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It is surprising the Heath and Safety Executive have not prosecuted over this.
The risks are obvious and are not managed, which is illegal.
Once death or injury occurs it is proven that the risks are real and not managed.
Cost cuting and staff bullying to keep things quiet are also illegal if it effects the safety of staff.Some of the key requirements of health and safety law can be summarised very briefly as follows:
A – Employers
1. General Duty of Care
All employers have a duty to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare of their employees. They also have a duty to protect non-employees from risks arising out of their work activities. [Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, hereafter HSWA 1, Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations, hereafter MHSW 2.2. Health and Safety Management System
Employers must take and give effect to adequate arrangements for the effective planning, organisation, control, monitoring and review of protective and preventive measures. They must record these arrangements (where five or more are employed) – for example, as part of their health and safety policy statement (see below). [MHSW]3. Safety Policy Statement
A written policy statement must be prepared (if five or more persons are employed) covering the employer’s organisation and arrangements in force for ensuring health and safety. It must be brought to the attention of all employees. [HSWA]4. Competent Persons
An adequate number of ‘competent’ persons have to be appointed, with sufficient time and resources at their disposal, to assist the employer to comply with his legal duties and to implement emergency arrangements (see below). Competent health and safety advisers can be either employees with appropriate qualifications and experience or professionally qualified consultants. [MHSW]5. Risk Assessment
‘Suitable and sufficient’ risk assessments must be carried out by the employer. The purpose is to identify hazards, assess the probability that harm may arise from them and evaluate the effectiveness of control measures. [MHSW] (This duty is elaborated in regulations dealing with specific hazards and issues e.g. substances hazardous to health, hereafter COSHH 3, and Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations, hereafter DSE 4).6. Tackling Risks at Source
The workplace must be made safe without risks to health. So far as is reasonably practicable, accidents and work related health damage should be prevented by tackling risks at source, using engineering means in preference to systems of work, personal protective equipment only being an acceptable alternative where risks cannot be controlled by such other means. [MHSW, ACoP].7. Information, Instruction, Training and Supervision
Employees must be given comprehensible information, instruction, training and supervision necessary to ensure their health and safety and that of others. [HSWA, MHSW and other regulations e.g. COSHH].10. Health Surveillance
Arrangements should be made for any necessary health surveillance of employees and appropriate records should be kept. [MHSW, COSHH, CAW, CLAW and IR]12. Personal Protective Equipment
Where risks cannot be controlled at source (see point 6 above), appropriate personal protective clothing and/or equipment should be provided free of charge. [HSWA and Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 11]15. Emergency Arrangements
Adequate emergency arrangements must be in place under the control of ‘competent persons’. There must also be suitable procedures for employees to report serious and imminent danger as well as shortcomings in health and safety arrangements. [MHSW]18. Reporting and Recording
Accidental injuries, dangerous occurrences and notifiable occupational diseases should be reported to the appropriate enforcing authority and records kept. Records also have to be kept of the results of workplace environmental monitoring, health surveillance and maintenance etc. [Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations, (RIDDOR) 19, COSHH]From 6 April 2012, Parliamentary approval, RIDDOR’s reporting requirement changed. The trigger point increased from over three days’ to over seven days’ incapacitation (not counting the day on which the accident happened).
19. Safety Representatives, Safety Committees and Consultation
Employers must consult their workforce on health and safety matters. When the employer recognises a trade union, that union has the right to appoint safety representatives who must be consulted on all matters affecting the health and safety of employees they represent and be permitted to carry out their functions. If requested to do so, the employer must establish a joint safety committee. Safety representatives are entitled to paid time off to attend TUC or union approved training courses. [Health and Safety: Consultation with Employees Regulations 20] [Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations 21]20. Insurance
All employers must have specific insurance to provide compensation to employees following successful civil law claims for damages in the event of work related injury or damage to health.Both in Ireland and UK the appalling errors in advertised race distances have been discussed for over 40 years.
Basically the racecourses and the regulators do not give a damn as it is never threatened to take their licences away or even suggest a fine might be in order. This is despite races being run under the advertised distances as being null and void under the very racing rules they are supposed to enforce.
So all you are left with is the extreme minority of Clerks who take their course responsibilities seriously and media embarrassment when Timeform point the finger directly at the racecourse mismanagement when the most glaring of errors are found.
