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Wimbledon, You Can Not Be Serious! Or Can You?

Sunday, June 21st, 2009

WITH Wimbledon just around the corner, I thought it might be worth turning the attention of this online gambling blog’s regulars to the world’s most famous tennis tournament – and, more specifically, how one can make a few bob from betting on it.

But first of all, like in all betting mediums, one has to ask the question: How straight is the game?

That’s a pre-requisite for betting on any sport. Horseracing has probably the worst reputation in this department. Most punters – and almost all losing ones – feel that the game is bent.

They’d rather blame a jockey on the take/make for their own inadequacies. Almost certainly a losing punter will simply have picked the wrong horse. But rarely will he admit to making such a basic mistake. He rather go on about how the jockey ‘threw’ the race.

The late, great Phil Bull, who founded Timeform, once said that he believed that almost every race was straight. He reckoned he couldn’t carry on betting if he didn’t think that – and I’m definitely in the Bull camp on that one.

But what about tennis?

There have been rumblings in recent years that tennis had attracted some dodgy gambling characters, just as all sports have done. Three low ranked Italian players – none of whom played on the main tour – were fined and suspended for betting on games.

And there was the much more high-profile case involving the Russian Nikolay Davydenko in a minor tournament in Poland.

Davydenko, ranked No. 4 in the world at the time, was playing against little-known Argentinean Martin Vassallo Arguello. Money poured in for Arguello even after he had lost the first set and the match finally ended with Davydenko quitting on his stool in the third set.

Both players were cleared after an inquiry that last for more than a year, but the reputation of tennis is still suffering.

But don’t let these incidents put you off; you can make tennis betting pay, particularly on the bet exchanges.

For a start it’s a game with only two possible results – a win or loss for your selection.

But with most matches taking an up-and-down course there are plenty of opportunities for either backing both players at odds-against or laying both at odds-against, locking in a profit either way.

You can also back or lay one player to guarantee your screen ‘greens up’.

The best time to get your claws into a tennis match is when a much higher-ranked player loses the first set, preferably in a best-of-five game. His price will probably drift quite markedly – and there is often an over-reaction as soon as the set has been lost. That’s the optimal time to back the pre-match favourite at better odds than he was at the outset. And when, hopefully, he has recovered his poise you can either lay him back at a shorter price or hand on and let the bet ride knowing that you’ve got the value.

With most of the big games televised on terrestrial television there’s plenty of liquidity on the exchanges and you find too many problems getting matched as long as you’re not too greedy. But there is plenty of entertainment on the way during the frenetic fortnight at an event that is almost drowning in a sea of nostalgia.

Fred Perry isn’t just a brand of sportswear; it’s the name of Britain’s last men’s championship way back before even I was born!

And who can forget those epic duels between Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe?

There was even one Wimbledon champion – Boris Becker – who ended up in a broom cupboard with a willing young lady and is still paying for their love child!

Will we ever have another British champion? Well, gentleman Tim Henman couldn’t manage it despite trying ever so hard in a very British and very sporting sort of way.

Andy Murray isn’t so fussed about the sportsmanship side of things and he isn’t half as popular as the man who spawned the annual outbreak of Henmania, but he’s a much better player and seems less fragile physically these days, he now doesn’t have Nadal is his side of the draw with the Spaniards retirement from Wimbledon this year but he’ll still have to go some to beat theincomparable Roger Federer if they both are there in the Final.

But above all, remember Wimbledon isn’t just about strawberries and cream nor is it about checking out the decibel levels of some grunting Georgian.

And it’s also not about ogling the latest super babe in the shortest of short shorts!

As ever, we look at if from a cold, calculating cash point of view and, yes, there is a real chance to lock in some net profits from those bookies.

Posted in Articles, General, Sterling Brookes | 10 Comments »

Royal Ascot Fashion, Fillies, Festival & The Queen

Monday, June 15th, 2009

THEY’RE trained to the minute; their skin glistening in the summer sunshine. Some are perfectly poised; others are sweating profusely as they jig around the paddock. Some are a bit on the leg; others are a lot on the leg. Some look fit, trained to the minute; others look as if the run would do them good. But wait a minute, they may be fillies, but they certainly aren’t horses! For this is Royal Ascot where there are as many lovely-looking fillies off course as there are on the track itself.

