Ted Hegarty: Bookmaking profession crying out for new blood

Ihave been in shelbourne for the last few saturdays A, D. and its hard to find any real value with the bookies[ some of them are a joke] the tote no dought has taken a lot of buisness away from TED AND CO but the present times and the lack of funds have a lot to do with the situation at shelbourne. i had a falling out with Ted over a bet a few years ago and have.nt been near him since, but he is right about the future of bookmaking at the tracks.

There is so much new, strategic, innovative and radical thinking required for all these old busted models and it requires someone with a strong vested interest to make it happen.

Its not going to come from jaded bookies scraping a living or in semi-state bodies whose corn is handed to them on a plate every year to run the horse and dog industries.

Nothing changes until everything changes.

was it because they were concerned about the sp of certain dogs or races coming in under 100% ?

Ted makes it sound as simple as pie , Well i'm sorry to say , like franko i had a run in with Ted many years ago over my last £40 , I asked for a bet of 40 to win a ton and he refused me , knowing full well i had lost my tonsils with him that night ,I've only had about 4 bets with him since and that's over 14 yrs ago ....Ted has a lot to answer for imo ...I wonder why so many bookies have left the profession ,Yet Ted and his sons continue to flourish ..Maybe he might care to answer that ....

Are his own sons not young,step down and give them a chance.

I think the degrees he alleges they have are of the Rocketfingers variety.

It is quite extraordinary that Workrider Kavvies friend and Frank all have had problems with him as a good friend of mine had an unholy row with him at Punchestown some years back,it soured him didn't go racing for ages after it.

Once upon a time greyhound racing and betting flourished here in the North ( where it all started track wise initially via Celtic Park --now a shopping centre ) .

In the run up to and including the  2nd world war years attendances of 10 to 20 thousand at a meeting were not uncommon , second highest attendance ever anywhere in the world was at Celtic Park --42,000 approx one night in the 1930's . There were regularly 50 plus bookies on the "inside" , and 100 plus on the "outside" .  Turnover was huge , one prominent bookie I knew was £3000 up after 3 races one night at Celtic , a semi detached house in a good area locally cost £500 then . And it wasn't a final night or anything , just a normal Friday night .

Plenty of money about  , my father had dogs and although it was never discussed at home I suspect he often had bets of up to a grand laid without difficulty . He stopped having dogs in late forties  , family and business considerations the big factor , plus a few unsuccessful punts in a row  , never discussed though , my mother might fill in the blanks now , but it is a long time ago and the world has moved on a lot since then .

So being an on track bookie must have been lucrative then , huge turnover , particularly during the war when the Yanks were about and had money to burn relative to exchange rates etc . Thats why there were so many  bookies, earning a good living , and not afraid to lay because there was a competitive market .The punters had few alternatives , SP bookies were viewed as undesirables by the state here , subject to repeated visits to court  , and regular fines etc and harassment .

All change now , 5 or 6 I hear ( I dont go ) at our local track , one or two bigger punters , the rest just "night out " punters .  Little interest , no media interest or publicity .  Tote used to be big here in 1930's , two of my aunts worked in it in the early days pre marriage and children . State legislation did not encourage it though , too big a Presbyterian influence in government .

Went greyhound racing most nights while I was working in Dublin in the early 1960's , good crowds then even mid week at Shelbourne  , and lesser ones at Harolds Cross .  Plenty of bookies then , and they would take a bet ( not from me , I was not earning enough to be a flambeau punter  , and they were all other peoples dogs ! ) .

But with 24/7 betting facilities and opportunities nowadays , the punters need to have a bet is easily satisfied , it is supply and demand in reverse  , and if you are betting on golf or football or cricket or whatever you have a good idea what the participants have had for supper before they grace the stadium or track  .

Cant see a lot of light at the end of the tunnel , horse racing in Ireland is also such a good product ( generally) that greyhound racing cannot compete on a similar level , and even if the bookies involved in both sports overlap there has been , and will continue to be , fewer bookies standing  in both sports .  The high street bookies dont give a fiddlers about greyhound racing unless its on the box and can generate revenue for them .

Sad , but possibly inevitable .

6/4 2 2 4/5 2 6/4 253% lol

How do you expect anybody to bet in pups races when there is so much information hidden to the bookmakers trying to price the races up. Do you expect them to bet 9/2 the field,is that what you are saying ?. If they bet to 300% and went evns each of 6,no bookmaker would want to lay a decent bet and who would blame them.
As for Hegarty,now this is a unique operator who has stood the test of time,unlike hundreds of his counterparts. I happened to clerk for him one derby final night,and he was and more than likely still is a proper bookmaker. The speed he could call bets at was frightening,as were some of the sizes of the wagers. Its not just all bluster like most of them so called layers,this man will lay monster wagers and still does to this day. He deserves alot of admiration in my opinion,because he has the whole game sewn up nowadays,and workrider wonders why he continues to flourish. It might have something to do with that he works harder than the rest,has better contacts than the rest,has better customers than the rest,and knows more about the dogs than the rest.

