Spot on !
Bet365, Powers and Hills were the three and none of the others had the knowledge or bollocks to go up first. Hills dont do it as much as they used to and now it is either 365 or Powers who are left to lead the way. Bet365 are always stand out on a horse or two in a race and steadfastly just refuse to move it sometimes. It happens in a few races every day. I will give you an example from last night.
In the Bangor 4.30 they opened 10/1 about On The Platform. Powers went 11/2 and then all the copy and pasters switched their bots on and copied the 11/2. That is some difference and most people would then expect 365 to cut their price. But no, they stood firm and as i type this at 6.58 they are still 10/1 and the others have moved their to 15/2.
That is more or less how it works every day. Powers publish their prices and the lemmings just copy them. The vast majority of firms havent got compilers. And if some have one or two people with a smidgin of a clue, they definitely dont have the bollocks to go up first. To put their heads above the parapet and have the utmost confidence in their prices and stand them. Those days have long gone. Their are firms out there who have people sat on their "trading desk" who wouldnt know if a certain horse in a race should be 11/10, 11/2 or 11/1 !!!!
The bots control the prices. The bots move the prices. The days of manual, human input are all but gone. And how much poorer is the betting world because of it.
It is embarrassing looking at the price history of some horses these days but it tells the story. You can look any morning at any race and you will see a horse that has changed price about 40 times in the early hours of the morning and gone something like 9/1 - 17/2 - 8/1 -17/2 - 9/1 - 17/2 - 9/1 - 17/2 - 9/1 etc etc etc. Madness and embarrassing.
A comment from an ex-colleague of mine summed it up a few years ago when i was over in Ireland at Navan races. I hadnt seen him for about 5 or 6 years and we chatted for a while and i told him i had recently been offered a job to get back into the game. And i told him that they may as well offered to set fire to my bollocks because the answer was a very quick NO !
He was still working in the game at the time and told me that i wouldnt get a job with his firm now. He said they do not take "racing" people. They dont bother with ex traders or ex compilers. They only take on maths graduates. That was the direction they were going and the only ones they were looking to employ. He added that it was a very different game than when we were working together. And that was about 5 or 6 years ago. And it is even worse now.
There are some very good odds compilers out there. Some very, very good ones. Unfortunately, none of them work for bookmakers. And thats why the fraudsters get picked off so easily with the ricks. And thats why many people have their accounts closed because they are beating SP all the time.
So whose fault is it ?
We all know who !!!!!!!!
I could go on but my porridge is getting cold
Have a good day all.