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I was on the Victoria Derbyshire show a few years ago, discussing the evils of the machines (the only bookie to do so, I believe - not that it ever got me anywhere) and there was an MP arguing against me. Funnily enough, he mentioned scratchcards, I agreed they're bad, but pointed out that they don't often sponk £1000 in half an hour.
Some welsh bloke, Labour, can't remember his name, talking about freedom of choice and why FOBTs shouldn't be banned, I don't think he fully understood the argument. |
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12% of lottery and scratchcard spend is tax. Then there is profit for seller, for Camelot, "good causes", other costs and expenses. Not much is left to pay the winners, I can't remember the exact amount but it is a long way under 50% return for money over any long amount of time.
Worst bet there is. Football pools used to be terrible too. About 25% paid back out in many pools. |
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Silly question to ask on this forum where an arb would involve betting as much as possible with other bookies, risk free.
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Slippy, that's because they've spent 10 years or more steering people towards FOBTs and small sports bets.
Until they came along (and before the internet betting took off), bookies did OK from betting - mostly on horses, and a little on dogs. The biggest companies became bigger and run like most big organisations by people with qualifications rather than people with experience. Hence my belief. Also Hence their not taking risks. That and the fact that computers limit online bets and smaller firms have all but been squeezed out of existence. |
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It was pretty much over by the time you joined the forum STUDYFORM.
Previous to that, the bookies tested their opinion against the exchange market, and found that they could not win. |
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I'd agree with that if it was just about horse racing, but it isn't, ub.
Originally bookies -especially in shops didn't take a view, they would just hedge large liabilities and stand favourites, so there would be no need to test their opinion against anything. And the traditional punters that haven't yet died out wouldn't be converted to exchange betting as most of the can't understand how it works. Only a small percentage of punters started using exchanges. It's a combination of things that have consigned small betting shops to history. FOBT's didn't really start being popular and the perceived cash cows (imo they've just taken the same money by a different route) until about 15 years ago. Then the combined power of those, the increase in Horse racing "rights" (thanks to the amazing greed of Peter Savile) and then SIS costs, the inception of the Gambling Commission in 2005, the split from SIS to Turf TV and local council "licence fees" to betting shops. All this can be added to what I already wrote. The exchanges just were one part of the whole bunch of issues. Small businesses (independents), went the way of grocers shops, local pubs, post offices, bank branches and others. |
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Oh, and arbing never worked for any appreciable amounts of money.
Bookies aren't that stupid that they guarantee money to people who look for mistakes. In the early days of BF, there were a few, but these were hoovered up in minutes and closed. imo arbing is just bottom feeding. |