It’s a fashion show and racing festival all rolled into one. Unlike the Cheltenham Festival, where sensible clothing is very much the order of the day and the horses and riders are the centre of attention, Ascot has a split personality. For the race fans, top-class racing is what it’s all about. For the fashion-conscious the whole event revolves around what the ladies are wearing. But the two aspects of this great meeting seem to co-habit pretty well. Yes, it’s part of the so-called London Season that includes those other British sporting bastions, Henley and Wimbledon.

Sadly, Mrs Shilling – as mad as the proverbial hatter although it was her son David who made the outrageous and often amusing hats that she wore on each day of the meeting – is no longer with us. But the Queen is – and every day she will travel up the course in her horse-drawn carriage to the delight of the thousands of royalists who line her route. For those track side and in many betting shops all over the land the first bet of the day for many is to guess the colour of the Queen’s hat!

Another thing for sure is that you can bet your bottom dollar that the credit crunch/economic downturn – call it what you like – won’t make any discernible difference to how the ladies will turn themselves out, not even the weather can interrupt their week. Not many of the ladies will be scrimping and saving to buy a new outfit for the meeting, nor will they be digging the sewing machine out of the loft to knock up that stunning little number that will have men’s eyes out on stalks. Ladies Day is pure theatre. Whatever you think about the fashions, it’s the horses that count for me. Yes, it’s a difficult meeting and as someone once said the only way to come out of Royal Ascot week with a small fortune is to start with a big one! But winners are there to be found. The quality of the racing is of the highest class and punters always feel they’ve got a better chance when every horse is trying for its life for the big purses on offer. I don’t actually subscribe to that view. Give me a race where there are only two or three possible winners and I’m at my happiest.

At Royal Ascot level, it’s probably best to stick with the top stables. Sir Michael Stoute from Newmarket and Aidan O’Brien from Ballydoyle in Ireland will probably have profitable meetings. Both are masters at timing a horse’s preparation to perfection. They will have their charges peaking on the big day – when there is big prize-money to be won. Don’t approach Royal Ascot in an all-or-nothing frame of mind. Too many punters think that big meetings like Ascot, Cheltenham and Liverpool are make-or-break fixtures as far as their betting is concerned. I treat every race alike. Finding the winner of the maiden at a Ripon evening meeting is just as sweet – and just as rewarding – as finding the winner of a race at the royal meeting. One race I might have a serious look at is the Royal Ascot Gold Cup run on Ladies’ Day on Thursday. Lester Piggott was a master over all distances when he was in the saddle, but never more so than when he was winning the Gold Cup on great horses like the French-trained Sagaro (three times) and Henry Cecil’s Ardross (twice). Watching Piggott in action on a short-priced stayer was pure joy. He always knew when to press the button – and rarely made mistakes when the chips were down.

How I wish Piggott was around to ride Geordieland in this year’s renewal. Of course, he is no superstar in the mould of either Sagaro or Ardross, but on his day he’s a pretty useful performer. But he’s what they call in the trade a ‘thinker’ and needs his mind making up for him. Of course, Shane Kelly made a pretty good job of winning on Geordieland the other day at Sandown, but I can’t help feeling that Piggott and Geordieland would have made a perfect – and perfectly backable – combination.

Nevertheless, it might still be worth sticking with Jamie Osborne’s enigmatic eight-year-old to finish in the gold medal position. Overall, though, approach with caution.

Sit back and enjoy the wall-to-wall coverage on At The Races or the fashion reports on BBC interspersed with the occasional races. There isn’t a better meeting on the Flat anywhere else in the world and, if you’re going along, the track now offers unrivalled viewing facilities despite the fact that the new grandstand looks like the departure area at Heathrow Terminal Four. Just don’t spoil it all by doing your money!

Posted in Articles, Horse Racing, Sterling Brookes | 12 Comments »

Cricket Bets, Bats and Gambling

Monday, May 25th, 2009

PEOPLE have gone to prison or been fined huge amounts for insider share dealing – the ultimate white collar crime.

But as far as I know, neither Dennis Lillee nor Rodney Marsh served any time at all for backing England to beat Australia in the match that has been dubbed ‘Botham’s Test’ at Headingley back in 1981.

Lillee and Marsh, two of the stars of the Australia side which was already one-up in the five-Test Ashes series, reckoned they were getting good value, taking the 500-1 on offer by Ladbrokes; odds offered, incidentally, by Ladbrokes’ cricketing guru, Godfrey Evans, the be-whiskered former England and Kent wicket-keeper.

