Licensed Betting Offices (LBOs) are a post-modernist artifice in which a traditional betting environment has had its modern objects liberated from their original function. This new infrastructure exists within the societal scam that is British bookmaking but the purpose of the modernity of the environment is to optimise the returns to the bookmakers by utilising a range of post-modernist and/or psychological devices.
"Consumption, insofar as it is meaningful, is the systematic act of the manipulation of signs". And, the LBOs offer a perfect environment to test and prove Baudrillard's differential reasoning. Originally, the bookmakers used primitive forms of psychopathic business strategies to maximise their returns from those with a gambling addiction. Proximity to pubs was one such ruse that remains valid to this day; delayed race start times gave the bookies an edge over the "blind" punter; the security door and the frosted glass psychologically defined the bettor as a societal loser, something to be hidden away; the creation of a chaotic environment made any attempt at pseudo-rationality in decision-making virtually impossible.
To my discredit, I once very briefly considered undertaking a consultancy project for one of the leading English bookmakers. The project aim was to maximise the amount of money that the addicts would hand over to the deserving cause of turf accountancy. The scope of the consultancy was pomo-in-extremis - the company wished to create the model interior to most suit their financial targets utilising colour, form, atmosphere, modular components together with excessive control of the informational flow and the preying on the psychological styles and disorders of the gathered group. We will assess these manipulations in turn.
The LBOs offer a major advantage to the bookmakers in comparison with the racecourse, the internet or the telephone. It is a controlled environment. Totally. Nothing has been left to chance. The positioning of the television screens in relation to the seating, the types of material in the seating, the location of standing places, solo locations and group areas, the disinformational matrix of un-data, the colours of the seats and tv backgrounds, the use of glass/daylight and advertising prompts suitably located, the quality of the images, the misuse of clocks and time etc etc. And, once one steps into this environment with its rarefied atmosphere of reality, the CCTV's ensure that the web performs optimally - the modular design style allowing a process of continuous improvement from the perspective of the abusive bookie.
The control of the information flow is a critical aspect of the reality-mix. Taking the un-sport of horseracing as an example, we are able to immediately conclude that the LBOs are the worst location for maximising the potentially valuable information which might be utilised to limit your losses and exposures. In front of an internet screen, you may access scores of firms and achieve preferable prices by referring to one of the numerous betting odds comparison sites. At the racecourse, one may read the tic-tac, monitor the rails and assess the meaning behind the major bookies returning money to the ring - are they offsetting liabilities by hedging or are they taking a proprietary angle? You can pay extra to monitor the body language of the corrupt trainers and jockeys and, in that it matters, assess the fitness of the poor beasts. When the likes of Toby Balding, Barry Hills, Paul Nicholls or Nicky Henderson, to name but a few, had a hot favourite, my staking level would always be augmented by my behavioural assessment of the key protagonists pre-race. The LBOs, in contrast, are a virtual price monopoly. Furthermore, the prices displayed together with their dynamics may not bear any resemblance either to the prices shown at other LBOs owned by the same company or to the prices available in the ring. Value is further reduced by the refusal of the LBOs to accept a decent size of bet together with outrageous overround percentages and, until recently, a highly regressive tax regime. The LBOs also enforce an obligation to buy - they utilise the psychology of need to create optimistic behavioural atmospheres that engender belief rather than disbelief. The LBOs consequently do not allow the option of trading against an occurrence and all professionals understand that contrarian trading is the first step on the road to investment riches. To quote Warren Buffett: "Be fearful when others are greedy and be greedy when others are fearful". Or Deleuze: "Sense depends on non-sense".
