Who has been here 20 years ?

JEEZ!
twenty years. Plus.
And I'm still a lowly two-quider.

Remember  getting  an invite  to attend  a training  course at Darlington  football  ground  I cant have been any good  as they sent me to the Gosforth  park the week later.used to love the hospitality  at the pub at Ascot  Station. Hope you are all well and get on the good thing in the Acombe  next week.
Ronnie.

It was separate (at least when I did it) - for a start had to add a different username, for obv security reasons.

Aug 16, 2024 -- 12:15PM, stewarts rise wrote:

Yep 20 years here, some times i do think i have wasted a lot of my life on here, but what else would i have wasted money and time on, Golf (boring), boozing (depressing and p1ssing it down the drain), womanising (that is a terrible addiction and costliest of the lot). At least form study and analysing the markets keeps your brain ticking and sometimes delivers great joy.

I reckon I'd go along with the analysis bit.
I was never, never HAVE been,  a big loser.
You wouldn't be able to feed a cat on my losses.
But I've become a bit more studious over the years and not being able top up one's account now does tend to focus the mind.

i had similar addictions-gambling drinking and sh@gging

but i managed to conquer one of them. and it wasnt that difficult

Stopped drinking at last have you, mitolo? 

20 years is a long time.

Did 20 years last month - You don't get 20 years for murder these days. Where did I go wrong....

rarely posting on Horse Racing but up to 22 years + now.. (May 2002)

very sad the direction the site took from it's early years...

used to recommend to everyone from those who fancied an occasional bet to much more serious types..

don't recommend it to anyone these days...

I first joined Betfair in 2002.  I left in suddenly in 2009.  I rejoined as a new customer on 13th Jul 2010.  It took Betfair about 2 months to realize that I had been here before and they then deducted the outstanding Premium Charge which I had withdrawn from my account in 2009 before they could get their hands on it.  I really thought that if I were really patient, I would get away with it.

I was with flutter which imo was better and betfair must have thought so as they took it over so my flutter account pre betfair was still going when betfair started and my first bet was oaks day 2000, it says that 36 punters placed a bet on it that day,  I remember it but they must have been seeding heavily like they did in the early days, my old account is still somewhere, what I can’t remember was when the forum started, was it first day or later, I just remember thinking at the time this is about to change everything and was amazed it was allowed as you could be a bookmaker without a licence, I was already well into computers so that first day would have been alien to most as most certainty didn’t have have one and most punters didn’t have a clue about betfair,
They used to send pens and diary’s all sorts early days but one of the most wrong thing was allowing betfair employees to bet when in running came in and they were not that consistent telling you there was a delay

Twas my 21st last December. Parole board in January, but they kept me here.

23+ here.....One of the perks was annual membership at Ascot for 2 with champagne on arrival

You can check out anytime you want..but you can never leave...

Indeed where has the time gone.. but we are all still here standing

first race of the Betfair Exchange was the Oaks 2000, with 30 bets only placed, wonder if any from that day are still on the Forum.

not me, came on 2yrs later.

Afraid so.

Would like to know how much in time I have looking at this screen.

To think what I could have done.

If you read upwards a bit ashleigh you will read that "Know All" was one of the 36 people to bet on the Oaks.
Also plenty of people have replied and many views, so why don't people create a thread of interest to the forum regularly?

barstool - if you enjoyed it, it wasn't wasted time...if you didn't enjoy it then...

Enjoyed all the winners stu

Still here ...Still losing....

lol, yep that's the issue, we have a dual experience in this game barstool!

I received a Betfair pack of playing cards when I joined, not sure how long ago that was. I'm 73 so the memory is  not reliable.

I've still got the pack of cards Glad I can still pick the winners 24 years on, Clint delivered today

Just getting the hang of it now .

Just over 2 hours a day adds up to about 2 years.

And 20+ year’s ago Drifters did nt win lol

22 years later...  Frightening how long a time.


Does anyone know what happened to other forumites who were here at the beginning such as Janov, Davix, No-good-byo, Infomaniac, Cgull, Big House, Johnn, Alain Charnier, etc ?   

They were good guys who had many interesting racing stories to share.

Think I was early 2001.
Had a mate from Twickenham who was a "trader" for BF.
His day was rolling into work with 12 cans of Stella, taking the odd telephone bet, betting on his own 0% comm account and tracking (frontrunning) his fav 2 big punters.  He ended up going courtsiding for someone he met at BF.
Seems like a lifetime back.

