a slip of the finger, or a taste of things to come .......

in respect of William Hills Each Way terms for the 5.05 Fontwell today, bookmakers oncourse often offer derogatory each way 1/6 odds 1-2-3 or 1/5 odds 1-2-3-4 each way terms and a recent racing/bookmaking commission led by Lord Donoghue i believe looked into each way terms offered by bookmakers off course, the news was slightly worrying although not unsuspected that 16 runner handicaps at 1/4 odds 1-2-3-4 offer the punter a bit of value........ So the punter has a mathematical edge in one type of bet, funnily enough the commission did not look into the book percentage offered by bookies on BAGS racing, numbers betting, virtual racing etc etc !!! funny that ........ Bookmakers are doing ok at present trading wise, yes there is a recession in the UK but from what im seeing the FOBT machines are holding up well as is more conventional betting, the majority of punters today mirror the "i want it now" culture, the kids of today love their KFC, Macdonalds, Kebabs and the rest and many punters in bookmakers love their Millersfield, Brushwood, Steepledowns they can get an instant betting fix evering couple of minutes or so, i regularly see bets of £200 or more on virtual racing it really defies belief.
Where some of the UK Bookmakers are struggling are the levels of debt that they have to service and cost cutting is prevalent throughout the industry as every penny has to be accounted for and savings are crucial, Sundays are the latest cut back with double time or even time and a half going the same way of the much missed Dodo !!

So a slight tweak of the Each Way terms may be next issue on their agenda, today William Hill offered Each Way terms of 1/5 odds 1-2-3-4 on the 5.05 Fontwell, these went unchanged until approximately 3.30pm, they may claim it was an innocent typo, but my suspicious cynical mind think they would just test the water to see the reaction, well thankfully the Betfair forum was full of it, a lot of bollocks is spouted on their and im a very occassional participent on the forum but today it proved its worth.

Im having a shocker of a week, and i cocked everything up but it was not as simple as that, but i do only have myself to blame, at times work has to take precedent over my personal punting !!! and today i paid the price of trying to combine the two. The first incident was just an example of opportunity cost we took a lump on Sevoca 7.20 Wolves @ 11/10 , 5/4 was available with corals but i could not access the site, the next price i could get was 10/11 but no way was i going to take that 2.02/2.04 on betfair for peanuts, i joined the offer at 2.04 after half an hour of sorting out spreadsheets and general crap i had a look at betfair and i was unmatched and 1.86/88 was the price. I just watched the price contract all day and the 7l victory did not go down well from a company or personal point of view ...............

Optimum played in the 4.05 Ascot with a decent bet on Mizen Raven and i broke one of my personal betting rules of backing and laying in the same race, some may feel if you have a strong view then its a reasonable stance to take but over the years i dont think it has worked for me, or is that i just remember the bad days more ? Well the lay Fire and Rain was struggling and had just traded at 30 and the well travelling Mizen Raven was 2.32/2.40 on the exchanges, i wanted to cover myself.............but my pod partner at work had taken a fag break and i got a shop enquiry and all i could do was watch with horror as Fire and Rain rallied, i could see the inevitable happening some way out but there was nothing i could do as work took over. I was fuming but my annoyance and anger subsided some what after the equivalent of the weight of a bag of sweets caused carnage on the exchanges after Radar Love was disqualified following an objection from the clerk of the scales, again proving there is no such thing as FREE MONEY ............

FRIDAY



OPTIMUM RACING



4.05 Ascot MIZEN RAVEN £125 @ 10/3 2nd -£125

VSR

2.20 Ascot DOVERS HILL £25 ew @ 7/1 2nd +£18.75



PERSONAL TRADING



4.05 Ascot FIRE and RUN Lay £80 @ 3.50 WON -£200