And this neatly brings us on to the behavioural aspects of the LBOs. We have no desire to spend too much time assessing the behavioural traits of irrationality that underpin the investment marketplace that are the LBOs. The psychological styles/disorders mentioned here are merely some of the most prevalent conditions which the bookmakers choose to address for profit maximisation. Punters are disproportionately influenced by the fear of feeling regret, cognitive dissonance is a factor as we cherish long-held "beliefs", anchoring leads to us being overly influenced by external suggestion (a core focus for LBOs), status quo bias is not actually a complete lack of musical good taste but the behavioural term for the chasing of losses (another key area for the psycho's), punters conceptualise without assessing the holistic overview of the reality being presented to them, gamblers are persistently over-confident due to representativeness heuristic, magical thinking takes the bettor even further from the loci of true reality, hindsight bias is another omnipresent feature which is closely linked to memory bias etc etc. The micro-control of this captive group psychology is a major area of research at all the large betting organisations. The serial conditioning of the group engenders learned helplessness and irrational group think as the voices one trusts plead with us to lose our cash by following the twisted logic of the disinformational talking head.
And all of this corruption is dressed up in the illusion of freedom, the creative use of leisure time on the level playing field offered by the toss of a dice. "Free to be yourself" in fact means "...free to project one's desires onto produced goods; "Free to enjoy life" means free to regress and to be irrational and thus to adapt to a certain social organisation of our behaviour with regard to products. As a punter, the only manner to treat the environment offered by the LBOs is to partially invert Baudrillard's overview of "the way the rationality of objects comes to grips with the irrationality of needs" to become a cynical realistic: "the way the irrationality of needs of the gambler comes to grips with rationality of the irrationality of objects of the bookmakers".
The LBOs are a post-modern artifice, a subtle but base deception founded on trickery and greed. In the atmosphere of this artifice, identity, truth, reason and meaning are warped into equilibrium states of behavioural difference producing a herd-like response to the detriment of the gambler's assets.
According to Foucault, we have become our own prison guards and have learned to mould our behaviour in accordance with the needs of modern capitalism. This behaviour of self is augmented, in Lacan's words by "how human subjectivity is formed and shaped by institutions... We live in ideology, blinded by an 'imaginary' consciousness that prevents us from gaining access to objective truth". The object of the gambler's desire is a Baudrillardian "exchange based on nothing other than corruption".
And, what is the response of our guardians to this societal corruption? Gamcare and the Gambling Commission together with the government's free market attitude to gambling legislation/advertising/marketing and a refusal to address the corruption of the markets and our realities. That's the response... Despite the deceleration towards not-so-super-casinos, the public have been persuaded by the general consensus of "it matters more when there's money on it" and "what's yours worth?". And, as Lyotard says: "consensus is the ultimate form of totalitarianism". Those of us who choose to confront corruption as a core competency understand that the corruption generally remorphs itself into a new and equally invalid form, setting off the whole cyclical process of detection and readjustment to the new corrupted realities.
According to Lyotard, it is only the most major narratives that may be made narrative impossibilities - these are stories that can no longer be told as they no longer convince eg Auschwitz. It is a pity that gambling corruption is not yet anywhere near the reality of being a narrative impossibility.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Showing posts with label bookmakers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bookmakers. Show all posts
Thursday, 10 January 2008
Monday, 14 May 2007
The Freakonomics Of English Premiership Football
Never again will Mr Graham Poll referee a Premiership football game unless the Professional Game Match Officials Board (PGMOB) and the Premiership are able to develop some random reason to provide Poll with another season of experimental officiating. We always expected that Poll would go out with a bang but his selection for Portsmouth's end of season earner with Arsenal (which also existed on a secondary and tertiary level as a match to determine Portsmouth's UEFA Cup qualification and Arsenal's bid for 3rd place) was a good final fling for the Thing from Tring. The match did not exist as a truly competitive event - if either club was really focused on the potential gains of a victory, they would not have been resting half their respective teams. Also, there might have been a booking or two. The dominant structure on the match was the late betting market in both Asia and Europe as a massive late gamble (one of the largest of the season) cascaded on Portsmouth. Graham Poll is a master of control of such events and his Asian links will be sorely missed on an impact level for the powers-that-be in the Premiership. The timeline of events relating to Portsmouth's disallowed goal are revealing:
Portsmouth score; Poll gives goal; assistant referee signals goal; assistant referee changes his mind; Poll changes his mind; no goal. Perhaps the PGMOB could release the communications from the miked up officials (both on and off the pitch). We confidently expect that Mr Poll, a year's extension notwithstanding, will achieve significant hierarchical achievement elsewhere within the game of global football. The PGMOB will also be glad to see the back of Dermot Gallagher (who also retires at the end of the season) and we share their pleasure although we expect a conveyor belt of suitably obedient individuals to replace these reptiles.
