A Professional Punter calls it quits - Open Letter

Thanks for posting.

Such a shame and a much missed contributor to the forum.

Alan is probably much less vindictive than me - but my mantra when confronted with a wall of ignorance or incompetence is "don't get mad, get even".

I think I would have been tempted to do them under the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 1995 for not recognising and providing a "service" accordingly for the deaf and hearing impaired!

I doubt you are looking in Alan (hopefully you are enjoying life) - but with your name, profile and reputation, are you not even just a little bit tempted to take "them" on and demonstrate the ridiculous oxymoron, that a winning bettor can be stopped from betting on grounds (or under the guise) of affordability?

A sad reflection on the state of the game & only gonna get worse. "Don't go mad, get evens!" Damon Runyon stated all of life is 6 to 5 against. My experience demonstrates, like life, those odds are too short!

That is a sad read. I think it is well known that Alan has tinnitus because that was the reason he give up his TV slot way back. GC is a useless quango that doesn't understand horse betting but Betfair should be absolutely ashamed of their part in his decision.

If Alan is reading this enjoy your retirement and thanks for your assistance when I was thinking of earning an income from racing which I finally did in 2003 (we met in the sadly closed Labour in Vain pub on a Fontwell raceday in 1999 and a few times after).

yeah but finding new edges to win is a different subject pipedreamer. Here we are talking about a long term "famous" winner that couldn't DEPOSIT more than £500 a month.

It should add he was literally one of the 'authors' of how to bet sensibly and profitably in his book work.

^
Go & play with your box of toys.
Boring ****.

"a consistent loser for two decades plus" - yet respected by many
Gaze loses for 5 years at 7% comm and everyone tells him to quit.

Gaze

I doubt you even know who he is, but most punters on here would; a poster with an aptly named profile name.

When you make a living from betting, own racehorses, a pundit on TV, an author of books and attain respect from many in the game, perhaps you will be considered with the same esteem, but until then, carry on with the absolute tosh you generally post. It's not surprising you are subject to ridicule on here.

What's his health issues Crippen u sea from photo

try having no exchange, 120-130% overround with the bookies and a 10% betting tax on top (unless you bet on course).

Yes please.

The bookies didn't have the exchange to tell them what odds to offer back then. It was a hell of a lot of easier to beat one man's personal opinion, even with a 120% overround and 10% tax, than it is now to beat the whole world with no overround but a 2% commission.

>The 2 decades losing were his first 2 decades straight out of school - its called learning the game.

I know, I'm not ridiculing him. I just hate how everyone here pretends that they were born experts, consistently raking in money after a few years of betting on horses. If Alan Potts was in a betting community, losing for 20 years and telling you his luck would turn next year because he has a good system, would you have believed him? Of course not. And yet, here we are. But god forbid Gaze takes his time learning the game, he should quit. I would say I have 10k hours invested into improving my racing systems over the years. There's plenty of time to make millions, why would I quit?

The old time pros could beat the odds compilers because they spent more time on the cards than odds compilers, the winning mentally of a successful pro gambler came at the expense of everything else that normal people enjoy, the only friends they had were on the racecourse, they are a thing of the past but many kidders are out there as per the new videos it seems every Tom is one now and they win fools gold

Who is the other 4?

.... not counting your good self SS

What's his health issues Crippen u sea from photo

Visceral fat, increased risk of diabetes, heart disease, and lots more.

Well I would put you in the top 10 SS. You always talk sense and act in a respectable manner.

So many good posters have sadly disappeared.

Redundant Punter was top class with his tips.

think I would have been tempted to do them under the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 1995 for not recognising and providing a "service" accordingly for the deaf and hearing impaired!


100% the way to go here (hear!)



Good luck, it's a bugga.

Well - just to say that I have also experienced similar problems as Mr. Potts except my stakes are far lower than his. For nearly 10 years now my stakes have been held at £10 win per horse or £10 e/w on higher priced selections plus multiple bets which come to about £30 per multiple bet per day. My total daily spend is around the £80 mark . My total stakes over the last nearly 10 years has just surpassed the £250,000 mark. My total returns have been above that mark. I started off using 12 bookies and over the years with closure or heavily restricted accounts I'm now down to two remaining workable online bookies. One of them a few months ago brought in these 'Affordability Checks', but the difference between me and Mr. Potts (and perhaps the majority of punters) is that I went ahead and accepted their request to effectively positively vet me with respect to my financial situation. I was on the phone to their head office in Gibralta for at least an hour as they quizzed me about everything finacial AND some personal information as well (girlfriends/wives etc.). Following that, they wanted to see documented proof of ALL my savings PLUS proof of all my income. So, I sent all the documents that I had to them via email. The one thing that they WON'T accept are screenshots of documents or photocopies. Documents must be the originals taken from the actual financial websites (ISA and Pension Investment Platforms etc.) Anyway, the result of all this was that they imposed staking restrictions of £200 per month I think it is. Their calculation is a bit more complicated as they take into account things like gains minus losses per month.

The one thing it seems that they are NOT interested in is your total savings. You can be a multi-billionaire (I'm not by the way .... just thought I would add that), but I don't think that they take that into account at all. I don't know if that is actually true, but it just seemed that way to me. What they ARE interested in is your annual income. Their restrictions seem to be based around that and that only.

Looking at the future, if I lose these last two remaining bookies, then I will just have to rely on the exchanges in which case I will have to say goodbye to any multiple bet choices which would be a great shame as they have been a not insignificant part of my total profits over the years. Just to add that the frequency of any major multiple bet wins have been one or two per year with daily betting on those multiples.

I thought that I would write this article here as punters may find it interesting.

Agree with glasgow.  Completely ridiculous spending all that time and divulging all that personal information for the sake of a bookmakers account.