biggest danger to popularity of betting

The biggest danger to the popularity of horse racing betting is the bookies . When no one is allowed to win , there is no point in betting .

3.10 at Ascot today , betting for first 3 home was 1/9 , 6/1 and 5/1 . Plus 2 other runners , nobody publishes overrounds any more I think , small wonder , there must be a huge bookie driven lobby anti publishing them .

Good man scouse. Kevin Blake is the ONLY racing journalist standind up and telling it as it is. We should all applaud him. Or should we?
He is only telling the TRUTH. Does he need applause for that? Look at the rest of the gravytrain mob. Horrible the lot of em. Luck, Hoiles, Cooper, Boyce (worst of the lot) etc etc.
Mellish and Hislop touched on it a couple of years ago but no follow up.
Where's Chapman? Come on Matt this is right up your street. You know you want to.
Punters are sick of this charade that everything is rosy. Blake knows it's not. Knowledgeable punters know it's not either.

They are going to need the custom of the people who they may be restricting now, but who are probably going to be long-term losers. Turnover on racing in the coming years is going to be hit very badly as there simply aren't enough young people interested in the sport.

This has snowballed out of control in the last 10 or so years. Only mugs need apply now.
BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO WIN ANYMORE.

Yes.  Good article.
As he said online bookies target customers.
If you are competent they restrict you.
If you are useless and have your hand in the till at your job you are an ideal customer.

A similar situation is happening in poker, online and live.
They are discouraging the professionals, and churning the dopes (I'm in the second group).

I can't remember poker being mentioned much on here.
I'm not quite sure how that would work in regards poker(haha might as well say baaa,naive and ignorance would both apply though i play it online infrequently and small and always a tournament).
My observation regarding online are the operators want you to play "twister",maybe that it is over quickly but would have no idea how they could actively discourage anyone.

With poker the better players take money out of the system at a faster rate. They don't put money in but take money out of the system. Poker sites want deposit's not withdrawals. Better player's take money out.

A few things poker companies do to retain the money:

* websites place restrictions on withdrawing your cash: must wait a few days; must keep a balance; can not transfer to other players, (in other words play a few more games and lose it back to us in 10% registrations fees)
* increase the number of players who get paid in a tournament (a recent change is top 20% get paid, not top 10%), (the extra players get paid by reducing the money paid to the top finishers)
* reduce the payment of the minimum cash to your entry fee or marginally above (the introduction of 20% get paid).   (you feel you wasted your time and will play another tournament that is just starting now.  hurry, hurry)
* speed up the game by shortening the time a level is played (e.g. from 60 mins to 30 mins), (shortening the tournament means eliminating players quickly and they are now free to play in another tournament and pay another 10% there)
* increase the blind level jumps or miss out a level e.g. 50/100, 100/200, 200/400, 300/600, 500/1000 (idea is to eliminate players quickly.  You get their rake (10% fee) quick and save on dealer pay)

I haven't played since last October so am not up to date with the latest "improvements".

The bacon slicer is slicing faster and taking bigger slices.