Elsewhere, the bookmakers ensured that the final round of matches of the 2006/07 season filled their satchels to bursting. In the English Premiership, the unlikely happens regularly.
The matches at Liverpool and Chelsea were standard template end of season agreed draws and a draw is virtually always good news for the layers. Indeed six of the last round of games of minimal or no significance finished with a level scoreline.
The other major news (from press coverage, far more significant than the genocide in Darfur or the deteriorating situations in Iraq and Afghanistan) has been the soap played out in East London. We have previously stated our views on the West Ham United abuse of power in several posts (most recently, see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/04/magnussens-millions-save-day.html). We have remained silent over the season's conclusion as we had no desire to impact upon our proprietary trading activities but, now that the season is over, there are a few extra pertinent points that need to be raised regarding club power in the Premiership. As we stated in the previous post, the reasons provided for the non-deduction of points as punishment for undertaking business dealings with Media Sports Investment (MSI) were selective and spurious. The only justice-based sentence would have seen the Hammers relegated (having "great" fans and the season's late stage being rather flippant justifications, really). The degree of external support, aside from that given by the FA Premier League Disciplinary Panel, has been extensive. So confident were William Hill bookmakers that Manchester United wouldn't win their final match of the season against West Ham that they offered new customers a "free" bet on Man Utd at Even money - the actual market odds were around 8/13 (1.62). We do not believe that such an offer would have been made on one of the biggest betting days of the year without confidence in an outcome that was virtually absolute in it's corrupt structure. I have no desire to go into details but Manchester United were never going to win this game and Atkinson's penalty refusal against O'Shea was only the last of a run of favourable decisions that have fallen in the Hammer's favour in the season run in (remember the ludicrous "goal", penalty and sending off given in their favour by Howard Webb at Blackburn, for example). So, eventually, with the help of the FA, the FA Premier League Disciplinary Panel, the PGMOB and some of their opponents, West Ham United have survived in the Premiership.
Dichotomous attention has been given to Wigan Athletic and they have been, by far, the most negatively targeted outfit in the top league (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/04/who-do-premiership-referees-really.html). This manipulation continued right to the final whistle of their match at Sheffield at the weekend. Dean did provide them with a penalty after having earlier denied them two other spotkicks but the decision he gave could only have been more blatant if Jagielka had caught the ball and run out of the penalty box in a rugby stylee! Still no equaliser for the Yorksiremen and with Wigan tiring, Dean harshly sent off McCulloch but the Latics held on and, deservedly, stay in the Premiership (despite a total of ten minutes injury time). Emile Heskey was omnipresent and showed his high quality which has been constantly publicly devalued since he was unfortunate enough to be Michael Owen's partner when the little man wasn't always putting everything into his game.
Sheffield's demotion will be fought through the courts and Wigan's Dave Whelan has promised backing. There are now known to be seven teams who are collaborating to confront the Premier League. Scudamore was scurrying around late last week utilising the standard English approach to a crisis - divide and rule and, if no luck there, bribe. By arranging meetings with some of these clubs and by the variable conversational constructs that are alleged to have been put forward by Scudamore in these meetings, the Premier League has merely given a vivid statement to the opposition with regard to the weakness of the Premier League's position which is not known to be a particularly successful legal practice. There was a desperation by English spectacular football society to keep the West Ham scandal out of the global gaze for the climax of the season - the latest Quest update was also delayed until after the season's end. Scudamore's shuttle diplomacy thinly veiled as bribery was a final desperate attempt to be able to market the Premiership as successful and clean as opposed to corrupt and tainted.
