Bookmakers Are A Joke

[Flame]

Well a year ago 2 friendly firms laid me £25 Ew on a certain Dubai Destination o/o Gossamer for the 2008 2000 Guineas at 125/1, however this time around even the big three won't honour a price on a horse in May for the Guineas.

Having rung Ladbrokes, Hills and Corals not one of them would lay a price on a filly for the 2009 1000 Guineas, they all said similar we wont price Classic horses up until after Royal Ascot.

So what has happened in the past year to make bookmakers lose their bottle.

You read in the paper about people getting 100/1 on their kids playing a match for England or scoring a goal at Wembley, so how come the ante post bookmakers wont even lay a price on a 2yo which is doing no more than swinging canters at home for a classic, nearly a yer prior to the race.

Only one firm gave me a price and incidently went 125/1, but that was after they asked how much i wanted on. I said £50 each way and the lady went away and said they would only lay £10 ew at this moment in time.

So then gave her the horse details and she came back with 125/1. Now she said do you want the 125/1 on that and for £10 each way.

I took the bet but for me it seems stupid that a, 3 much bigger firms wouldn't lay a price and seocndly the one that did would only lay £20 on it.

The question I want to know is how in gods name do the likes of Harry Findlay get on say Denman to win a gold cup as a novice unraced at 66/1, it bares thinking, are bookmakers suddenly getting scared or is it a fact that they don't actually want to lay a bet that may win anymore.

Its a joke in my opinion, all i wanted was 50 ew on the bloody horse.

 

[Sara]

Have you tried Jennings Chris? If I can work out the horse, I'll ask in my local shop!
Agreed it's ridiculous esp as they've so much chance of changing before this time next year, at that age.
I makes you wonder what they are in business for!

 

[rorydelargy]

There's no point ringing up a call centre for such a bet Chris ~ get yourself introduced to one of the firms' PRs at the track; I was offered odds about my filly winning at the Cheltenham Festival by one quite happily. BTW, I don't believe Harry Findlay had a significant bet on Denman to win the Gold Cup at 66/1 and the money he had on him to win the Sun Alliance was mostly on Betfair. If you're reckoned to be a judge, then the firms will be reasonably happy for you to mark their card in this way, but you have to make yourself known to them as an individual and you've got to speak directly to a decision maker.


edit: the thing bookmakers don't want to do is have unmanaged liabilities and that's why you might get knocked back through the usual channels.

 

[LUKE]

I opened an account with a certain Irish bookmaker using my wifes maiden name and details.After about 6 weeks she was slightly ahead-for the Kentucky Derby I asked for combination forecasts and tricasts -the tricasts were limited to 58 cent combinations.

 

[Shadow Leader]

As well as not wanting the unmanaged liabilities (ie the bets won't be able to be entered in the system as no fieldbook will yet exist for those events so will have to be kept track of manually) a lot of compilers are busy and don't have the time to look up an unraced horse, completely guess up on it going by breeding/owner/trainer etc then come up with a price that may or may not be taken up. I've been guilty on many an occasion of telling telephonists not a prayer, to tell punters "not interested in quoting" for getting a price on a horse for something daft or a long way in the future.

However if you are serious about it and either press the matter or ask to have a friendly chat with a compiler you might get somewhere, but don't expect to be accomodated for much especially at large prices. You've got to bear in mind that compilers are asked for prices on all sorts pretty often, on top of doing the rest of their day's work. More often than not, when you do come up with a price the punter isn't interested anyway so it is inevitable that the first thoughts at this time of the year on an unraced horse for next year's Classics is "not interested, come back later".