After all, England were on 105-5 in their second innings, still 126 runs in arrears and facing almost inevitable defeat, probably by an innings. Evans must have slept easily that night.

The two Aussies, both inveterate gamblers, knew it was a two-horse race and had ruled out the remote possibility of a tie. As Aussie captain Kim Hughes said afterwards: “They (Lillee and Marsh) thought the odds were too good to miss”.

In truth, 500-1 was probably not a great price, looking at the match situation. I’m sure Betfair’s fearless betting exchange punters would have offered the ceiling price of 1,000 (999-1) or more if that were permitted.

Over the next two days a rollicking century from Ian Botham, who finished on 149 not out and 8-43 from Bob Willis, turned the match on its head.

In retrospect, Lillee and Marsh didn’t ‘throw’ the match although South Africa captain Hansie Cronje – later to die in an air crash at the age of 32 – was found to have lost games for cash and provided bookmakers with ‘inside information’ about injuries and pitch conditions.

And any number of Indian and Pakistani players have been implicated in betting scandals with several ‘warned off’.

But that hasn’t stopped cricket betting growing at an enormous rate, fuelled by the growth of both the exchanges and the phenomenon that is Twenty20.

The latter form of the sport is cricket’s nearest equivalent to a football match-style event. It all happens at breakneck speed with the action on the pitch taking a maximum of two hours 40 minutes punctuated by a twenty minute break between innings and a short drinks break after ten overs of each innings.

Not surprisingly, in the game’s shortest format, the matches tend to swing wildly.

I was ‘trading’ an Indian Premier League game the other day, having backed one side at 1.98 ( a shade of odds-on) only to see them travel all the way out to 3 (2-1) before they hit back with three quick wickets and I was able to trade out for a decent profit. Holding one’s nerve is key in these scenarios.

There are plenty of people out there in exchange land who, over the last few weeks, have been sitting in front of a computer screen with a TV screen alongside it, watching Setanta’s excellent coverage of the games.

By the time the final came around there had been 59 games in a relatively short space of time – that’s 59 betting opportunities by my reckoning.

I’m not sure how long the Twenty20 revolution will last before it inevitably scales down a little, but for the time being you’d be silly to miss out.

STERLING BROOKES is the author of ‘Poor Johnny’, the tragic story of an Edwardian cricketer, available from the Association of Cricket Historians and Statisticians, priced £10. The ACS can be contacted at sales@acscricket.com or on 01529 306 272.

Posted in Articles, General, Sterling Brookes | 2 Comments »

Derby Defining Moments

Monday, May 11th, 2009

SOMETIMES one’s life is defined by those moments you can simply never ever forget. You know the sort of thing I mean. Where were you when… JFK was shot; JR was shot; John Lennon was shot; man landed on the moon; Elvis died.

For me, the Derby defines my life. My first memory of the great race was hearing Charlottown and Scobie Breasley winning in 1966. I was sitting in the car with my late father – the man who got me interested in the racing game – parked on the sea front at Blackpool all those years ago.

If I’m not mistaken it was the unique histrionic tones of Peter Bromley who called the 5-1 shot home. Then there was the shock of rank outsider Morston storming to victory in 1973 as an unconsidered 25-1 chance. Needless to say, I wasn’t on! Troy’s seven-length demolition job made spectacular viewing from my vantage point high in the stands in 1979.

Then there was 1981 – the year of the ill-fated Shergar. Starting at a shade of odds-on, Shergar, who was later kidnapped by the Provisional IRA, beat even Troy’s margin of victory. He had ten lengths to spare over his nearest pursuer Glint Of Gold.

After his kidnap, he was never to be seen again. What a tragic waste of a supreme equine talent. It would have been fascinating to see how his progeny would have fared on the racecourse. But six years before Shergar’s Derby came the one Epsom Classic I will always remember – for all the wrong reasons!

In those days I used to go racing with a friend from Romford in Essex. Always immaculately dressed, Wag – I never really knew his real name – was a fantastic judge of the form book and one of the best race readers I have ever come across. Wag and I thought along similar lines when it came to horseracing. We would meet up every Saturday on the embankment, near Charing Cross station, and off we’d go to the races – Ascot, Sandown, Newbury, Kempton, Lingfield, Epsom, wherever there was a weekend fixture.