UK has refused to follow up the re-measuring of Flat courses as “they have already been done in 1991”. They did not remeasure the NH courses then but introduced the weasel word “about” which lasted until the forced 2015 remeasurement, when they pretended it was only due to a change in how they measured the courses, not that anyone had ever bothered before. Every UK course has built up errors since 1991, even when the rails are not moved as on AW, and the furlong markers have never been positioned accurately. Newcastle AW opened to media fanfare only to find that every race was run over the wrong distances (as avertised) and some electrical timings were out. They had done no independent checks and the BHA course Inspector had somehow passed the new layouts as compliant.It really is an in-bred, self -serving Mickey Mouse sport run purely for the Levy junky “trainers” and bookies with the punter and integrity largely ignored.
Why do you think it is unfair John, that horses are given ratings for what they’re thought capable of (given optimum conditions)?
If horses are given ratings for what they’re thought capable of, then every horse should have different ratings for various trips and ground conditions. As far as I know this isn’t the case.
Another handicapping weakness is the fact that the mark allotted doesn’t take the horses’ fitness into consideration. I’ve never seen the handicapper mentioning any weight related ratings, as he should do. Otherwise all horses would be equally fit at any time and almost exactly built. What would you describe a horse as “lightly framed” or “big chasing type”, if size and weight don’t matter?
The BHA are hopeless handicappers and the best they try to do is rate a horse as a guesstimate of what it might do under optimum conditions which might have no relevance to the race the horse actually runs in and the conditions on the day. If they were any good at the process they would not have to keep altering their guesstimates so often. It remains up to the punter to rate horses for every race it runs to make any sense of the horse’s ability on the day. Giving a horse a single number is laughable and they do not even have the honesty to say a horse is somewhere between 105 +/- 9 ie their methods cannot differentiate between their rating and a horse as being truly somewhere between 96 and 114. They refuse to weigh horses and the body weights in NH can vary by 50 pounds or more between races. So you have an unfit horse carrying 50 pounds extra body weight being dropped 5 pounds in a slow race. Next time when it runs it can have up to a 55 pound pull which means it should be racing in several classes above. It coasts to a 3 length win and goes up 5 pounds meaning it “only” has a 50 pound pull next time. It is truly a nonsense and the fact that people are so easily conned is down to the bookmakers convincing BHA that they need wall to wall bad racing to fund the Levy.
The Lingfield 1m5f was resurveyed in 2014 and the start was found to be in the correct place.
If the surface has been damaged by the starting stalls in the correct position they may have moved them up closer to the winning post. That dodge is common in USA.
Only Galway, despite all the moaning, give the actual race distances they race over on the day.
Why cannot BHA make this a rule?If you don’t arb, don’t bet in bad EW races and don’t have betting patterns that suggest inside information, you’ve got a good chance of keeping your account alive, even if you’re a winner. I’m not saying that goes for everyone who has been restricted, but I imagine less than 1/4 of the bettors featured in that article could honestly claim to be straight punters.
The BBC shows zero knowledge of arbing in that article, which suggests the piece on 5 Live will be similarly naive. I don’t think it’s worth tuning in, personally.
Lydia Hislop recently sounded out a few traders on Twitter in attempts to make a fair and balanced debate on RUK, with both sides present to explain their grievances. I really hope she can get it off the ground.
Last year 40% of fun punters were restricted or banned. This year 52%. Near 100% of them are losing punters. None are doing anything untowards – simply backing a fancy. Imagination is seldom factual.
How can a bookmaker know if you have “arbed”? How can you rely on arbing a lay bet?
If you mean got a bet on with him that has reduced in price that is not arbing but taking a price.
The bookmaker set the original price and the customer decided to buy the bet at that price.
What would happen on the stock market if you could only buy one share in Apple and not 100? It would not exist and that is exactly the way bookmakers are going – they are running out of punters faster than finding new ones and it costs £100+ to attract each new account.Hi guys,
I have raised this with higher powers and will let you know if anything changes.
