Always wondered - in fact suspected - that ppking was also Alain Charnier.

Thanks Loper.

living in the past......load of pony

No 18 next race craig

'private subscription horseracing advisory service to the gentry'

- Turpin & Crook.

Betfair changed the face of the betting industry when launching what would become the world's largest online exchange 20 years ago. In two decades the company has muscled its way to the top of the division, capped by a mega merger with Paddy Power in 2016. 


An early companion for the nascent exchange was the Betfair forum, which brought together a community who not only traded on the exchange but also traded opinion, banter and insults with like-minded individuals.
In an era long before Twitter and influencers on social media, the Betfair forum was racing's soundboard, a place where voices could emerge and be heard.


It was also a place for professionals to share their expertise, while those with less experience had a chance to pick up valuable tricks of the betting trade. Not always without controversy, it was organic, real and more often than not entertaining to observe.

The beginning
Betfair's first market was the 2000 Oaks at Epsom, won by Love Divine on June 9, on which just £1,476 was matched. It did not take long for business to mushroom and, by the time of the 2005 Oaks, more than £2.7 million was matched. It was a similar story for the forum, which started as a small and select community but expanded into its own universe. 


Mark Davies, part of Betfair's founding team
We had a very loyal group of people at the start. The internet was right at its infancy back then and these things didn't exist – it was all new. Therefore the people who found us and used us absolutely loved us and coined the term for themselves as the 'Betfairians' and they became the group that would exchange banter on the forum. It brought those people together in the way a chatroom is absolutely meant to. They'd exchange stories about what they thought, their tips and the bets they'd made.


The birth of Betfair: 'You're illegal and we're going to shut you down' - how the exchange survived and won
Barry Orr, Betfair's current head of public relations and part of the company since 2003
The reason behind the forum initially was that it mirrored the betting exchange. We brought people together to bet against each other and the forum was a natural community where those people could engage with each other. That's what it was all about – to create a community for people who bet on the exchanges to talk to each other. For racing it was a precursor for Twitter.


Coming together
Those who used the forum in its formative years remember a vibrant environment boasting a healthy mix of information and humour that made for an entertaining platform on which to engage.
Joe Saumarez Smith, among the first ten to post on the forum as soapy j


When the Betfair forum came along there was a remarkable number of shrewd people on there who taught other people how betting worked. They put up decent information, talked about the mathematics and explained that laying horses blind was not a good strategy. I think a lot of the early users of Betfair learned about gambling from the forum. I learned loads from it. There were lots of very sharp people and lots of people who were specialists in obscure areas.
Professional punter Matt Williams
The Betfair forum at its best was full of humour, useful information, the occasional bit of needle and a sprinkling of spite. There was a time when I was working on the Trading Post, in the Racing Post, and we had to cherry-pick the best content for use in the paper the following day. The forum had a generous, knowledgeable following, with various members of the racing press known to get involved from time to time, and things could often turn spicy on there. All the ingredients for a worthwhile, vibrant and social experience online.


Barry Orr
You had some of the finest racing minds on there. Obviously it was always under a pseudonym but initially there was great debate and some really interesting threads. It was real-time messaging. A race would just be over and someone would create a thread on it and you'd get 20 or 30 interactions straight away. Before anyone had ever heard the word 'influencers', there were people influencing on the forum, talking about betting in-running, talking about different software you could use or posting tips. Some really well-informed people would post and it was an exciting place.


Graham Wheldon, Racing Post spotlight writer and on the forum as Chompy
I'm not sure the Betfair forum was ever a community really – more a good place to wind people up. I think it was mainly pro punters on there, who in breaks between races would tap into the forum and mess around a bit. It was people dangling bait to see who would bite.


Kevin Blake, ITV racing pundit known as Irish Whisper on the forum
I don't have a racing background and wouldn't have had a lot of friends who were into racing and it's amazing the amount of people I met through the forum that I went on to meet at the racecourse, many of whom I'm still good friends with. At the time Betfair was a new frontier and I found it great. They put in an Irish forum fairly early and everyone got to know each other well. We'd meet up on the big racedays for a few pints.
Barry Orr: "The forum was a community for people who bet on the exchanges"



Alan Crowhurst
Everyone a winner
It was not just the Betfairians who benefited from the forum, with the brains behind the business using it as a sounding board for what was and wasn't working for their infant company. It was also a platform for would-be professional punters and aspiring journalists to cut their teeth.


