Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 68 total)
  • Gambling, couple of q's
  • karnali
    Free Member

    Do many folk ever actually come out on top on the horses, football rugby etc? I know some poeple who have a pot of money they put aside for betting and when its gone its gone and others that like to go to bookies most days and have their momements of being flash after a good day but they don’t seem to happen that often? Whats the consensus? Can it be a fun hobby or if your in their most days is it a likely problem?

    djglover
    Free Member

    Its rigged in favour of the house

    HTH

    peterfile
    Free Member

    Do many folk ever actually come out on top on the horses, football rugby etc?

    The bookies 🙂

    If you have decent will power and treat it like any other hobby, then it can be fun, but expect to pay for your hobby.

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    Garry_Lager
    Full Member

    Can be a fun hobby for sure, or it can be a debilitating problem – like most vices.

    As far as making money goes then it’s pretty much a non-starter. I think you could make your beer money at it, like be up a grand over a year or something like that. Even that would take quite a bit of application. The percentage of punters bringing in a living ‘wage’ must be vanishingly small.

    Although there must be some who do well out of the old ‘information asymmetry’ present in horseracing, or the stockmarket say (ie cheating bstards).

    mikewsmith
    Free Member

    In the end the bookies win. I played with betfair and stayed even the to some longshots and playing the bookie on a few things. Came out 30quid up at the races a few weeks back. If I was in every week I’d be down a long way though.

    nealglover
    Free Member

    As a hobby it can be fun (and expensive)

    As a way to make money it’s a complete mugs game.

    I’ve known a couple if people who knew a LOT about Horses and Racing etc, its all they ever read about and mostly all they talked about, they knew the history of most horses in every race without needing to look for it, they knew which jockeys were on/off form and why.

    They both earned good money, but were both struggling for money most of the time.

    Junkyard
    Free Member

    It’s a profit making business so what do you think?

    I am sure there are a very small number of professional gamblers who can maker a living but essentially its rigged to favour the house or they would be bust

    bigblackshed
    Full Member

    As kind of said above, the “winners” only shout when they’re winning. And they never tell you how many times and how much they’ve lost.

    Does make watching a rugby match a bit more interesting. Big internationals I’ll put a a couple of pound on 1st try scorer. Maybe a fiver split between 5 players (Yeah, the big spender). But only if I go to the pub to watch it.

    Hardly ever win. But someone in the group normally does, so it takes care of a couple of rounds. Other than that, not a chance.

    nealglover
    Free Member

    When we go to the races in York there is usually about ten of us, we put a fiver a race each into the pot
    Which is normally about £350 in total.

    Then we pick our horses for each race and “keep score” on our “winnings”

    Whoever would have won the most over the day gets £200 second place £100 third place £50

    The bookies get nothing, we dont have to Queue at the Tote every half hour, and the vast majority of the “winnings” get spent on us, in the pub in the evening.

    convert
    Full Member

    Stakes=winnings+running costs+business tax+living wage for bookie.

    Stakes will never < winnings when looked at en masse. You could of course be the special one……but you probably won’t be!

    randomjeremy
    Free Member

    As all of the above have said. What I do is bet against my team – it sounds counterintuitive but in big matches (say Wales v England rugby) I’ll bung £20 on England – if Wales win, great and I have only lost £20, if England win( boo! etc) but I’ve won some money to drown my sorrows with 🙂

    karnali
    Free Member

    as i thought then. shame as a good friend who does not have much money is about to move in with a new chap who likes a bet, is early 50’s and has nowt behind him but has been bankrupt before, i fear this may not be as rosey a few months, years down the line.

    grum
    Free Member

    Good idea that nealglover

    I used to work for William Hill and I agree with the above. Having said that, if you are handy with maths/stats you can use something like betfair, and effectively act as bookmaker as well as gambling yourself. If you do it well you can potentially end up covering yourself so you wont really lose out whatever happens, but might win a fair amount. Needs a lot of discipline as well as the maths skills though.

    There was a client we used to get on the phones at William Hill who was always really really rude, and his account was always getting suspended (you can have credit accounts with a bookmaker, potentially with thousands and thousands of pounds as a credit limit!). I checked his account history one day and saw over the last year he had staked almost a million pounds, and won back around £900,000. And that was a pretty good ratio TBH.