Flutter was funny, could you not see who you matched?

Stopped drinking at last have you, mitolo?

Became a gentleman of the wrist ,he's still smoking and drinking

I suppose I must've been, whatever that's worth.

Oneten, pretty sure infomaniac is still here and think has posted on this thread, unless i'm mistaken.

Oneten, pretty sure infomaniac is still here and think has posted on this thread, unless i'm mistaken.

.

Careful you don't say anything, matthew

Yup crazy early months had a bookmaker friend cheering when had his 1st on here, 3/1 £300 win.. unfortunately he had no idea what the blue or pink where, until checked his account no £900 profit but £900 loss and layed it by mistake .. he is still on track these days..

He's taken 24 years for 6 posts sparrow, takes his time.

We await with interest, stu.

After 20 years at this can anyone actually have an online bookmaker account left that is not restricted to max 0.94 pence or £4.70 etc, I have none been through them all

Same here, ruetheday2: None left, except here and daq.  It is the one's who closed me down who were unpleasant about it.  In particular VictorC and Bet365.  Victor sent me an email when I opened the account saying that we really wanted me to succeed with my gambling.  3 weeks later my online account was closed and I was told I couldn't ever bet with them again, anywhere.

i have a 653 account that is restricted to as much as i want

and its well in front. all others gone. and all except one losing. go figure

20 years....Yes.

16th May 2003

Me - 22 years of guessing

2005 but didn't start till about 2007 still have all the paper work they had sent me for every single bet I had placed for the month.

22 years....time flies

Seems to be a lot at 22 years.

Honourable mention to B3p, Slybet, Billies, Ladcrooks and Joe's plus some others like Uni who no longer have the pleasure of my business.

New boys on the block 1. MGM  ( big advert rockets going off on speed boat Chris rock ) lasted a month .. £1.87 max.. 2. Hollywood ..come back when your famous £1.30 max LOL

Only had one closure which was VC. That was because I took advantage of their offer to pay my RTV subscription so long as I placed 10 bets of £5 or more each month. I found that by being very selective with horses between 5/4 and 2/1 I was able to break even most months so after a year they closed me down. Back when I did bet in higher stakes than now, I had a couple of telephone accounts with small local bookies who knew which stables I had a horse with and were happy to lose a bit to me to get some info. Long time ago though. Now I would not dream of betting away from an exchange unless the internet was down.

Twenty three years . Don't have the stats to back it up but seems to be more racing now than there was then and a lot more lower grade. Getting to a stage where I prefer to sit down to watch the racing but at most courses there isn't much, if any, seating outside the members enclosure.

30th January 2003...I wouldn't join right at the start in case it went t1ts up!

They sent me a pack of playing cards one year, with their arrows logo on the back.
Still have it in it's original cellophane wrapper.

Some guy under the nickname Johnnie Walker was the earliest person on the forum. June 2000 I believe?

kingsnake516 Aug 24 17:11Joined: 22 Apr 04 | Topic/replies: 276 | Blogger: kingsnake5's blog
I received a Betfair pack of playing cards when I joined, not sure how long ago that was. I'm 73 so the memory is  not reliable.

I still have mine too! Just checked and the cards are still in their cellophane......

If you switch to 'Community Classic' from the current 'Beta' version it shows you people's joining dates when you hover over their name.

Madhatter -SNAP!

My pack came quite a while after joining, maybe even as a Xmas present?
I am almost 66.

Back then you could start a thread pick a few horses and whether they won or lost people on here were helpful but now the hate/rudeness is off the scale. 

22 years and still playing...

Yes Luckyme, the forum was choc-a-block full of decent threads discussing different views on racing with people putting forward the merits of their selections. You would get a handful of backers discussing a race 10 mins before the off and not slating each other for their picks. 

How times change. 

Now when a thread is put up to discuss a horse or a race no one comments on it unless its to abuse the jockey.

Shame, because I would hazard a guess that most of us here love horse racing and would enjoy a nice racing discussion with similar minded folk.

The abuse is a hundred times worse now

I've been here from day one.
It's quite surreal that it has been so long.

Beggars belief that so many of the abusive user names are joined by those who claim the abuse is worse now than the early days?

Oneten for example suddenly appeared asking for advice on what to do about his wife taking his children away from him, here he claims in depth racing discussion?

