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If not already seen this there is a petition organised with respect to UK bookmaking practices:
Many may do nothing and expect others to sort things for them but if you agree and want to support at least a protest at the way you are being treated sign at:
http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/p … ps-betting
Petitioning Paul Darling, Chairman, Association of British Bookmakers 2
We call on the Chairman of the ABB to initiate a public investigation into the strategy of their members refusing business on what should be the primary activity in their shops – betting.
Petition by
Speaking with Forked Tongues
It is unacceptable for betting shops and betting operators to continually close customer accounts and decline or restrict wagers for horse and sports betting whilst allowing unrestricted cash acceptance on electronic casino games in the same shops.
The dominance of gambling on electronic casino machines (Fixed Odds Betting Terminals or FOBTs), which should be an ancillary product to the primary activity of betting in shops, has resulted in over 9,000 high street mini casinos that no longer want to take on genuine customers who enjoy the sport of horse racing.
The impact of this strategy is taking money away from horse racing via the levy and we call on Paul Darling, the Chairman of the Association of British Bookmakers, to initiate an urgent public inquiry into this issue.
Examples of what the betting industry is up to are listed here…
FOBT players attack betting shops
Bookies link staff wages to machines
Bookies ban customer for winning
A guy from the company called to say they were banning me from betting on horse racing because I am ‘too good
A few weeks ago, a customer went into a betting shop in west London to have a flutter ..
To:
Paul Darling, Chairman, Association of British Bookmakers, Warwick House 25 Buckingham Palace Road London SW1W 0PPWe call on the Chairman of the ABB to initiate a public investigation into the strategy of their members refusing business on what should be the primary activity in their shops – betting.
Sincerely,
[Your name]Supporters
Reasons for signing
· Most Popular
· LatestStuart Aitken EAST KILBRIDE, UNITED KINGDOM
· 1 day ago
· Liked 1Sick of being restricted by likes of Boylesports Betfred Paddy Power whilst constantly hearing of them taking bets of thousands from their PR spokesperson.its a joke.i won 225 from boylesports and they closed my account.
lyall robertson MUSSELBURGH, UNITED KINGDOM
· 1 day ago
· Liked 1because of the misleading way bookmakers sell their product, all their advertising leans towards selling the dream that you win whereas in reality if you show that you are price sensitive and have a chance of winning you are restricted to stakes which are pitiful
stuart gray ALSAGER CHESHIRE, UNITED KINGDOM
· 1 day ago
· Liked 1Over time I have had every single bookmaker account of mine either closed or heavily restricted for no other reason other than the fact I am not a mug punter who likes to throw his money away or in a machine I would rather study form and pick my wits against an odds compiler.
Can somebody please tell me then in what other business can such unfair discriminatory practices which take place by the bookmaking industry be allowed to exist and go unchallenged.
I would like to make an analogy.
Imagine for a moment the public backlash if Tescos advertised a product for sale at a fixed price and then Joe public thought ok i’ll pop down to Tescos and buy one of those items advertised at that fixed price only to be told by Tescos staff that you are not a profitable enough customer for them to sell you what you came in for but you are quite welcome to buy something else that suits Tescos i.e. there equivalent to FOBTS or SP you would be astounded at the injustice and contempt shown by Tescos and I’m sure there would be universal condemnation over such unfair practice and rightly so yet this is exactly what is happening to ordinary people every day by British bookmakers and goes on virtually unreported and without any recriminations at all.
Who if anyone is standing up for the rights of the betting man?
Who do we turn to do?
Do we have a right to have a voice?
Myself and many other people believe that yes we do have a right to have our opinions heard.
I know I speak for many when I say FOBT’S or Cocaine machines as they are more accurately referred to are a cancer that wrecks lives and attract some of the most vulnerable in society and should be banned from the high street on grounds of morality and social responsibility.
I really hope this petition which is a great idea by Mick raises some eyebrows and draws attention to the authorities of the sharp practices which bookmakers are lending themselves to bookmakers have become way too powerful and self governing and that needs to challenged and addressed immediately.
damien field BRADFORD, UNITED KINGDOM
· 1 day ago
· Liked 1Because i used to have a problem with gambling, untill i realised how bad there FOBT’s are and how can they let people put £1000’s of pounds through there machines, but won’t let you bet £100 on a sports bet.
shirley wheeler EXETER, UNITED KINGDOM
· about 2 hours ago
· Liked 0To many people are getting into debt using machines like these.