As I say we read the form book in basically the same way. Often I’d start the car and the first question was always, ‘What you backing today? Nine times out of ten I could supply him with the answer. We usually backed the same horses – and we were quite successful too.So it came to pass on Derby Day 1975 that we made our way to the course determined to back the French horse, Green Dancer.

In the previous week, we had discussed the race several times and each time we talked the name Grundy figured at the top of our list. But, like many punters, we’d changed course by the time the race was due to be run and were both convinced Green Dancer would win. In fact, we were so convinced that we had even planned where we would be dining that night, using just a small proportion of our winnings. Champagne figured high on our menu.

We piled into Green Dancer – and we weren’t the only ones. The horse went off 6-4 favourite with Grundy starting at 5-1. I think you know the rest. Yes, Grundy won comfortably in the hands of Pat Eddery with Green Dancer palpably failing to stay and trailing home in sixth.

The slap-up meal was off the menu. Instead, we were forced to buy a portion of chips between us at the fair which always runs alongside the course during the Derby meeting. It’s never a good idea to change your mind when it comes to backing horses.A costly lesson, but one I haven’t forgotten to this day. Very often, in racing, like in life, first impressions are the best. Sometimes you can dig too deep when you’ve already hit pay dirt!

Posted in Articles, Horse Racing, Sterling Brookes | 2 Comments »

The Beauty of Backing 2 Year Old Thoroughbred Racehorses

Thursday, April 23rd, 2009

I FINALLY met up with The One-Armed Man, something Dr Richard Kimble, better known as David Janssen, failed to do in 120 episodes of the classic American television series The Fugitive. Kimble, some of you may remember, was sentenced to death for a crime he didn’t commit, managed to escape when the train transporting him to a maximum security prison was de-railed, and spent the rest of his life – well, all of the series – trying in vain to track down the real killer, The One-Armed Man.

However, the one-armed man I refer to is a semi-professional gambler who lives in Wolverhampton and frequents the Midlands tracks. I hadn’t seen him in about five years but we still share something, apart from three good arms! That’s a love of two-year-old races.

I had schlepped to Leicester to back a juvenile at the bookies raceside in the first and he was there, perusing the runners in the paddock. We both agreed that the only danger – a Michael Bell debutant to be ridden by Jamie Spencer – was extremely edgy in the paddock and looked very green and inexperienced on what was his first visit to a racecourse.

I’ve been going racing for several decades but I must admit my paddock judgement is pretty naff. The only thing I can really tell is whether a horse is totally unfit. But, as everyone else, can see that a horse if fat or ‘gone in its coat’ it doesn’t give me much of an edge.

The one-armed man, though, fancies himself as a bit of a paddock expert although in my view only those closely connected with the horse can really know whether a horse is fit or not. Some horses carry more condition than others – and might not look as fit as others in the field, but that’s just the way they are.

The only thing I inspect is the form book. And if a horse has some decent form in the book then it gives it a massive edge over rivals who haven’t raced. A run will give a previously unraced two-year-old a big advantage. My selection was a good second in the first two-year-old race of the season, the Brocklesby, at Doncaster and proved too good for his rivals, all of whom were unraced.

I know it’s a classic case of ‘after-timing’, but my theory will hold good for a good few months to come. Even after the season has settled down, I still feel two-year-olds offer punters the best chance of making some dosh. One key factor is that they are too young to have picked up any bad habits, like many of their elders, who need to be persuaded to put their best hooves forward.

Look at some races and you’ll see horses with blinkers, cheek pieces, tongue-ties and eye shields. Some trainers even resort to the last resort, getting their jockey to wear spurs although how the north London side can persuade anyone to win is completely beyond my (admittedly, limited) imagination!

Two-year-olds invariably give their running – and don’t have too many off days. They haven’t been soured by too much racing and, in the first few months of the Flat turf season, will only be racing over trips of five or six furlongs, which also makes punting a little easier, cutting out some of the variables.

But a few words of warning. I would advise you to steer clear of nurseries. They’re just handicaps for two-year-olds and are pretty tough to figure, in my opinion. And ‘my’ one-armed man told me once: ‘Don’t give a two-year-old too many chances’. I have taken that on board and once a juvenile has run three or four times without winning I rarely give him or her another chance. They might be the exception to the rule, but I’m not paying to find out. Of course, the reverse is also true. Some two-year-olds just keep on wining and winning. The best example of this is the sequence of successes by two youngsters trained by Newmarket-based Bill O’Gorman. He saddled Timeless Times (1990) and Provideo (1984) to 16 – yes, you read it right, 16 – straight wins apiece.