But if they are pricing races to 250% then they are more or less saying that they dont want to lay a bet on these individual races. I made a book myself at the dogs one time and to be honest with you it wasnt the lack of success that forced me to pack them in,it was that i couldnt do both horses and dogs,and the dogs were only a pastime for me really. I wasnt a big winner at them either,because it wasnt high stakes stuff,but i could win enough to pay a few bills thats all. I found though that pups races were never too beneficial to myself,although during the boom it didnt seem to matter that losing a few hundred on pups races really mattered because you had a chance of getting it back with interest later on. Suddenly i could see that people were not interested in parting later on,and quite a few punters only wanted to bet in pups races when they had a second or more in hand.

WITH odds like that MAX no wonder they call them the 60mins cleaners.

I only know of Hegarty from the races so accept others opinion on him with regards greyhounds but what can't be denied is he has been involved in countless disputes at the races,it now transpires he has a similar reputation at the hounds.

Jimeen my comments re ted were tongue in cheek , The fact is Ted has ruined greyhound racing imo , Think about what he said ,For years I kept a few dogs, trained them myself and had some good winners , Jimeen , Some of them were pups who ran in puppy races the kind you said you disliked laying in ...Ted often stepped from his stool and ran the line backing his own dogs , I'm sure having worked for him you'd know that the sp was almost always returned from his board ..Have a think about that ...Yes he's as pure as the driven snow is Ted....

Kavvie,dont be so ridiculous will you please. How can anybody price pups races when they have never been seen in public before. Obviously breeding has a bit to do with it,as do the dogs connections,and then there are their trials. Apart from inside information,the rest of it is pure guesswork.
Workrider,i only worked for him a handful of times,but that is irrelevant to this argument. Nowhere did i say he was pure as driven snow,i dont know too many succesful people in any business who qualify for that description,let alone somebody in a gambling orientated business. Of course he is going to use both his contacts and his influence to help himself,who wouldnt ?. What is wrong with backing his own dogs in any race they were involved in ?. I dont see your bone of contention here,i really dont.
Finally Hegarty seems to invoke alot of envy in the gambling game particularly from the bookmaking fraternity,it seems to irk many that a man could come from the arrrsehole of Cork 30 years ago ,arrive in Dublin and show hundreds of them over that period how it should be done.

If a greyhound bookmaker can't price pup races how do you expect a horse bookmaker to price up an early two year old race.

Surely it cant be right for any bookmaker to own and train a dog and then be allowed to take bets on races where those dogs are running

Only in Ireland

Nom de plumes abound , trooper .  Not just in Ireland . Lots of stories about events like those .  Waiting for someone to own all the horses in a race via various methods and "arranging the result " . Dogs have no jockeys though , so chance comes in .

Will happen sooner rather than later .

Jimeens assertion about men coming from Cork and showing Dubs what to do sure that's being going on for years.

There is another point that whilst betting on pup races may be risky Hegarty expected the other bookmakers to accept his bets when he choose to play.

I never saw bookies betting on the opening two year old race in the Phoenix Park betting to the margins previously quoted.

That's now but Pre Betfair and morning prices they had no problem in pricing them

I am going to do a bit of ancient after timing in that Captain Swan trained an early two year old ridden by his then young son Charlie,we were all on I think his name was Final Assault.

Part of the problem for greyhound racing / breeding is the drift from the land / rural communities . The younger people ( probably quite rightly and with the application of logic ) dont want to stay "down on the farm " as much as they used too .  Not when their mates are in USA or Australia or Canada or wherever , no one to walk / feed / look after the dogs . Lots of families here in the north and in the deep south have children / grandchildren in far flung places , walking dogs aint that attractive , particularly if there is no opportunity to make money out of it .

Used to be that a huge number of those in the rural community ( and some in city environments) kept a few dogs and / or the occasional horse out of interest and availability of facilites , and for the "sport" .  Not nearly as prevalent now as in days of yesteryear . Society changes , not always for the better , although I cant blame the young uns , would be following that route myself if I was 20 .

Extending the logic , yummy , wait till there are only really about 5 "Big Bookies" effectively , one of who owns/ runs an exchange also . Death knell for competition , little variation in pricing structures , ever looked at petrol provision as a model ?  Kill off the wee men , corporates can do what they like .

Who dominates USA business ( and government policy indirectly ) ?