More Reasons 2
"It really annoys me when people run down Timeform ratings, thinking that the "top rated" is in some way their "tip" (not you Kasparov). Without first looking at all the other relevent details of form. The Timeform Master Rating is what they consider a horse capable of given optimum conditions, there are many reasons (above) why a horse may not run to that Master Rating."
So folks having a day out at the races and stumping up for a Timeform racecard are supposed to know that and know how to do that?
If Timeform could do it they would do it and make an assessment that under today’s non-optimum conditions the TF rating should be lowered by so many pounds. They don’t and they can’t – so you are annoyed at the wrong people – it should be at Timeform and the like that peddle this ancient snake oil to a gullible public.
The extent is observable using infrared thermography.
If it actually is arthritis it is wear and tear of the protective cartilage between joints and the back is equal with the leg joints as the worst place to get it. The back has to support the whole horse weight when in the air and transmit the full propulsion force of the hind legs. If the horse is in pain it will not go at a full gallop. It is serious and won’t go away with rest. 3 drug cocktails can slow down the spread of the problem and painkillers may be usable if allowed on race days.
It is usually signalling the end of a top class racehorse’s competitive career.Since the whip rules were changed and non-cutting whips used there is no such thing as knocking a horse about any more.
Timeform remain stuck in the 1950s using the same old racing clichés, as if they were actual truth.All racing efforts damage the muscles with micro tears but it does further stimulate the muscles and lungs to develop further (training gallops are nothing like as strenuous as a real race at distance). Being forced into making extra effort when past the point of comfort does more damage.
That repair plus development occurs over several weeks rest. The harder the race the longer needed.
I very much doubt it.
The Aussies will not put up for very long with things that are unfair. In comparison, the average UK punter is brainwashed from cradle to grave to accept whatever scraps he is given by private corporations and to be oh so grateful even for that. They whinge but they do absolutely nothing about it.
Apathetic and gutless.Ladbrokes was doing its very best to support racing and the Derby this Saturday. Every shop front was filled with adverts for the new widescreen FOBTs. Racing not mentioned – not that they will take any proper bets on racing, even from mugs.
Bizarre that BHA under Paul Bittar go hand in hand with bookmakers to promote meaningless wall to wall racing and FOBTs.
Only taking bets on the latter which is levy free.Racing interest was generated from a mixture of BBC and ITV racing on the main channels with shops packed with people having a bet and a bit of banter on racing. Shops largely empty hour after hour with only the desperate few transfixed to the zero skill FOBTs.
Some horses with low sweat production will perform better in the evenings if the evenings are relatively cool, if it has a slow digestion system and the cooler air contains a higher amount of oxygen to relieve breathing problems. I keep stats on all such items.
UK trainers cannot deduce this or much else.Gambler banned from bookies for winning too much
. 8:30am Monday 2nd June 2014 in News By Ben Leo .
.
The Argus: John Harrison, (holding letter) outside William Hill bookmakers in London Road, Brighton, with his friendsThe Argus: The letter
..
A GAMBLER claims he has been banned from a high street bookmakers because he wins too much.John Harrison, 56, of Canfield Road, Brighton, received a letter from William Hill asking him not to return to any of the firm’s shops across the country.
Mr Harrison believes he received the letter, titled Trading Review Notice, because he has proven to be a profitable punter at the company’s London Road branch in Brighton.
He said: “I used to be a mug gambler, giving away my wages every week. But it’s only since I’ve become good at what I do on horses and dogs that I’ve been told I’m not allowed back in the shop.
“They don’t want winners. I’ve done nothing wrong apart from showing a consistent level of profit through my betting and they don’t like that.”
The letter, sent on May 19, said the firm “no longer wishes to accept” Mr Harrison’s bets following a “review of trading arrangements”.
It continues: “In the event that you succeed in gambling with us, we reserve the right to make any such bet void.”
A spokesman from William Hill said Mr Harrison was not banned because he showed a profit, but for “other reasons” they declined to reveal.
