2% a runner, try 2% overall?

We simply do not need betting to 120% in a 10 runner hcap its absolutely farcical.

I dont care if you have your staff expenses to pay, adapt with the times.

Good luck everyone

As a punter who has regular bets of between £150 and £200 on max 4 races when racing.I am deciding if my money is better spent on Betfair rather than on course bookies who I do most of my business with, looking at the posts on here has certainly got me thinking. If truth be told I'm old school and like the cash element , bookies are people i communicate with on course, do they deserve my custom, and what extra do they offer me, in truth nothing.

The last bet I attempted to have with an on-course bookmaker was at Chepstow in 2005. I asked for £350 to £100, handed my ton over, received the ticket, then watched the bookmaker's clerk pointing in distress at the exchange display on the computer screen behind the joint. The bookmaker looked at the screen, turned back to me, grabbed the ticket from my hand, tore it up and silently handed back my hundred quid with a scowl.

And that was it. I went from going racing virtually every single day for fifteen years to going twice in the fifteen years since then.

I don't particularly blame the bookmaker in question for his behaviour. He was really only being upfront about what everyone else was doing (i.e., arbing rather than making a book).

The trouble is, two can play at that game. The difference is that while he needs me, I don't need him. I can stay at home and take the 4.7. I don't need the 7/2 he was offering any longer.

Screaming,you're just about my fav poster on here and I wasn't going to rise to the bait but as you've been racing twice in 15 years you're hardly likely to be an authority on this.

I went to Ivor Perry's funeral in December, and it was standing-room-only, with mourners standing facing each other on the two sides of the hall. It was Eddie Fremantle who nudged me and pointed out how, almost by magic, all we punters were standing on one side, while the bookies and their workmen had assembled on the other. It could have been Newton Abbot 20 years ago again, all of us about to do battle, waiting to see who would make the first move.

God, I miss that, just like I miss Ivor.

Perhaps the problem is that my target has always been to get the favourite beaten, so bookmakers pricing up competitively on the front two or three wouldn't be something I'd notice. So I stand corrected.

I've always looked to find the big-priced winners, and I really don't think any bookmaker is going to be pricing up competitively against the exchanges on that type of runner. I've never tried making a book, but I've always believed that the key in the very long term is for a bookmaker to bet to as close to 100% as possible at the front of the market, and rely on the occasional 25/1 shot winning for their profit. The thinking being that nearly every one of those 25/1 shots should really be 125/1 (as they are on here). The trouble is, if you started pricing them up at 125/1, you'd attract people like me, and bang goes your profit. So you keep them, quite rightly, at 25/1, don't lay them, and I end up sitting at home, where they're now on offer at 5 times the price.

So it's a standoff really. I don't want to back the horses you want to lay!

Very sad to see the betting rings so moribund nowadays and it will only get worse. But trying to come up with ideas to save it is a waste of time now, I'm afraid. Technology has taken away what on course bookmaking used to have. It's the same as high street shops trying to compete with online retail - the appeal of the latter is so great the former can't compete. Sometimes things just move on beyond the point of retrieval - for example how many on here would give up using their car in favour of riding a horse? Or would stop using a freezer/fridge in favour of a larder and going to the shops everyday? Sad but we are not the first generation to see something lost we all loved. In my first example, farriers and blacksmiths bemoaned the combustion engine.

I agree very much with WhiteHatJon. One of the reasons for actually going racing was trying to get better odds than SP.  Now that most bookmakers are only pricing up via Betfair, this aspect has gone. As others have said, you may as well bet on the exchange or with bookmakers online who are offering better place terms, etc.

Future even bleaker given the recent 'news' regarding SP's going forward likely to be no longer sourced from the betting Ring.

Can I just make a point made earlier about betting to 2% a runner or some other % per runner. This is a misleading and rather iniquitous approach as it leads to very poor value in big fields. The overround on 20 runners would be 40% and 80% for 40 runners. The overround is the only guide to the overall value in a market. Foxy was displeased with me last January when I commented on a thread re on course bookmakers at Uttox. As said earlier the horse may have bolted but if on course bookies were to bet to say 10-12% then I would bet with them rather than the exchange. I think they would also have to agree amongst themselves to keep all the money in the ring. They can't survive acting as  commission agents.

They*

Ffs adge why bother?

Tend to agree ribero the views expressed here are so entrenched and intransigent that any articulated well made points in favour of the oncurse books are completely pointless and given very little credence. Take note adge.

Fine thanks adge,unlike some i'm in no hurry to get back until as near normal as possible,restrictions won't work and as we can see with the current situation they take some lifting once they're in place,incidentally Democrat I tried to send you a private message the other day on this very subject.

Thanks ribero. Received, read and replied.

I used to post on these threads years ago but stopped because the majority just wanted to go on a bookie bashing trip and weren't interested in anyone's point of view but their own.  Hope all my fellow bookies are keeping safe and well.  We will be back, regardless of what certain parts of this forum think.

Bookmaking*

You often telling others to ignore me, why not come back with a proper reply?

I over the last two years on here have made a profit, after making a loss every single year previous, I am quite happy with the way things are going thanks, but I feel punters are being ripped off by some of your colleagues, and as this is a betting forum, i voice my opinion? I personally dont suffer from some of the absolute farcical prices (yes I go racing) that we constantly see in the ring, but Joe Public does suffer, you are nicking 10-30 pence of every pound in his pocket, not sustainable in modern times imo? in 20 years. I wouldn't mind racing still being here, it must transform.

I dont want anyone directly to lose their job, but imagine these folk thinking they have some sort of god given right to stand on courses, LITERALLY TRANSFERRING prices onto a board and making a lot of money from it? Its a job that requires little skill in this day and age and the pay deserves to reflect that?

I dont have anything against on course bookmakers themselves, but I do feel like the industry is better off without them on tracks if we are just seeing the constant 120-130% commission agent brigade out in full force, literally please correct me if I'm wrong:

-Look at betfair 30 mins before race
-Put prices up on the board all under betfair
-Take a bet from punter E at 4/1
-Have it back on here at 5.7 or just balance it up against all the other prices under betfair youve offered to punter A B C or D
-If it cant quite balance, take a risk or green it up?
-Repeat the process?

I struggle to see the importance of on course bookmakers in this day and age.

Change is the only real cert in life, yes tracks will close, and the future of Betting may have been planned around Media that the Public probably unable to (afford) sustain, hence Oncourse bookmakers could be on the way back, I would not have said this before 2005