There are other peripheral affairs that have devalued both the title race and the relegation issues - the agreement between Man Utd and Everton over Tim Howard's non-appearance against his former club in a very massive game; the media and bookmaker's milking of a non-existent title race to bolster their profits; Fulham surviving through beating a pub team from the Wirral; agreed mutually beneficial results (preferably with a little bit of private betting activity on the side); the input of PGMOB referees etc etc.
And, we are supposed to see this as competitive level playing field. The Premiership and Serie A have many similar corrupt structures and the conclusion of this season's English league will provide us with a summer of fake intrigue as the authorities and the judiciary deal with the issues. Points deductions and potential punitive relegations have been exported from the Italian game and, by performing such non-viable contortions, the Premier League has ensured, just as in Italy, that every future disciplinary decision will be measured by the yardstick of West Ham United. As the authorities are, in reality, giving West Ham £45m as a punishment then we should expect similar arbitrariness throughout any processes in the future. The sole determinants of outcome will be power/money. Over the last year, the following Premiership clubs have had minimal or no punishment despite links to corruption via bungs or illegal gambling or breaking Premiership rules or more than one of these illegalities:
Bolton Wanderers; Charlton Athletic; Chelsea; Liverpool; Manchester United; Middlesbrough; Newcastle; Portsmouth; West Ham United.
Unsurprisingly, Bury, Rotherham United and, for that matter, Sheffield United have not been similarly fortunate.
The sooner that the English population at large accepts this corrupt edifice in it's full gory glory the better. This is the prime reason why we repeatedly provide you with examples and updates of earlier examples of the ruination of our game. In Italy, which mimics our corrupt infrastructure in many ways, society accepts the power machinations in sport and politics. Dietrologia is the Italian word for "the study of what is behind something" ie a study of corruption. No Italian dinner party is complete without a couple of hours of healthy dietrologia. It is a significantly preferable psychological profile to address one's reality than to blinker one's existential boundaries to what it suits one to believe. And, it is more fun. Watching Graham Poll's last hurrah was much more interesting than the random walk of the twenty two players and the ball. I'll miss him for that at least - he was better than a shit game of football...
Portsmouth score; Poll gives goal; assistant referee signals goal; assistant referee changes his mind; Poll changes his mind; no goal. Perhaps the PGMOB could release the communications from the miked up officials (both on and off the pitch). We confidently expect that Mr Poll, a year's extension notwithstanding, will achieve significant hierarchical achievement elsewhere within the game of global football. The PGMOB will also be glad to see the back of Dermot Gallagher (who also retires at the end of the season) and we share their pleasure although we expect a conveyor belt of suitably obedient individuals to replace these reptiles.
Elsewhere, the bookmakers ensured that the final round of matches of the 2006/07 season filled their satchels to bursting. In the English Premiership, the unlikely happens regularly.
The matches at Liverpool and Chelsea were standard template end of season agreed draws and a draw is virtually always good news for the layers. Indeed six of the last round of games of minimal or no significance finished with a level scoreline.