Mr Harrison, who claims he gambles professionally, said: “There are no other reasons other than they don’t want winning customers. I don’t play with huge stakes.
“But even when I try and put £50 on a horse in the shop they have to call up their traders and check it’s OK.
“They come back and then tell me I can only have £2 or something silly. But now I’ve been banned entirely.”
Mr Harrison said bookmaker’s shops had “now become arcades” and bookmakers preferred people playing virtual roulette on Fixed Odd Betting Terminal (FOBT) machines instead.
He added: “That’s why they don’t take bets anymore. They’d rather people waste their wages on the machines than take normal bets on the football, horses or dogs”.
Matt Zarb-Cousin, of the Campaign for Fairer Gambling, said: “Betting used to be the punter versus the bookie, but now bookmakers are fixated on FOBTs: fixed margin casino machines where, in the long run, the house always wins.
“They don’t want anyone gambling with them who has a chance of even breaking even – let alone winning – which is why they place restrictions on over the counter bets, or ban winning customers.
“Under law gambling has to be fair and open, but the truth about how bookmakers operate today has been withheld from politicians for too long.”
A spokesman from William Hill said: “It’s nothing to do with showing profit. Mr Harrison and his friends are not the type of people we want in our shops.”
Letter from South Africa.
It seems to be the same old, same old:"Philip Goldberg: Tale Of An Ordinary Punter
In any other business I would be considered a good customer.
Last updated on May 28th, 2014“I am one of the ninety five percent that don’t take anything out of the game. For close on forty years I have been punting horses every day. In any other business, I would be considered a good and loyal client. In horseracing it works differently. They don’t even know my name and are clueless when it comes to knowing what makes me tick.”
Accountant Philip Goldberg is a horseracing addict and an ‘ordinary punter’ in his own words.
A well known face in betting outlets on the Cape West Coast, he has had his fair share of good and bad fortune, but says that he is concerned that horseracing is doomed to extinction if we continue on the current path.
He has called on Saftote to introduce an environment where more people win rather than fancy marketing tricks with telephone number dream figures.
What is your name?
Philip Goldberg ,aka Kingpin
How old are you?
Racing has aged me. I am only rated 48 on paper.
Where did you grow up?
Next door to Milnerton Racecourse, which was as close to heaven as I could get. Well in those days it was, anyway.
Where were you educated?
Herzlia , UNISA and UCT.
What is your occupation?
I am an Accountant by qualification but racing is my life and keeps me far too busy to do anything else full time. So I found a happy medium and started a tipping service in 2005.
It is called Kingpin and I currently have a client base of 500. My phone rings endlessly with happy and hard luck stories.
My role also amounts to a form of counselling. A sort of Punters Anonymous’ a lot of the time as I answer questions and deal with racing related queries from Tellytrack coverage, to crooked jockeys to scratchings. These peripheral services are all free!
How long have you been interested in racing?
My father was a fanatic (and still is) and I started when I was at crèche. While the other kids played hide and seek, I was playing commentators and bookmakers.
How were you introduced to the game?
Family interest is the catalyst that triggered my generation’s interest in most cases.
Racing was a bonding passion. It was like listening to Squad Cars and the Men From The Ministry. It was something that families could do together. The Cape Hunt amateur racing also played a role in fostering a love of the game.
My Mom even used to take a syndicate jackpot of the ladies in the office at the Big Four in Loop Street every Saturday morning. Everybody put ten cents in. And the Met and July sweeps were events. Those were the days!
Do you think that young people are being properly marketed these days?
Gosh, no. Bringing a couple of half drunk, fashion conscious testosterone charged under 23’s to big racedays to listen to some band none of us have ever heard of is like flying to the Moon with a half a tank of petrol. It is not sustainable.
It just makes racing look glam for a few hours.
The following day, the diehards are back toteside doing their lives and the youngsters are sleeping off hangovers or sitting at Shimmy Beach Club or Caprice or some other fashionable joint.
How often do you punt?
Every solitary day.I would need to be hospitalised to miss it. Thank heavens for telebet, as there are times people of my age need to go to hospital for the odd day.
Why did you start a tipping service?
I started it as a source of income and to allow me to work in racing when I realised that I was never going to be an executive in this industry. So studying form became work and I get to keep my pulse on the heartbeat of the game. I have met some great people through it.