How he kept them on the boil or at least simmering throughout their long first seasons was a remarkable feat. Unsurprisingly, no one has got close since, but it doesn’t mean it will never be equalled or even surpassed although I doubt it.

Of course, two-year-olds grow up into the Classic generation in the following season and it’s interesting to watch them develop from green-as-grass youngsters to hardened professionals. In fact, following two-year-olds can give you a very clear picture of what might win the next season’s Guineas, Oaks and Derby.

Happy punting…

Posted in Articles, Horse Racing, Sterling Brookes | 4 Comments »

The invention of political betting

Monday, April 6th, 2009

RON POLLARD, Ladbrokes’ legendary odds-maker, claimed he invented political betting. He said so in his irreverent and entertaining autobiography, ‘Odds and Sods, My Life in the Betting Business’, which was published in 1991.

But he’s way out of line. Pollard may have started political betting in the UK in the wake of the Christine Keeler affair when he opened a book on the Tory leadership race in 1963. However, 47 years earlier, in 1916, the Americans wagered the equivalent of $160million in today’s money on the race for the White House contested by Woodrow Wilson and Charles Evans Hughes.

Even though he was pretty late on the scene in global terms, Pollard gave Ladbrokes a tremendous boost and acres of free publicity when he priced up the Tory battle for the leadership with Rab Butler at 5-4, Lord Hailsham at 7-4 and Reggie Maudling at 6s. It was 10-1 and more the rest. Yes, even in those faraway days bookies bet brutally over round! Ladbrokes were, of course, big winners. The media went into overdrive and the punters loved it.

In the same year Ladbrokes began General Election betting. As ever Ladbrokes’ book made a healthy profit. But the biggest winner was millionaire hotelier Maxwell Joseph, a true-blue Tory, who rang to inquire what price a Labour victory was. He was put straight through to Ladbrokes’ managing director Cyril Stein, himself a dyed-in-the-wool Labour supporter.

Joseph wanted £50,000 on a Socialist victory – it was a huge sum in those days, equivalent to more than a million pounds at today’s prices. Stein told him he could have £30,000 at 11-8 on and the rest at 7-4 on. Joseph picked up a cool £32,272 in winnings, a little hedge against the inflation he feared if Labour got in.

Ladbroke’s Pollard reckons that all the attendant publicity turned Ladbrokes into the major company it is today. He may be right – and his legacy of political betting is with us to this day.

If anything it is growing faster than many other betting markets. Britain’s punters wagered a staggering £30million with traditional bookmakers on the recent US presidential election with a similar amount staked online. It dwarfed the £10million placed on Britain’s 2005 election.

Such growth means that any future election in the UK will produce big numbers. British bookmakers and exchange operators must already be licking their collective lips, for it is only in the UK and Ireland that betting on the outcome of elections is legal, nowhere else in Europe is political betting allowed. In fact, in 2007, when Wimbledon-based bookmaker Unibet offered odds on when a new national government in Belgium might be formed they were promptly hauled before the Brussels prosecutor’s office after a complaint from that country’s Gambling Commission.

This attitude may change as the UK’s recent Gambling Act kicks in, adding to the pressure on European legislators to allow more freedom of choice in betting matters. Ladbrokes may well yet cover far more elections throughout the world than they ever first expected and continue their claimed invention.

However, they won’t be alone though, political gambling is getting bigger and bigger, betting exchanges like Betfair are inventing new political betting opportunities themselves as and creating new markets for the political punter.

Posted in Articles, General, Sterling Brookes | 8 Comments »

There Is Only One Race – The GRAND NATIONAL!

Saturday, March 28th, 2009

THERE was the ‘Race of the Century’ when Grundy and Bustino locked horns for the King George and Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes at Ascot in 1975. And there’s the ‘Race that stops a Nation’ – the Melbourne Cup when the whole of Australia grinds to a halt to watch a handicap, albeit a very valuable one! There was even a two-legged version of the ‘Race of the Century’ when Seb Coe – now Lord Coe – and Steve Ovett – still plain, old Mr Ovett – clashed in the 800 metres final at the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

But there is only one race that captures the hearts and minds of virtually the whole world – and that’s the Grand National. Punters who never bet on the other 364 days of the year and even have a pathological fear of entering a betting shop, find themselves in the queue at the bookies just a few hours before the tapes go up at Aintree.