The other major news (from press coverage, far more significant than the genocide in Darfur or the deteriorating situations in Iraq and Afghanistan) has been the soap played out in East London. We have previously stated our views on the West Ham United abuse of power in several posts (most recently, see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/04/magnussens-millions-save-day.html). We have remained silent over the season's conclusion as we had no desire to impact upon our proprietary trading activities but, now that the season is over, there are a few extra pertinent points that need to be raised regarding club power in the Premiership. As we stated in the previous post, the reasons provided for the non-deduction of points as punishment for undertaking business dealings with Media Sports Investment (MSI) were selective and spurious. The only justice-based sentence would have seen the Hammers relegated (having "great" fans and the season's late stage being rather flippant justifications, really). The degree of external support, aside from that given by the FA Premier League Disciplinary Panel, has been extensive. So confident were William Hill bookmakers that Manchester United wouldn't win their final match of the season against West Ham that they offered new customers a "free" bet on Man Utd at Even money - the actual market odds were around 8/13 (1.62). We do not believe that such an offer would have been made on one of the biggest betting days of the year without confidence in an outcome that was virtually absolute in it's corrupt structure. I have no desire to go into details but Manchester United were never going to win this game and Atkinson's penalty refusal against O'Shea was only the last of a run of favourable decisions that have fallen in the Hammer's favour in the season run in (remember the ludicrous "goal", penalty and sending off given in their favour by Howard Webb at Blackburn, for example). So, eventually, with the help of the FA, the FA Premier League Disciplinary Panel, the PGMOB and some of their opponents, West Ham United have survived in the Premiership.
Dichotomous attention has been given to Wigan Athletic and they have been, by far, the most negatively targeted outfit in the top league (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/04/who-do-premiership-referees-really.html). This manipulation continued right to the final whistle of their match at Sheffield at the weekend. Dean did provide them with a penalty after having earlier denied them two other spotkicks but the decision he gave could only have been more blatant if Jagielka had caught the ball and run out of the penalty box in a rugby stylee! Still no equaliser for the Yorksiremen and with Wigan tiring, Dean harshly sent off McCulloch but the Latics held on and, deservedly, stay in the Premiership (despite a total of ten minutes injury time). Emile Heskey was omnipresent and showed his high quality which has been constantly publicly devalued since he was unfortunate enough to be Michael Owen's partner when the little man wasn't always putting everything into his game.
Sheffield's demotion will be fought through the courts and Wigan's Dave Whelan has promised backing. There are now known to be seven teams who are collaborating to confront the Premier League. Scudamore was scurrying around late last week utilising the standard English approach to a crisis - divide and rule and, if no luck there, bribe. By arranging meetings with some of these clubs and by the variable conversational constructs that are alleged to have been put forward by Scudamore in these meetings, the Premier League has merely given a vivid statement to the opposition with regard to the weakness of the Premier League's position which is not known to be a particularly successful legal practice. There was a desperation by English spectacular football society to keep the West Ham scandal out of the global gaze for the climax of the season - the latest Quest update was also delayed until after the season's end. Scudamore's shuttle diplomacy thinly veiled as bribery was a final desperate attempt to be able to market the Premiership as successful and clean as opposed to corrupt and tainted.
There are other peripheral affairs that have devalued both the title race and the relegation issues - the agreement between Man Utd and Everton over Tim Howard's non-appearance against his former club in a very massive game; the media and bookmaker's milking of a non-existent title race to bolster their profits; Fulham surviving through beating a pub team from the Wirral; agreed mutually beneficial results (preferably with a little bit of private betting activity on the side); the input of PGMOB referees etc etc.
And, we are supposed to see this as competitive level playing field. The Premiership and Serie A have many similar corrupt structures and the conclusion of this season's English league will provide us with a summer of fake intrigue as the authorities and the judiciary deal with the issues. Points deductions and potential punitive relegations have been exported from the Italian game and, by performing such non-viable contortions, the Premier League has ensured, just as in Italy, that every future disciplinary decision will be measured by the yardstick of West Ham United. As the authorities are, in reality, giving West Ham £45m as a punishment then we should expect similar arbitrariness throughout any processes in the future. The sole determinants of outcome will be power/money. Over the last year, the following Premiership clubs have had minimal or no punishment despite links to corruption via bungs or illegal gambling or breaking Premiership rules or more than one of these illegalities:
Bolton Wanderers; Charlton Athletic; Chelsea; Liverpool; Manchester United; Middlesbrough; Newcastle; Portsmouth; West Ham United.
Unsurprisingly, Bury, Rotherham United and, for that matter, Sheffield United have not been similarly fortunate.