My customer is mostly the smaller guy who gets treated like you know what by the operators.
Tell us about your tipping service?
It is sms and email based and we have varying options to suit every pocket.
We have a loyal core client base that have been with us almost a decade now. They live in De Aar and Koekenaap and beyond.
I used to specialise on the UK racing but thanks to the Tellytrack mess that sector has been badly hit.
How has racing changed?
The usual excuse is that it is no longer the only game in town.
But if all of our modern day distractions were so magnetic, then how has soccer grown so much?
We just haven’t kept pace through a combination of bad management and a lack of passion where it really counts. There are too many talkers and too few doers.
The whole transparency charade has also created a false sense of information, I believe. What happened to the genuine street corner tip for example? All Tellytrack do is interview the big trainers who give us the usual political nod.
We also want to hear from the Stan Ferreira’s and Barend Botes’ of this world.
bad-customer-service-cartoonDoes racing look after its customers?
Don’t make me laugh. Give me the name of one lobby or individual who is batting for the customer. There is no such animal.
In the totes, which are still the shopfront for the mass market, the environment is dirty, there is little information available, the furniture is usually on a par with a Government Hospital waiting room and the majority of staff look like they have just lost a close friend.
Never once have I left a tote and been greeted with a ‘hope to see you soon.’
Does the game need a loyalty programme?
Now you are talking! Most definitely it does. Gold Circle tried in vain a few years ago but messed it up and wasted a million rand on a disaster.
Any competitive environment needs to reward customers. Ask the banks.Ask the retailers.
Look at what happens to us on Met day. We have to pay R200 to sit in the sun and drink warm beers while the one off’s enjoy all the trappings.
That is unworkable and unrealistic. And a sure fire way to alienate the customer.
What are your thoughts on the recent Tellytrack blackout?
A debacle and a disgrace, frankly.
It only served to illustrate the great divide between management and customers. They thought that we would just continue punting blindly. They have to realise that we don’t punt on cockroaches in the dark. We want entertainment and love to see and feel the excitement.
And they have compounded the debacle in the manner it has been handled from a PR viewpoint since.
Is the racing show well co ordinated?
I have never understood why Tellytrack would show Haydock and yet Lingfield is a venue for the maxipool Jackpot on the same day.
That means Tellytrack are not talking to Saftote. Or vice versa. A typical left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.
Then we had Mike De Kock slinging off about the 2yo programme after Forries Waltz won on Saturday.
Is De Kock talking nonsense or is the programme a disgrace? Who knows? Does anybody care? They are wary of him, but what’s the bet nothing changes?
Do carryovers excite you as a punter?
Naturally they do. But there is a perception, real or imagined, that we are being bulldusted by Saftote. That is our money, we play every day, so when a pool is carried over, make it available to be won the next day.
At the moment they are carrying confusing sums over to big racedays. That principle is okay, but make it a percentage carryover to Met day and July day etc. Not the whole lot.
And don’t just create smoke and mirrors. Punters are real people, We live in the now. We want to win today.
And we would love to understand whether there is a takeout on the carryover pools? Please ask them that!
What do you feel about the range of bet options?
Disastrous and stupidly complicated! There are too many choices.
The game needs to be about winning and not the degree of difficulty. So why take away the couplings in the Pick Six, as one example?
You have a market that is disenchanted and largely treated badly, and then you help them lose rather than win by making things difficult.
What are the chances of losing business?
And to brag,as Saftote do, about jackpots paying an average of R20 000 means that something is badly wrong. It is supposed to be the brain game.
The Bipot has also merely served to pull money out of the other exotics in my opinion.
If you were made CEO of Phumelela for a month what would you do?
I would start by acknowledging that racing pools have not kept pace with inflation and admit that we have a serious problem.
I would then take my executive team and senior management out to meet punters in the totes.At the same time I would check if the executives have a telebet. How can you be a movie critic if you don’t go to bioscope?
This game is about the TAB and not the TBA. If horses only cost R30 000 each the hardcore would still be playing fractional PA’s on Fairview.
Sports betting income streams are all well and good, but it is the horses that got us hooked in the first place.