Of course, the race doesn’t always live up to its reputation. How many films given ‘must see’ reviews have turned out to be no better than average? But more often than not it does match its billing as the toughest test of horse and man ever devised.

Over the years there have been more National dramas than I have space to mention. Some come more readily to mind than others. Some are even celebrated year after year like Foinavon, the 100-1 winner whose memory is evoked when the field jumps the seventh fence on the first circuit, which becomes the 23rd obstacle on the second lap.

It’s actually one of the smallest fences on the track, measuring only 4ft 6in in height and you’d expect the riders – and the horses – would relax a little having just jumped Becher’s Brook, one of the most fearsome of Aintree’s obstacles.

But since 1967 its name has been etched inexorably into Aintree folklore. It was in that year’s National that the riderless and well-named Popham Down cut across the field causing absolute mayhem and bringing almost all the remaining runners to a standstill. But the unconsidered Foinavon was so far back at the time that he wasn’t inconvenienced by the carnage that was unfolding ahead of him and his jockey, John Buckingham. The pair sailed past the carnage and on to a victory that left most of the crowd speechless.

What about the race that was abandoned? That happened in 1997 when bomb threats caused the race to be called off. You can imagine the chaos that ensued and the Tote were reported to have left behind a cool half a million pounds, which was removed the following day under police escort. However, it was reported that one Tote girl had the presence of mind to walk out of the course on the Saturday with £7,000 stuffed into her knickers! She obviously didn’t trust the locals. The National is, after all, run in Liverpool! The race was run on the following Monday, but truth to tell, it had lost much of its atmosphere.

Or what about the time, four years earlier, when there was a false start with 30 of the 39 riders failing to realise that they had been recalled? Eleven of them pulled up after one circuit but seven others ploughed on regardless jumping all 30 fences and completing the full, gruelling four and a half miles.

The winner-that-never-was turned out to be Esha Ness, trained by Jenny Pitman, who was to win for real with Royal Athlete in 1995. She had become the first woman to train a National winner when Corbiere triumphed in 1983.

So those are just a few National triumphs and disasters. What will this year’s race add to racing’s history books? You don’t have long to wait to find out… the big race is on Saturday April 4th.

I can’t wait.

And what’s new this year online? Well those punters with the Internet to hand on the day will be able to lay bets during the actual race at many of the highstreet bookmaker online websites including Betfair. It will be quite interesting to have a further flutter, say if your backed horse succumbs to Aintree’s early tough fences, and hopefully recoup and win.

Posted in Articles, General, Sterling Brookes | 1 Comment »

The best ideas are the simplest – What odds Betfair?

Monday, March 16th, 2009

THEY say the best ideas are always the simplest. So I got to thinking about whether, in another life, I might have invented the internal combustion engine or television or even the light bulb. Not so simple eh? But then I turned my attention to the phenomenal phenomenon known as betting exchanges.

Well, here is a one-trick pony if ever I saw one. All you do is match a backer with a layer and if, in the words of the popular quiz game, the price is right, you have a match. It couldn’t be easier – and it’s all based on the stock market idea of matching buyers and sellers that’s been around for what seems like donkey’s years.

Since king of the betting exchanges Betfair was launched in 2000 when a group of businessmen sat around basically laying and backing horses with each other on the winner of that year’s Epsom derby, it has grown at a faster rate than the economy has recently declined.Now boasting two million customers and a turnover well in excess of £50million. Some events – like five-day Tests – can rack up turnover exceeding £10million in matched bets.

It’s the biggest online bookmaker in the UK and the largest betting exchange in the world. Actually the ‘online bookmaker’ part of those claims is far from the truth. Betfair is in no way a bookmaker. Bookmakers can lose on any given event. Betfair can’t. They simply act as a stakeholder. And unlike bookmakers they want their clients to win. That’s because they take commission from winning clients, while they don’t take a cent from losing bets. That’s the exact reverse of how conventional bookies work.

When Betfair first came on to the scene almost nine years ago, the established bookmakers didn’t appear too worried. Publicly they said they weren’t happy with the new kid on the betting block, but privately they couldn’t have feared the competition too much or else they would have set up their own exchanges. For a start the idea wasn’t copyright and initially there was some opposition to Betfair. Why the big bookmakers didn’t get together and produce a monster rival to Betfair, I have no idea. Perhaps the thought of working together to maintain their share of the betting market didn’t appeal to their sensitivities. Whatever the reasons, Betfair was left with what is known in the trade as an ‘easy lead’.