Mark Davies
We used to use the forum quite a lot as the customer feedback. We'd read it and see what people wanted. They didn't necessarily feel they were telling us when they put it up and, like any third-party conversation, when you eavesdrop you get better feedback than when you ask for the feedback directly.


Barry Orr
From a business point of view, it kept people engaged with the website as well. When they weren't involved in the race, they'd go on to the forum. Our guys were always on the forum because, if there was a problem with the site or a market wasn't up properly, the first place you'd hear about it was on there.


Kevin Blake
I cut my teeth writing on there as a teenager. I started to write race previews and give opinions and you'd get feedback straight down the pipe with no sugar coating, so it wasn't a bad place to learn and it directly helped me. I was in college at the time and not enjoying it. I sent CVs everywhere and the only response I got was from the Irish Field, because Donn McClean was there at the time and he was familiar with my writing on the forum. They gave me a crack because of that.


James Knight, Coral trader who posted on the forum as the mole


It's very similar to Twitter now. Anyone who works for a bookmaker wants to be alive to what's going on. There were always bits and pieces that came into the public domain via the Betfair forum, so it definitely helped. If you didn't look at it you'd probably see a massive move for something and then realise someone posted it half an hour ago. Anyone who follows a sport closely will want to immerse themselves in anything where there's interesting news and views. It used to be quite funny and very informative at the same time.   
Paul Smith, Racing Post spotlight writer known as Quito on the forum


Eddie Fremantle was a big user and, once you realised there were clever people on there, it paid to follow because you never know everything. There were some nuggets on there. It sailed a little too close to the wind sometimes but it was in the early days of online communities and a good way for like-minded people to discuss what was going on.   
James Knight (centre): "The forum used to be quite funny and very informative"

Happy memories
From big-priced tips to racing folklore, everything was covered in conversation on the forum in its heyday, with no shortage of tall tales from those closest to it.

Joe Saumarez Smith
There was a fantastic rugby league guy who knew the game inside out. He had no clue about staking but when he wrote out his thinking on a game it was fantastic. There was another guy called Don Butler. His forum name was Cubone. His spelling was atrocious but it was just the most fantastic history of racecourse bookmaking. The insight and the stories, you could read them for hours. That's what I miss. In the early years it was almost self-policing. If people posted good stuff others rewarded it, but if you just put up selections you'd get taken apart. It was gambling Twitter before its time.


Paul Smith
It was good fun and the characters were definitely there. Most of the people who were the funniest were the most informed. I remember ppking and janov, who was a tremendous character. He was a 6ft 10in giant with a broad Bristol accent. He was so sarcastic and posted some belters. Then there was a hapless Scottish tipster called Aceform, who was the good guy to ppking's villain. He did a series of tipping challenges, including 'One A Day, The Aceform Way'. I met a lot of them at the races and most were very different to how you imagined them to be and I still see some of them regularly.


Kevin Blake
There were some great old characters on there and a good few high-profile people. One that stands out was Mike Futter, who owned Monty's Pass and used to post on there. You couldn't read what he was saying and not back Monty's Pass for the National. He was open with everyone that he really fancied the horse. That was a memorable one. It was fun to read ppking, janov and Aceform, who tended to write as he would have spoken. He put up his bets every day and was clearly not the best punter. He was having a good bet one day on a horse over fences and the horse ended up refusing. He half jumped the fence and ended up stuck on top of it. The first post that came up on the original thread where he'd posted the selection was from ppking, saying: 'Your horse appears to be perched on top of a fence, Aceform.' It was merciless. There were plenty of professionals on there too, like Emmet Kennedy, Graham Cunningham, Justin O'Hanlon and Richard Hoiles.