And when the big boys sit on television and tell us about the new bets, maybe stop patronising and talking about ‘us’, ‘us’, ‘us’.
It should be about the customer."
=====================
….As far as I can tell there is no correlation between fast ground and horses getting injured.Whenever I go to ride in Mumbai the Mahalaxmi track is firm but there are no problems. The same horses keep going back time and time again without any issues whatsoever.
The same is true in Hong Kong, where you seldom get anything other than what we would call firm ground.
=====================HK uses Verti-drain to alleviate surface hardness:
http://redexim.com/product/verti-drain-7120/
What happens on GB tracks ?
Wit,
Similar in Australia.
Many courses do not have access to vast amounts of water and certainly would not waste it by evaporating in the sun. Horses train on firm and run on firm when they are fit.
Artificial watering would cause false ground and then cause far more injuries.UK has adopted regular verti-draining to ease top of ground compaction and aid drainage as well to get air into the ground for sound root growth. They then ruin it all with constant artificial watering drowning out the essential soil air so that roots growth weakens and tends upwards and increasingly badly anchored turf divots fly. The leaf growth becomes coarse and soft so instead of forming a natural springy cushion, the grass crushes and forms a slippage layer with the horses’ aluminium plates. Essentially the ground becomes far less safe to race on particularly around bends.
Agree with that GT.
If these are his views then BHA should call him in urgently as T’s view on the official going is what all race beaten lengths are based upon. His lack of methodology is corrupting the data contained in the official formbook as well as wasting non-runner owners time and money. I thought all clerks were sent on a BHA course at the time of the going stick introduction
Lingfield provide all the going stick readings around the track so T could provide similar data and let people make their own mind up. Turftrax still provide going maps at Haydock which summarise any variations.
He should know that all he has to do is provide facts as to the state of going at the time he makes any announcement. He can quote the official weather forecast which gives percentage chances of rain as well as wind and temperature. He is not supposed to forecast anything into the future nor give any opinions not backed up by facts, the time when they then cease to be opinions. Jockey opinions after the first race are opinions and not facts. The first race time can tell you more than any jockey groupthink can.
In the 70’s 80s before tracks had anything but crude bowser watering systems top races were often run on firm – it depended solely on how good the summer was. I vaguely remember Carlisle racing on Hard which is faster than Firm.
Then there was a full season of racing for 2 year olds with one of them winning 16 times.Of course horses galloped far more in distance each season on un-watered fast turf gallops at home before the luxury of polytrack etc arrived.
Yes, the type of article that should be getting regularly posted in RP but won’t be if it starts to inform people properly.
What use are 48 hour decs for overseas punters if they contain lots of non runners?
Just think of all the money lost to the levy by punters backing all the non runners when they put their bets on in the morning?
As for Haydock, why is Tellwright never questioned about his incompetence by RUK?
Come on Oli Bell, you’re presenting from Haydock today, ask Tellwright how he justifies the farce yesterday of describing the ground as firm prior to the first race but good after it and after a little bit of rain? Some jockeys even said it was soft throughout the afternoon.
They do not bet with UK bookmakers so no levy is involved.
The more serious issue is the levy lost from UK punters betting on non-runners with UK registered bookmakers who do pay levy.The Turftrax going map was not out until 2:15 yesterday so Tellwright was left to his own devices to make something up for the 2pm race.
As the beaten lengths are decided by camera times and the clerk’s official view of the going, the first race beaten length and going data will go into the record books wrongly.
BHA are no where to be seen on this issue. Why is the going map not supplied before racing starts? Why are top tracks like Chester and Newbury allowed to race without providing any going maps at all. Why are race allowed to be held without the actual race length being accurately known? I doubt Usain Bolt would be happy being asked to race "about" 200m +/- half a furlong.
I think UK racing has now reached the point of "jumping the shark".Q: What happens to racehorses who are put down on the racecourse?
A: Unless a horse dies of natural causes, for example, following a heart attack, the standard procedure in the unfortunate event of severe/untreatable injury being sustained is for a veterinary surgeon to administer an injection which humanely puts the horse down. On account of the chemicals involved with such a practice, horses put down by injection are not eligible for either human or animal consumption.