There are still a handful of other exchanges out there but they trail in the wake of the Betfair superliner. Even the fairly recent introduction of higher commission charges for big players didn’t seem to rock the boat too much. That’s because Betfair had first-mover advantage and spent a fortune on advertising and marketing to maintain that advantage and secondly, because in a marketplace that relies more on liquidity than anything else, Betfair has the highest liquidity of any exchange – and that doesn’t look like changing any day soon.

But the Betfair monolith does have its drawbacks. One is the perception that laying horses to lose leads to some dubious actions on behalf of some trainers, jockeys, owners and punters. That’s a red herring that needs filleting because that’s precisely what the traditional layers did when they had information that a particular runner wasn’t ‘off’, had missed a crucial gallop or was waiting for another day.

Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth so to speak, the old-fashioned bookmakers just laid and laid that horse – exactly what exchange layers are able to do nowadays. And why shouldn’t they – as long as they are not in possession of inside information, which by its very nature isn’t available to the general betting public.

Betfair has opened things up in a way that was unimaginable only a decade a go.It has ushered in what I feel is a golden age for backers. If you haven’t tried it already you don’t know what you’re missing. It might not suit everyone, but you’ve got to give it a go. Don’t remain a Betfair virgin forever…

Posted in Articles, Sterling Brookes | Comments Off

Irish Invasion – Must be the Cheltenham Festival

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

AS ‘The Voice of Racing’ – Sir Peter O’Sullevan – once said: ‘To end the meeting with a small fortune, you have to start off with a big fortune’. He was, if my memory serves me right, referring to Royal Ascot.

But the greatest ever commentator, now well into his eighties and still almost as active as ever, could, just as easily, have been talking about the Cheltenham Festival – the four-day betting bonanza that is now just around the corner.

The meeting has become something of an annual pilgrimage for both the English and the Irish, but it is the latter who raise the meeting to a completely different level compared with other festivals and big meetings.

The Irish come in their tens of thousands. They bet like men – even the women – and they drink like, well, Irishmen, downing copious pints of velvety black Guinness and virtually anything else that’s alcoholic.

Many save for the whole year for this one big betting bonanza. Even clergymen can be seen with their pockets stuffed with thousands of Punts or nowadays, Euros – ‘offerings’ from their parishioners to be used to back a particular locally-trained horse or horses!

I’ve had some good little touches on Irish-trained runners at Cheltenham. I remember, many years ago, backing Brown Lad – then a novice hurdler and later to become a top-class chaser –in the opening race on the card, patrolling up and down the rows and rows of bookmakers in the rain until I’d got the price I wanted.

Nowadays I wouldn’t have to get soaked running up and down the rails for the best price. Establishment bookmakers such as Ladbrokes or Ireland’s own Paddy Power and many others who serve the members on the rails, have online facilities making them easily accessible to online gamblers in comfort. Alternatively betting exchanges such as Betfair, offer open books on horseracing and sportsbooks. Betfair recently continued their innovative form, by creating the ZERO Lounge, with no House edge for Baccarat, Roulette and Blackjack.

Then there was another occasion when the heavens opened once again and I made the mud-loving Ten Up and absolute certainty in the Gold Cup.

He duly obliged, but thousands of others had come to the same conclusion and he went off a pretty short price. But he loved the conditions – much more than I did – and romped home with plenty to spare. It was at that point that the stewards decided they had seen enough – or drunk enough – and called off the rest of the card.

Still, I didn’t care and spent the next few hours on the journey home drying out my winnings using the car’s heater!

Funnily enough, both Brown Lad and Ten Up were trained by the great Jim Dreaper, Jim being the son of Arkle’s trainer Tom Dreaper, Ireland’s most successful jumps trainer.

But it isn’t always so easy finding winners at the meeting. Just as in life, patience is a virtue in betting. So there’s absolutely no point in digging out your entire betting bank and putting all your financial eggs in one basket – the first race of the meeting.

It’s ‘a marathon not a sprint’ is another sporting maxim, usually used when those rather annoying TV pundits pontificate about the Premier League title race. They’re right, of course, and the self-same viewpoint could, and should, be applied to the festival.