The sooner that the English population at large accepts this corrupt edifice in it's full gory glory the better. This is the prime reason why we repeatedly provide you with examples and updates of earlier examples of the ruination of our game. In Italy, which mimics our corrupt infrastructure in many ways, society accepts the power machinations in sport and politics. Dietrologia is the Italian word for "the study of what is behind something" ie a study of corruption. No Italian dinner party is complete without a couple of hours of healthy dietrologia. It is a significantly preferable psychological profile to address one's reality than to blinker one's existential boundaries to what it suits one to believe. And, it is more fun. Watching Graham Poll's last hurrah was much more interesting than the random walk of the twenty two players and the ball. I'll miss him for that at least - he was better than a shit game of football...
Friday, 5 January 2007
20 Reasons Not To Bet On British Horseracing
British horseracing is riddled with corruption. 10 years ago, I undertook a PhD at The Centre for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at Salford University and my thesis was entitled "The Impact of Conspicuous Money on Outcome in British Horseracing Markets".
Via the catalyst of my tutor, Professor Neville Topham, I was able to meet with the powerbrokers of the industry sector in this country. One of the most fascinating series of encounters was with Rodney Brack - the Chief Executive of the British Horserace Betting Levy Board (BHBLB). In the initial interactions, we discussed the mechanisms that allow certain key operators within the sport to affect the outcome of races. Jokes were shared and there was a general air of good-natured bonhomie.
Prior to a later meeting at the BHBLB offices in London, Mr Brack had decided to do a background check on me. The Direct Action Movement, the Hunt Saboteurs and the Animal Liberation Front came up and, suddenly, we were at a very different race meeting! The CEO moved into duplicitous overdrive and everything that had been black was now white and vice versa. Corruption? Nonsense. Fixed races? You are biased. Previous discussions? Denials. I considered going public with my proof of the corruption in horseracing but eventually decided to utilise my knowledge in a more creative manner.
Below are the prime reasons why one shouldn't go anywhere near horserace betting markets unless you are muscled up with either inside information from the horse's mouth (as it were) or a state-of-the-art trading model.
1. For most races, the outcome is determined by betting patterns and liabilities. Form is virtually irrelevant. These betting patterns are not publicly available.
2. In football, we must endure corrupt players, referees and managers. The parallels in racing are jockeys, clerks of racecourses, trainers/owners. Corrupt bookmakers and industry sector officials are ubiquitous in both sports.
3. Never bet on the All Weather. These events are the most corrupted and randomised.
4. Many stables are betting stables and they employ proprietary trading strategies that can only be deciphered by a few select individuals. This adds volatility to the market.
5. Performance Enhancing Substances (PESs) are used widely in the sport.
6. All sources of potentially valuable information are industry-owned and, consequently, cannot be trusted.
7. Gambling winnings are not enforceable under law. Very few bookmakers allow winning accounts.
8. It is cruel.
9. The watering of racecourses (ostensibly to soften the ground) is a very manipulative tool that significantly affects the results of races.
10. The jockeys are well paid but obedient and they carry out the instructions of the key market operators.
11. The Racing Post and The Sporting Life and ALL the mainstream media print the information that the betting industry wishes them to print. Disinformation is the norm.
12. The technology utilised for photo finishes is able to be manipulated.
13. On the few occasions when there is a certainty, nobody will lay you a decent sized bet without cropping your price.
14. Betting rings are full of criminals, psychopaths, posh totty and associated slime merchants - it is not a sophisticated office space with it's permanent stench of corruption. Most people are losing money and, subconciously, they understand that they are being taken for a ride.
15. It panders to the establishment and reinforces class issues. Your money allows the upper and upper-middle classes to give prizes to each other; it provides taxation for the government and profit for the bookies and their shareholders.
16. Some of the leading Saudi owners have very opaque strategies for the horses in their ownership. It can seem like the equivalent of deciphering OPEC at times.
17. The key traders place their bets in private very early or as late as possible on the rails. The big betting firms only play the ring in the period leading up to the race. One must maximise the information to be competitive in such corrupted markets and it is often difficult to get your money on late.