Graham Wheldon
I used to use the 'specials' forum for Big Brother stuff. Some of that was quite useful. The main guy on there was DJ Sunset - he was worth following and a well-known punter. The specials forum was probably more useful than the racing one in my opinion and good fun when Betfair was at its peak.


James Knight
There were some good discussions on the ante-post forums where people would argue who was the better horse, Moscow Flyer or Azertyuiop, and those sort of debates that don't happen as much now. There were some clever people on there and, if you knew who the right people were, you could learn quite a lot. There used to be interesting things on the general betting threads – about the state of the industry, commission rates and Betfair's premium charge. There were some very well-informed people on there speaking about where betting was going and that's as much of a miss today as the silly fun stuff.


Matt Williams
At the beginning, and for a lengthy period of time, you had strength in numbers, which inevitably lends itself to healthy, often informative debate. It was a great place for punters to vent their frustrations over a bad ride, poor training performance, outrageous bad luck or an annoying pundit infiltrating your living room on any given day – and I wasn't immune from criticism myself. As long as it doesn't get too personal, I think that's a good thing. There were so many characters like Warwick hunt, DoubleD, muffinman and Alain Charnier, who were bang into their racing and prolific on there.


Turning sour
Despite such a positive, revolutionary beginning, the forum eventually started to take a different direction, with insight all too often being replaced with insults. A combination of Betfair's huge popularity and vast increase in users, as well the invention of various social media outlets, all had consequences.


Mark Davies
It was the best of Betfair but it was also the worst. It went through a period when it was utter misery because people would just say horrible things in the way they do on forums. I have as much sympathy for anybody as I was the target of quite a lot of the toxic posts because I was Betfair's public face. It's a bit like Twitter today, people think they can write what the hell they want.


Barry Orr
It was a bit of a minefield and did cause us some headaches in terms of who was responsible for the content that was aired on there. But it was never meant to be that sort of a place. It was meant to be a community talking about the exchange but a certain element seemed to take hold of certain threads and drove out a lot of well-informed people. Then Twitter came along and a lot of that opinion is on there now.


Matt Williams
Some of the stick dished out was unfair, maybe even out of order, and after a while the forum became quite toxic. Accusations of foul play and crooked rides used to fly around the place, as well as cruel jibes, and personally speaking I naturally moved away from the day-to-day involvement. I couldn't be arsed with the fact the scales, over time, were weighted in favour of the nasty stuff. I'd imagine it was a similar story for plenty of other members as well.


James Knight
That's the nature of social media – you get the early adopters who feel they are part of something different and it's all good fun and then you get an influx of anonymous people. As there was more abuse and anonymous people saying things about others, I think people became bored of it. Unfortunately, people turn down posting interesting stuff because they don't want to engage.

Edward Whitaker


The present day
The forum lives on to this day but appears to have slipped down the pecking order as the place to be heard when the big talking points arise.


Joe Saumarez Smith
Forums are a little bit past it now. People have moved on to Twitter and younger bettors would consider it to be an old format.


Mark Davies
I've not followed it since I left Betfair but I would think the reason it's changed is as much a function of the growing user base as anything. When we had just a few thousand customers it was like a club but there's several million customers now. It's much harder to gain a cachet on there.


Barry Orr
There're still interesting people posting interesting stuff but it's not anywhere near as influential as it was.


Kevin Blake
After I've worked on TV I'll have a look because you know you'll get direct feedback on there and, even if it's nasty, I don't mind because there's often some truth in there.   


Matt Williams
I'll still have a look at the forum and it's got some of the old characters lingering, those who have stood the test of time. And, like the old days, you can still pick up the odd nugget of info and get more than a whiff of decency.

They never ever mention The Betfair Forum now it's Social Media.Still people well worth listening to on here including me and a couple of others.

Matt williams try to steal   the last chip off the tramp on the park bench with a drone consortium talking about a whiff of  decency ,
best Betfair threads in my time were the heads n tails thread
aceforms threads who I've been accused of been
the chit chit detective agency on the Bristol pizza murder and recently body in the river mystery/non mystery