There will be a number of betting opportunities over the four days. It’s just a question of waiting for them. It’s a bit like a batsman building a big innings. He doesn’t try to hit every delivery out of the ground. He plays a straight bat to the difficult balls and leaves plenty of others that, he believes, are sailing harmlessly past the stumps, but he does tuck in to those balls that ask to be hit.

So it is in racing. There might be a day during the festival when nothing jumps off the page and demands to be backed, while the next day two decent bets present themselves.

Too many punters can’t let a race go by without having an ‘interest’. But how many of those ‘interest’ bets come to fruition. I knew a guy who, many years ago, backed every horse ridden by Bob Davies. Now Davies was, in his day, one of the top jump jockeys around. But he rarely made a level-stakes profit for his backers. But my friend said he couldn’t afford to miss one of Davies’s winners. In truth, he never missed any of his losers either!

The result was that he managed to go through a large proportion of his retirement nest egg before bowing out of the betting game. It was a lesson learned, but it cost him a lot of money – and he never went racing again.

It was a sad story. But over the years, I’ve seen hundreds of punters like him go skint. Racing, like all forms of betting, is a hard school. But like very few hobbies or interests, it can pay for itself. Ask a keen football or cricket fan, how much his hobby costs him. And unless he bets successfully on his favourite sport then he’s likely to spend hundreds of pounds a year following his team with a nil return in terms of hard cash.

So selectivity is the key to success at Cheltenham. If you’ve earmarked a particular horse during the build-up to the festival then don’t be afraid to steam in. Putting your money where your mouth is lends itself readily to punting on horses. It’s all about opinions. And yours is the most important.

If you’re right, you win. If you’re wrong, you lose. Simple as. But never be afraid to swim against the tide. If you follow the crowd, you’ll almost certainly end up losing. And the reason is because most punters lose.

You need an edge when you’re betting on the jumps, whether it’s concentrating on the place market which I tend to do or betting in handicaps or non-handicaps. You can stick with hunter-chases where the favourites often come to the fore with a handful of top yards and leading amateurs ruling the roost. You can even bet in novice chases – if you have a strong constitution and don’t suffer from high blood pressure! Here again, there aren’t too many possible winners with many of the runners leaving a lot to be desired in the jumping department.

Whatever your personal favourite way of betting is stick with if it works for you – and don’t be deflected from your ‘mission’ by any well-meaning friends.

Pace yourself, pick your shots and, above all, enjoy the racing. What else are festivals for?

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Mug Punter Club – Part 2 – How to avoid the Club online

Thursday, February 5th, 2009

I BET you thought I overlooked online casinos. No way!   I needed to show how easy it was to slip into the Mug Punter Club in offline gambling, despite the safety net of regulation developed over centuries, the online punter is more vulnerable because he may be out on his own, wandering through a vast desert with enough quick sand patches not yet signposted. No Jockey Club to keep rogue operators in check and no Gambling Commission ensuring fair play. It is also easier to lose control charging a credit card than dealing with hard money transactions.

So, no shortage of pitfalls to gobble a punter’s ‘betting bank’ electronically and speedily; I won’t try to get into how many national banks have vanished lately, but I can say that apart from a few professional experts who make a decent living gambling online, the average punter has to view online gambling as a leisure activity with a cost for the pleasure it gives, and set his cost limits accordingly. If you are to avoid membership of the Mug Punter Club, recognition and application of this principle is the first rule.

The second rule is to learn and improve playing the game you enjoy the most, understand the odds, and formulate a strategy and try it. Always set your limits and do not lose control; avoid getting hooked and learn to spot the signs.

An old saying goes that fools learn from their mistakes and wise men from those of others, and this is never more true than for online gambling. Do not rush into unknown casinos making tempting offers of big bonuses and the like; It is much safer to play at licensed casinos or those that have been vetted by professionals who will have carried out online casino reviews, tried and tested them by actually playing there and carrying our due diligence to minimise the novel forms of pitfalls from umpteen areas such as biased software, sharp operators, unfavourable house rules, indifferent customer care, and domicile of the casino…. US online casinos run by ethical operators have recently been driven out from the USA gambling market, instead of regulating them and making room for even more hazards in the casino scene. Thankfully there are some online casinos open to US citizens that remain and have been vetted with a clean bill of health.

So, please take care, make it fun, and don’t join the Mug Punters Club any time soon.

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