Pandora claiming abuse 100 times worse, where Pandora?

Just completed an enjoyable 24 years.

Still here after 21 plus years, still the same username too.

Never mind 20 years, one or two posters seem to be on 20 hours a day.

My version tells me how many years each person has been on here and how many posts they have made since they joined. Doesn't everyone's? This is my number 27470! My excuse is that I have been retired for all of the 23 years I have been a poster.

My pseudonym was originally delgarcon and I was here almost at the beginning.

Yep, under other names

I was here a few years before joining the forum,it was so different/basic back then,one big improvement now is being able to keep a bet after the off which is a reasonably newish feature.

Huge negatives are the premium charge on those lucky enough to be winners and the way  the BOTs have the place ruined.

Still here ,,,must be 20 years now

How can a bookmaker compete? I really fancied Brilliant Light who was rated best on flat and jump form at Tramore 2.03. Backed to win at 12,5 and 8,8, laid off at 7 and 3 so broke even. Backed for a place at 3.65, laid off at 1.5 and collected. With a more experienced rider it might well have won but the important thing is the ability to lay off in running. I saved my stake in 6 races out of seven yesterday. Yes that does mean I backed some losers but 2 did win and I only lost my stake once. With an SP bookmaker I would have lost 6 times out of my last 8 bets.

It is truly crazy Sageform that people that like to bet ignore the exchange.
I have loads of friends that like a flutter but none of them use it.....madness.
When mates bet on golfers and horses at 25/1.....you tell them that they could have backed them at 40's on here and they still make no effort to join.

And explaining trading out to them is a waste of breath!

It is odd that BF had a lot less difficulty in attracting the more casual punters, earlier in it's existence - the whole exchange was booming including forum, and a large amount of casual punters playing here.

Which begs the question of why don't casuals use the exchange as much these days? They are out there still, betting with bookies.

Are they? It would be interesting to do a survey as to why? I am a small stakes punter who enjoys playing around and I am happy to bet at 5 and lay at 3 even if I have a few winners and wonder why I laid off. I well remember the frustration of backing 4 seconds with a bookie and losing on them all.

Who has been ere less than 5 year

Bookies still make enough from the mug racing punters every year - so they must be out there. Many even playing online, which makes it even more amazing that they don't find this place and use it instead.

madhatter 18 Aug 24 14:47 
It is truly crazy Sageform that people that like to bet ignore the exchange.
I have loads of friends that like a flutter but none of them use it.....madness.
When mates bet on golfers and horses at 25/1.....you tell them that they could have backed them at 40's on here and they still make no effort to join.

And explaining trading out to them is a waste of breath!


I think that the exchange and forum, for the most part, pretty much from day 1 is inhabited by people that were already diehard racing bettors and immediately appreciated what an exchange had to offer and perhaps football betting fans, like madhtter says, I've got mates in their 20's and 30's that when I explain the exchange to them you can tell it's going in one ear and out the other.

What would the average age on here be, got to be 40+, we're a reflection of the good old days when betting shops were full, we're now a reflection in the popularity of racing dying, youngsters coming in now are not interested in racing and just don't understand what the exchange is all about, they just want their tenner bet builder on the next football game. That baldy advert where you've got 4 or 5 20 somethings discussing corners and bookings is it in a nutshell.

Plenty of bookmaker punters on this forum though.

Incredible how so many of you are comparing your youth with the youth of today and assuming they do not know about exchanges, they don't rely on smoke filled shops populated with the dregs of society and the Sporting Life's crap so called journalists.

More likely the reason they are not flocking to the exchanges is because they are more savvy than the old goats on here and in fact are the ones stealing all your money!!!?

Many are not interested in 'trading out'. For some reason this seems to be unbelievable to some.

CagliariG 18 Aug 24 18:13 
Incredible how so many of you are comparing your youth with the youth of today and assuming they do not know about exchanges, they don't rely on smoke filled shops populated with the dregs of society and the Sporting Life's crap so called journalists.


Wonderfully put Cagliari, you're certainly the man on the spot... ahhh the good old days

MJK 18 Aug 24 18:25 
Many are not interested in 'trading out'. For some reason this seems to be unbelievable to some.


