Wadacre Gomez sp

I hear what you're saying but the price on here has no effect on the SP.

Yes I fully understand that phs but hills were showing 4/1 as they came out of the stalls yet returns 100/30

Been doing it since time began jimnast….off a three return 11/4 etc ….nothing new

What I can’t understand form is we now have an industry sp so if it’s 4/1 as they set of how’s it returned 100/30 ?

Bookmakers shows are nothing like oncourse shows

I know that Freddie I have never mentioned on course shows

Jimnast -- it is natural that some books will have been offering better odds than the final SP.

The SPRC (Starting Price Regulatory Commission) says as much on their website: For each horse in a race the prices on offer by all bookmakers in the sample are ordered into a list from longest to shortest. The list is then divided into two equal halves and the SP is the shortest odds available in the half containing the longest odds. The SP or a longer price will have been offered by at least half the bookmakers in the sample.
http://www.thesprc.org/rules-regulations/

freddiewilliams -- the on-course market has nothing to do with SPs since Covid. Prices are taken from off-course firms.

Ah, I wonder if this provoked the OP, who thinks Hills were offering the on-course ring price like in the old days. Now it is the other way round. As I've just said, it is Hills (and the rest) who make up their own prices and the SP is based on those.

(Just noticed that Bruce Millington, who has retired from the Racing Post, is now a director of the SPRC.)

Thanks ramruma for posting the sprc rules it explains it but what a farce.

Just to clarify what I mean

Stood in a hills betting shop watching the Wolverhampton race the show is 4/1 on this exchange it’s 5 7 so it’s looks right as it’s not a bad each way race ,this show is as the last  horse is going into the stalls and then the off,yet when the horse wins the sp is 100/30 ,at a time when punters are walking away from the sport how can this be acceptable.

Yes the optics are bad but that is because you are misinterpreting what has happened. It is bad because probably most punters think the same way and become disillusioned.

The 4/1 was not "the show". The 4/1 was Hills' last price. This 4/1 was then mashed together with Ladbrokes, BetFred and the others to produce the SP of 100/30.

But most punters still think of the old days when the betting shops relayed show prices from the ring, and SP prices also came from the ring, so in most cases the last show would indeed match the SP.

All this changed during the Covid lockdowns when no-one (or hardly anyone) could go racing and bet on-course, and was not changed back when normal racing and betting resumed. Betting shop punters who have not kept up with the changes will believe they are being ripped off.

As someone who goes racing I’m well aware of the situation regarding the sp going to the firms a temporary measure until the pandemic is over ,

You can see why the online / shops got the taste for it you can have all the mashing up you want 4/1 on the off returns 100/30 isn’t good even for betting shop punters as you call them.

May I add around 200 days a year and still use betting shops

Hills market share is now only about 10%. Whether that means they have less clout on the final SP? Either way it's hard to imagine your 4-1 at the off would ever return 5-1 ISP, it's scandalous.

There was an instance about 3 weeks or so back, I think at Wolverhampton, where there was a late withdrawal, no time to reform the market, and one of the horses was given as second fav on the SPs scrolling along the screen once the race was underway, had then been cut into joint-favourite. As it happened, it didn't win, but I nearly started a thread about it.

Can't remember the horse but it will come back to me.

The SPRC (Starting Price Regulatory Commission) says as much on their website: For each horse in a race the prices on offer by all bookmakers in the sample are ordered into a list from longest to shortest. The list is then divided into two equal halves and the SP is the shortest odds available in the half containing the longest odds. The SP or a longer price will have been offered by at least half the bookmakers in the sample.
http://www.thesprc.org/rules-regulations/

freddiewilliams -- the on-course market has nothing

Every day is a school day, never new that.

So how many firms mske up the sample now?

You say off course but is that tinternet and high street or both?

Are there any high street chains not on the internet? They must represent at least 1.5 per cent of the market, and also have an automated feed *to* the PA in order to send their prices. They also need a trading department to set their own prices. Realistically they will be on the web and not a 2-shop independent with sawdust on the floor.

I would have thought this would be an interesting topic for one of the racing channels or the Racing Post to cover with a behind-the-scenes view of a day's racing. Maybe they've done it and I missed it.

OK cheers, not sure about high street not on Internet, but a few Internet not on high street, hence the question.(You say off course but is that tinternet and high street or both?)


Thanks for the reply, do you know the sample size? And are the likes of coral and ladbrokes just get one shot?

The sample size is at least three and there is no maximum. How big it is in practice for any given race is not clear.

I should be clear that I am not an insider. I'm just reading from the SPRC website at:-
http://www.thesprc.org/

This is an extract from that site. Note the item in bold would apply to Ladbrokes and Corals (and Sky) which are owned by Entain but if they price races independently of each other, which is easily possible, they can provide separate inputs; otherwise, no.

Price Source Provider – Qualifying Criteria
Bookmakers considered for inclusion in the SP sample must fulfil the below criteria:

Prices must be available to customers in Great Britain.

Prices must be offered with each-way terms.