18. The handicapping of racehorses is manipulated in favour of insiders.
19. Like the gypsy musicians in Romania, Irish trainers and jockeys are given respect by the establishment in this country. But it is a lacklustre, sneering and condescending respect - these people still think Eire is part of the British empire.
20. It is not a sport. It is a rigged casino game transferred to the countryside. Only a small minority of horseraces in this country are totally clean.
Via the catalyst of my tutor, Professor Neville Topham, I was able to meet with the powerbrokers of the industry sector in this country. One of the most fascinating series of encounters was with Rodney Brack - the Chief Executive of the British Horserace Betting Levy Board (BHBLB). In the initial interactions, we discussed the mechanisms that allow certain key operators within the sport to affect the outcome of races. Jokes were shared and there was a general air of good-natured bonhomie.
Prior to a later meeting at the BHBLB offices in London, Mr Brack had decided to do a background check on me. The Direct Action Movement, the Hunt Saboteurs and the Animal Liberation Front came up and, suddenly, we were at a very different race meeting! The CEO moved into duplicitous overdrive and everything that had been black was now white and vice versa. Corruption? Nonsense. Fixed races? You are biased. Previous discussions? Denials. I considered going public with my proof of the corruption in horseracing but eventually decided to utilise my knowledge in a more creative manner.
Below are the prime reasons why one shouldn't go anywhere near horserace betting markets unless you are muscled up with either inside information from the horse's mouth (as it were) or a state-of-the-art trading model.
1. For most races, the outcome is determined by betting patterns and liabilities. Form is virtually irrelevant. These betting patterns are not publicly available.
2. In football, we must endure corrupt players, referees and managers. The parallels in racing are jockeys, clerks of racecourses, trainers/owners. Corrupt bookmakers and industry sector officials are ubiquitous in both sports.
3. Never bet on the All Weather. These events are the most corrupted and randomised.
4. Many stables are betting stables and they employ proprietary trading strategies that can only be deciphered by a few select individuals. This adds volatility to the market.
5. Performance Enhancing Substances (PESs) are used widely in the sport.
6. All sources of potentially valuable information are industry-owned and, consequently, cannot be trusted.
7. Gambling winnings are not enforceable under law. Very few bookmakers allow winning accounts.
8. It is cruel.
9. The watering of racecourses (ostensibly to soften the ground) is a very manipulative tool that significantly affects the results of races.
10. The jockeys are well paid but obedient and they carry out the instructions of the key market operators.
11. The Racing Post and The Sporting Life and ALL the mainstream media print the information that the betting industry wishes them to print. Disinformation is the norm.
12. The technology utilised for photo finishes is able to be manipulated.
13. On the few occasions when there is a certainty, nobody will lay you a decent sized bet without cropping your price.
14. Betting rings are full of criminals, psychopaths, posh totty and associated slime merchants - it is not a sophisticated office space with it's permanent stench of corruption. Most people are losing money and, subconciously, they understand that they are being taken for a ride.
15. It panders to the establishment and reinforces class issues. Your money allows the upper and upper-middle classes to give prizes to each other; it provides taxation for the government and profit for the bookies and their shareholders.
16. Some of the leading Saudi owners have very opaque strategies for the horses in their ownership. It can seem like the equivalent of deciphering OPEC at times.
17. The key traders place their bets in private very early or as late as possible on the rails. The big betting firms only play the ring in the period leading up to the race. One must maximise the information to be competitive in such corrupted markets and it is often difficult to get your money on late.
18. The handicapping of racehorses is manipulated in favour of insiders.
19. Like the gypsy musicians in Romania, Irish trainers and jockeys are given respect by the establishment in this country. But it is a lacklustre, sneering and condescending respect - these people still think Eire is part of the British empire.
20. It is not a sport. It is a rigged casino game transferred to the countryside. Only a small minority of horseraces in this country are totally clean.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)