But they are all there hammering the shockingly bad cash out button

Many on here never lay a horse as well.

sparrer, bookmakers can be very handy, with the obvious proviso about getting on

whenever i told people about notfair and i/r they always said 'i could do that easy-i know how to read a race'

maybe some could but notfair were sleeping on the picture problem and ruined it

The software murdered in running and plenty more besides.

the software enabled it and is the greatest bargain of all time. dunno why you say that

pre-notfair id never looked at a pc so had to get someone to teach me-it took ages- and then someone else to explain gruss and how it worked. must have taken 6 months, im so thick

the geezer who explained gruss had left his job in the city to trade rugby on notfair, and he did, incredibly. dunno how it is now though with liquidity

mitolo 18 Aug 24 18:56 
the software enabled it and is the greatest bargain of all time. dunno why you say that





I say that because I believe in a level playing field.

Laying or trading has to be done by using the keep button. Otherwise you get stung by the big picture delay. If you decide at what price you want to get out before the race starts the delay does not arise. It is amazing how quickly a price falls if a horse is travelling well. I was out of Brilliant Light after 2 flights of hurdles. 12.5 down to 7.

the old level playing field

never played on one. and the software is available to all, for nothing so i dont get that. as i bored on about earlier, it broke my brain learning how to use it, and cost me a chunk. first click emptied me bank

the pics were the prob and hd was a disaster when it came in

But, at the end of the day, leaving the whole trading issue aside, you nearly always get a much better price for your selection on here than anywhere else.

Yet the majority of the gambling public either choose to ignore this or are ignorant of the fact.
It just seems very strange to me to not be an exchange player if you have any seriousness at all about your gambling.

Contrary to what you say mad, Matt Thompson an on course layer says that he and another bookmaker regularly offer better than the Exchange and do not restrict the size of bet. The only way the exchange can sell itself as being better is the book outside the front 3 or 4 in the betting?

As Matt alludes to, get to the track if you are a serious bettor and restricted, pointless using this place for peanuts and paying commission for anyone other than lazy small time punters?

I don't see that as necessarily relevant to my point really Cag.
I think being a serious better is well detached from going to an on-course bookie.

You can bet as much as you want on the fancied horses on here, there is more than enough liquidity on here near the off time for anyones bet.
The odds are generally better throughout the market, even with commission (although admittedly that does have a real impact on your % returns if you are someone that wants to bet the real shorties).

Plus:
You don't have to travel the country (time and money consuming) and pay admission fees to put your bets on.
Also, most importantly, you can hold down a full time salaried job (or a decent pension!) so there is no real pressure on you when you're on a bad run.

I bought a great piece of software that in the early days I though was the holy grail as you would win or get your money back automaticaly and leave it running all day on your chosen horses so it would place the bet just before the race started then would lay back as soon as the race started as a keep bet, as long as they ran well at some stage in the race I was hitting around 8 out of 10 and you could choose what level and how much percentage wise you got back, you could also lay and do the reverse if laying was your game, it lasted about 2 years and when I enquired why it was not continuing the reason given was it was too far ahead of time as betfair punters didn’t not want to bet like that and it took a lot of explaining of how it worked when in fact is was simple to use, also a example was if you had a winner at 6/1 and it paid 3/1 but you’d also get your stake money back in 8 out of 10 times even not winning, punters wanted 6/1 not 3/1 as they didn’t want the money back if it lost, really odd but that’s why it finished I was told and sums punters up, it was about 2008/9 so well early and why it didn’t take off imo, I also remember when betfair had the automatic software before they allowed others to sell there software , it was very good and they just didn’t want to carry on with it but most would be winning with it and that was not good for business

madhatter is 100% correct with regard to betting on here as opposed to bookmaker betting.

Top post madhatter v good description of the benefits of being on here vs other betting methods.

If anyone suggests that you can beat Betfair by betting with on course layers instead then you are very much mistaken. I can only use the Southern tracks that I frequent as a yardstick though.

The great days of the forum late 90s.

Idiot.  Late 00s i meant.
Apr 04

agree with most of what madhatter says but it can be hard to decide on what is a value price. I would love to see a big survey of Betfair SP compared to betting on the exchange 6 hours, 3 hours or 30 minutes before a race. I suspect that 90% of winners are better odds backed at Betfair SP. I keep trying to do it more but when you see a price about a horse you really fancy it is always tempting. You would think I would know better after 23 years on here On some days I am doing something else when my big fancy of the day is running but 2 minutes before the start is probably the optimum time.