I believe that article isn’t very reliable as tracking cookies are used by the majority of major online retailers and betting firms. Pinpointing Coral is rather misleading. The term ‘spying’ is also a huge exaggeration. It’s not as if companies using iesnare can view your private activities, snatch your passwords or take any sensitive information. These tools only give a very vague and anonymous outline of a customer’s online behaviour.
iesnare is more than a tracking cookie. It records all the necessary details of individual machines and stores them on a database in USA. The data is sold to any other bookmaker that wants it. It also records every page you click on whether that is bookmaker A, B or C.
As has been pointed out iesnare is old news but they have far more sinister stuff now that can obtain any information it wants and using a proxy server won’t help you.Betfair informed me they are “deprecating” the Timeform products on their websites, such as Timeform racecards and downloads, Timeform API. That sounds ominously as as if Timeform is about to be sold off again even before Paddy Power take over. A great chance for Gingertipster to put his money into the ancient product.
Ah, but that’s the same argument, is it not? What price would he be for the Derby if he lost leg 1? As far the gambler is concerned, that does not matter as the bet is lost, but it does not mean the double has been correctly priced.
At the time the bet is struck, neither the bookie nor the punter knows how good the animal is, or at least they don’t know if he is good enough (apart from everything else that needs to happen for a horse to win a race). So they are both in possession of the same info (all things being equal, and it’s not John Gosden on the phone).
So what is the true likelihood of the horse winning both races, at the time the bet is struck?
You are right Joe.
The bookmakers have it wrong that these bets are related contingencies.
They try it on, hoping punters have less maths understanding than even they have.
Related contingenices are where the first result is essential to occur for the second to take place eg a 0-0 half time/full time double is a related contingency. There is only one outcome for a payout and that is 0-0 full time so you cannot expect to be paid out for a double.There are no related contingencies for two separate events.
Before the two races the total probabilities (100%) for Race 1 and Race 2 are:probability( Wins 1 and Wins 2)
probability( Wins 1 and Loses/Not Run 2)
probability( Loses/Not Run 1 and Wins 2)
probability( Loses/Not Run 1 and Loses/Not Run 2)If the beforehand odds are 4/1 to win Race 1 and 4/1 to win Race 2 then the probability (Wins 1 and Wins 2) can be determined correctly by the “odds compiler” if he adds in the probability of non-running. They do not add the non-running probabilties in so the odds they offer on the double are far below the neutral value or fair price.
You won’t get 25/1 the double for “special” bets either as they after time by using the new odds after Race 1 has been won – this is an entirely different bet to the one the punter has asked for.
One major bookmaker tried that on for genuine ante-post doubles on the 2000g and Derby by stating he was reducing the price (already below fair price) after the 2000g win, which is illegal under the Gambling Act and has no basis in probability mathematics. He soon changed his mind when challenged by the adverse publicity and offered to pay out in full.The main problem is they do not tell the shops that and the bet is refused.
If the shop can be persuaded to ring head office only then do they get told to lay it.
Do not mention price and it will be to SP which anyone can get large bets on at, any time.As Mr Clare says, with a very straight face:
“”The reality is that over 99 per cent of all bets offered up in our shops on horseracing are laid as requested,”
“We take roughly 1.5 million bets on horseracing a week and receive around 2,000 calls per week from shops for racing bets that need approval from the traders (0.13%) , the majority of which are laid.”In the real world every single bet above £10-20 is referred to traders who knock the bet or cut the price or offer SP only.
“The Racing Post recently ran a special two-day report on how some punters have faced stringent restrictions when trying to bet on racing, and Coral have reacted by introducing the guarantee.
Coral spokesman Simon Clare said: “We have listened and decided to take action by introducing this new customer-friendly guarantee in order to demonstrate our willingness to lay big bets on big races to each and every customer that wants one.”
The bookmaker claimed there will be no exceptions for the liability bet guarantee, with the only stipulations that the bets are placed after 9am on the day.
“The reality is that over 99 per cent of all bets offered up in our shops on horseracing are laid as requested,” said Clare.
“We take roughly 1.5 million bets on horseracing a week and receive around 2,000 calls per week from shops for racing bets that need approval from the traders, the majority of which are laid.
“The majority of those racing bets that are restricted in shops are those offered up on lower-grade midweek races, or those with an unprofitable shape for each-way betting purposes, and by customers that know more than the bookie (parasites according to Mr Clare) on those events or who are looking to exploit an obvious edge.”