Any participating bookmaker must undertake to provide a robust connection to the Press Association’s (PA) API to facilitate
data delivery.

Each bookmaker must provide an independently priced feed and not recycle the PA’s live show price.

Where more than one participating bookmaker is in the same ownership group a maximum of one feed per group will be considered, unless there is compelling evidence prices are independently controlled and competing.

Any price source provider must reasonably be expected to constitute a minimum of 1.5% of the total betting market for British horse racing. The SPRC will assess whether any new price source meets the minimum criteria using publicly available data.

So the punter who chooses to go in hills for a bet ends up with other firms prices.


Would the person in charge of the sp system be truly independent?

The Hills punter can take Hills' pre-race price or take SP. That was always the case, and SP always included prices from firms other than Hills although it used to be on-course ring books.

The difference inside the Hills shop is the pre-race shows are now from Hills themselves, and not from the sample that will make up the SP. In the old days, Hills would use the industry standard pre-race shows. In a smaller chain's shops, punters may well be offered the PA's feed pre-race prices that will be used for the SP.

The "person" in charge of the SP system is the SPRC (Starting Price Regulatory Commission).

The Board of the Commission currently consists of five independent Non-Executive Directors. From 6th April 2021 the SPRC has been chaired by Nick Rust, former Chief Executive at the British Horseracing Authority. His fellow directors are Lord Lipsey, a former director of the Tote, Richard Hayler, Managing Director at Independent Betting Adjudication Service (IBAS), Bruce Millington, former editor of the Racing Post for 11 years, and Mike O’Kane, a member of the Horserace Betting Levy Board and a senior executive in the betting industry over many years.
http://www.thesprc.org/structure/

Even if you think those five are complete muppets, at least they are independent muppets.

Thanks for the effort ramruma what a mess it can only chase punters away


Regarding the chair he isn’t a man of his word and would not be independent no wonder the whole game is in trouble

Dress it up all you like, if a Horse was 4/1 on its LAST show and returns 100/30 its a pheckin farce and possibly illegal trading, I would say if it was me I would contact the GC but that would only make me look stupid.

Hills were possibly a stand out price with the High St bookies. Punters sat in Laddies May have been seeing 10/3 on their screens just before the off. The SP is the only universal price.

the problem with this method is you have no idea what the 'SP' is likely to be, zero transparency, cartel springs to mind, surprised it's been allowed.

s.kenbo is right. GLASGOWCALLING has missed the point again but in doing so highlights a greater truth. It *looks* crooked to the ordinary betting shop punters who do not grasp the difference between a Hills-only show and the consolidated feed and SP.

swiftynifty -- you do know what the SP is likely to be if you can see the PA's consolidated show, either on television or in a small betting shop.

Exactly my point Swifty, but more succinctly put.

How can I have missed the point AGAIN when I have only made one comment. ? 

Ramruna, I assumed those 'other' prices weren't visible in the shops any more, so you take the Hills or whoever's price or leave it to chance which is no doubt what the vast majority of punters do.

So the consolidated feed is an on-going, updated price right up to SP? But in nearly all chains you won't be able to see it?

.... Alongside the signs stating  " These markets are highly volatile, your assumed SP at the start of the race may well be considerably less at the end of it "

swiftynifty: That is what I understand to be the case. The big chains will show their own prices, presumably starting from their traders' tissues but then updated from customers' bets over the internet, whereas smaller chains and television stations can show the live PA feed which is compiled in the same way as SP.

Before this system of offcourse-based SPs, the PA shows would be used everywhere and be based on prices PA reporters saw in the ring, which is where SPs came from. Then and now, therefore, the PA show should be close to final SPs.

GLASGOWCALLING -- SP may also be higher.

The point is SP is an average (median) price so there will have been some prices above and some below SP. Hence winners and losers in the shops.

If Hills are 4/1 and Ladbrokes 2/1, then an SP of 3/1 will have Hills punters screaming foul and Ladbrokes punters thinking it is Christmas.

In theory it's swings and roundabouts, most punters are not price sensitive, so win some, lose some.

Even with a cut from the betfair price, with the over-rounds and non-transparency in the shops, you'd think exchange shops would still exist. Am i right that they've all gone?

It's OK saying that but without actually independently checking  the prices offered across all the known firms in the sample on a few random races on a regular basis   you wouldn't really know how honest  and accurate the system is at producing an honest SP.

Problem is the hight street firms offer better prices on Internet but you would think this would produce the occasional higher returned SP  than what is actually being offered in shop, can't say I have seen one for years that has, like say even a 7/4  returned 2/1.Doesnt happen.

Not saying it isn't honest and without knowing how shop v high street from same firm is worked I wouldn't like to say.

Internet offering higher prices and shop is actuall perhaps? 

In shop is worstest imvho, and not long ago the prices on screens  are not realistic  are not available, can not be taken, and prices on terminal were diff. Stopped trying to take a price on occasional times I was in shop, the annoying thing is everywhere on Internet is  generally bigger, but there is no way of knowing what is correct price other than ON HERE.