However, of more relevance to the debate regarding horsemeat, is the fact that no horse may enter the human food chain unless it is slaughtered at an abattoir itself. No horse that dies or is killed away from a licensed abattoir is eligible for human consumption.
Each racecourse is required to have its own arrangements in place with suitably licensed organisations for the removal and disposal of carcasses of horses that have been put down. However, it is not uncommon for owners to either request a post mortem or, in some cases, to make their own arrangements for the disposal of the carcass, as was the case of Synchronised, the 2012 Gold Cup winner who sadly incurred a fracture while running loose in last year’s Grand National.
Q: Why are thoroughbred horses sent to abattoirs?
A: There are only five abattoirs licensed to slaughter horses in the UK. Specialist abattoirs have the facilities and expertise to put animals down humanely. This is often the most appropriate way to conclude a horse’s life. Indeed, as highlighted by both the RSPCA and World Horse Welfare, of much greater concern from a welfare perspective are the 6,000 non-thoroughbred horses highlighted as being at risk of neglect this winter.
Q: How many thoroughbred horses are sent to abattoirs
A: It is estimated that there are about 1,000,000 horses in Great Britain, of which around 100,000 are thoroughbreds of various ages, some of who have raced, some who are retired and some of who have never raced. Of the 9,000 horses sent to abattoirs each year, just under 1,000 of those are thoroughbreds.
Who’s bright idea was 48 hour declarations? I can see no evidence that it benefits racing, where are the huge sums of money supposed to be enriching our sport from the rest of the world?
ATR and RUK campaigned for it in 2006.
Punters as per usual were never consulted.
The racecourse were threatening to reduce prize money even further in 2007 so a deal was struck with RCA and ROA to share out the spoils of the potential extra money.
They had no idea how to expand the market in UK and thought UK racing’s only option was to expand it’s appeal to new overseas customers.
Later, messing up the UK draw positions was thought to further appeal to the overseas market. Not met many that even have a clue that UK draw was changed.Many in Australia, Europe and Canada bet on UK racing but what the financial morons forget was asking how does any of the money they bet end up in UK or UK racing. At the moment not much of even UK betting moment ends up in levy. UK bookmakers will not take "overseas" bets even from Gibraltar. They still have no clue as to how to get hold of the actual money when the new law comes in.
The endless feeble excuses and self certificates clearly shows that racing is being run for owners and trainers alone with the public disregarded. There is no spirit that the show must go on.
Imagine if the far more valuable Premiership prima donnas refused to come out of the dressing room if the pitch was a bit soft or the drizzle likely to last all match. BHA has its priorities completely wrong and appears totally weak in its job of regulating racing.Sadly the UK folks are so used to receiving rip-off service from cradle to grave they have become totally apathetic. Even when the EU gets business and working conditions improved they want to leave that and are queuing up, eager to be exploited further.
Below is what the HANA boycott achieved at Churchill Down where CD simply raised take out percentages without consultation.
UK aligned to HANA could quickly eradicate the BHA lazy acceptance of cheating and over-watering punters get correct data of race distances, times, going sectionals , body weights. All of which are the norm in Hong Kong.
A betting boycott at Epsom/ Ascot would expose the bookmakers for the current state of price fixing and false markets from bet refusal." HANA: For many of you who took our last survey, asking you your opinion regarding the Churchill Downs increase in takeout, boycotting Churchill and its properties in whole or in part were important to you. We’d like to update you on what’s been happening.
In our blog post here, reprinted from PlayersBoycott.org, handle was shown to be off over $12 million since the start of the meet. This weekend the losses continued, and year over year Churchill Downs handle is off approximately $19 million dollars. When the special event days of the Oaks and Derby are taken out, handle this meet at Churchill is down over 23%.
Horseplayers are clearly speaking loud and clear with their wallets."
Your HANA Team
I bet the UK man never told it like it actually is – only as it was once decades ago.
You mean the good old days when we all paid 9% on stakes or winnings.
What an irrelevant comment.
It is to do with the horses and the way racing was then structured. There were far fewer meetings, Sundays off and flat racing only slightly overlapped with jump racing. You looked forward to races with traditional names throughout the season.
Shops were packed and the banter flowed.I would willingly pay 10% again if bookmakers would take the size of bets they took in those days. The days of a carrier bag full of readies are long gone.
