanation is that now that "hard" going is effectively outlawed there is something of a conspiracy going on to avoid describing anything as "firm" as well, even when the evidence suggests strongly that it is so.
Clerks of The Course regard it as failure to have horses racing on genuinely firm going, and many members of the Press play along with this as they don’t wish to appear "critical" or don’t even understand what is going on at all.
(A similar situation exists with regards to describing a departure in a jumps race as "unseated". Jockeys seem to view this as an indication of their incompetence and some race-readers will use it only when "fell" or "brought down" would be manifestly ridiculous. All we want are the FACTS!).
The conditions conducive to the fastest possible race times are not necessarily the firmest ones. I used to do timefigures for the jumps back in the 1980s, and when the going was returned officially as "hard" the times were usually fractionally less fast than when it was "firm", presumably on account of the jarring effect of the surface.
That is not the issue here, however. The going is surely "firm". End of story.
And the winning time of the Champagne backs up the idea that Etlaala and Iceman are pretty good horses IMO.
(Edited by Prufrock at 6:16 pm on Sep. 10, 2004)