Bet365 latest pre-tax profits have risen by more than 44 per cent to £213.8 million – compared to £148 million – as the firm’s 2.9 million active users in 2013/14 wagered more than £26 billion.
There is no case that the £30K per year winning “pro-punter” is ever going to break Bet365.
There are only about 0.2% punters who make a basic living at it, even at Betfair prices.
So of Bet365 2.9 m clients 5800 are potential winners. If they profit on average by £15k each year then that costs £87M. Bet365 net profits fall to £117M a year.
In banning about 40% of “risky” punters practically all who will lose each year they have lost a potential increase of about £84M in profits. The £84M loss near enough cancels out the £87M risk of not banning punters.
However, each new punter costs £100 in advertisng to attract. So to replace 40% of 2.9M x 1.4 punters costs £162M in advertising. The risk model is now highly negative by a loss in potential profits of £165M. It is far better to have a model that accommodates all to a reasonable profit limit. That is what most succesful businesses do.It really wouldn’t make a difference to the once a year punter if they were told. I see people buying coffee and expensive sandwich’s day in day out and they must know it’s cheaper to make their own sandwich but they chose to buy the fancy one with skinny filling so why the hell they would care about the price of their once a year selection was?
The once a year punter issue is a red herring.
That is missing the point as most of the media have.
For all races, average over-rounds per runner was 1.74 in 2013
The 2015 GN over-round per runner was lower than that average but a bit on the high side for past GNs. The real issue was that the SP for horses were not returned according to bookmakers prices on the course. If the 6/1 SP horse had won, they would not have been paid at the truer SP price of 9/1, The issue was that they would have been seriously cheated whether they knew the right price or not. Racing is trying to get more customers in, not to cheat them and scare them off for good. The whole point of the SPRC is to ensure integrity and that people whatever their knowledge of racing are not cheated on any bet.
What is really at issue is that the whole purpose of the SPRC is to ensure that the returned price accurately reflects the price available on-course at the off. Over-rounds are nothing to do with SPRC.“Purpose (of SPRC)
The Starting Price Regulatory Commission (SPRC) is an independent body responsible for the integrity of the starting price (SP). The majority of bets on British horseracing struck with bookmakers in betting shops and other off-course outlets are paid out according to the SP. The job of the Commission is to ensure that the returned price accurately reflects the price available on-course at the off.”“This is something we are acutely aware of at the BHA. The starting price system and associated betting shows from racecourses are key to fair and open betting, but also to betting operator profits.”
Which is code for if we do anything to rock the boat that decreases corporate bookmaker profits however fraudently obtained) then they will threaten to cut our gravy train (The Levy). Which means they will as usual posture and wriggle, but do absolutely nothing. Fraud is a police matter so if BHA are advised fraud has taken place they have no option but to report it to the police.
“The Gambling Commission said it would be guided by the SPRC on any issues surrounding starting prices as the SPRC held “the relevant expertise”.
But a spokesman added: “If the SPRC provided evidence that the integrity of the starting price was being compromised, we might consider, if and where appropriate, targeted use of our regulatory powers under our duty to ensure that gambling is conducted in a fair and open way.”What an appalling statement from a body funded to ensure the UK Gambling Act is applied correctly and fairly.
The SP is a key item that operates on every racing day on how many punters are paid and whether they are paid.
fairly. Yet GC admit no expertise and no knowledge if it is fair or not. Do they think SPRC is going to take its head out of the sand and confess to aiding and abetting fraud?The SP has been falsified for decades, day after day after day, by sending small packets of money to a weak on-course market and reducing liabilities by £ thousands. That the racing media have kept stum for so long once again is shameful.
” It seemed to me more important than horse ‘efficiency’ in ST analysis, in that the times a horse runs for any section are controlled by the jockeys, especially in the longer races”
You have obviously never ridden a horse.
They are not that controllable.
The jockey does his best to restrain a horse, hide it behind others or try to get a horse to close up if it is lagging.
The horse and horse pack dictates its actual pace far more than any jockey can ever dictate.
If the jockey could control the horse pace individual sections then he would, but some horses to be effective must race prominently or lead and some want to lag well behind.Could not agree less.
NM lays out and clearly explains the logic behind every single system.
None are difficult to understand.
He then tests each system over a long period and gives the results.
NM is about the only thinking journalist we have in terms of new ways of analysing races.