    Quite often used to get people whispering because they’d sneaked out into the kitchen so their wife couldn’t hear them gambling. Pretty sad really.

    jekkyl
    Full Member

    If the punters won at gambling there wouldn’t be any bookies.
    Gambling is great fun sometimes, we go to the races once a year usually, a load of couples in a minibus, put bets on horses like 2 quid to 8 quid and just have a laugh. Normally take like 60 quid or so and if you come away having had a good drink and evens on money you’ve had a good day.

    zilog6128
    Full Member

    Do many folk ever actually come out on top on the horses, football rugby etc?

    I would say not. The few chronic gamblers I have known (horses, fruities, etc) were always skint! I always put a few quid on if I’m watching a footie/rugby game down the pub (would find it excruciatingly boring otherwise!) or on the National. If I win then happy days & I get a round in but I’ve definitely wagered more than I’ve won over the years. Just a bit of fun every once in a while though.

    edlong
    Free Member

    With instant betting available on phones etc. it’s a lot easier to hedge now once you have a winning position – only person I know who is regularly up on their bets is ruthless with hedging – not long ago he had a bet on a footie match, his team that he had to win was 3-0 up with 20 minutes to go and he stood to win about £500, so promptly put £200 at long odds on a draw and £100 at longer odds on his team to lose. At that point he was guaranteed a nice payout whatever the result. Doesn’t work if you never get into a winning position of course.

    If you look at betting as a leisure activity and expect a cost then casino roulette gives you the most bang for your buck – the casino take is only 2%.

    grum
    Free Member

    Oh yeah, and the odd person who did consistently win with William Hill used to either have their accounts closed down, or were only allowed piss takingly tiny bets, ie they would ring up asking for five grand on a horse and get told they were only allowed to bet a fiver. 🙂

    Strangely enough the people who did often win large amounts (usually backing unfancied horses at long odds with several grand) had notes on their account to say they had connections to some trainer or owner. Hmmmm…..

    With instant betting available on phones etc. it’s a lot easier to hedge now once you have a winning position – only person I know who is regularly up on their bets is ruthless with hedging – not long ago he had a bet on a footie match, his team that he had to win was 3-0 up with 20 minutes to go and he stood to win about £500, so promptly put £200 at long odds on a draw and £100 at longer odds on his team to lose. At that point he was guaranteed a nice payout whatever the result. Doesn’t work if you never get into a winning position of course.

    I think he’d be better off using betfair for hedging positions.

    Pigface
    Free Member

    My little exposure to horse racing made me realise it is as bent as 9 bob note. Might of changed now but was ridiculous.

    convert
    Full Member

    There was a client we used to get on the phones at William Hill who was always really really rude, and his account was always getting suspended (you can have credit accounts with a bookmaker, potentially with thousands and thousands of pounds as a credit limit!). I checked his account history one day and saw over the last year he had staked almost a million pounds, and won back around £900,000. And that was a pretty good ratio TBH.

    That’s a good example – the people I knew who bet loads would probably tell that as “I’ve won £900K in the last year” when to a more clear thinking person that’s £100K down.

    nealglover
    Free Member

    his team that he had to win was 3-0 up with 20 minutes to go and he stood to win about £500, so promptly put £200 at long odds on a draw and £100 at longer odds on his team to lose. At that point he was guaranteed a nice payout whatever the result.

    Without knowing the odds he was hedging on its hard to say, but I would reckon he just threw away around £200 for no reason 😐

    D0NK
    Full Member

    Someone my mrs knows was seeing a guy who described himself as “a professional gambler”.

    ie he was on the dole but spent it playing online poker
    with spin like that he should go into politics (or marketing)

    emsz
    Free Member

    A couple of family friends are in banking, and they bet regularly, although like grum says above he’s well known by the local bookies (he lives in amersham) and they won’t take his bets. He gets friends to place them for him.

    He does football and horse mainly, has had huge wins, but massive losses as well. dunno if it makes a difference but his dad and brother are both mad for gambling as well, and the whole family are money obsessed

    jota180
    Free Member

    Some people regularly win, obviously not many

    Independent bookies are closing down all the time now, they just can’t compete with the big 4 or the online stuff

    Most gambling now is just number betting, the horses and dogs are on the decline

    lunge
    Full Member

    There is a guy who drinks in my local who is a “professional gambler” and does pretty well. He targets himself to be £200 per day up, 5 days per week and will gamble each day for as long as that takes. Some times he will win with 1 bet, other times it will take all day. He says it pays for him as he is very disciplined but he knows plenty of others who will chase their losses or get on a streak and loose lots in the end.

    Markie
    Free Member

    Have a bro-in-law who for a time made reasonable money football betting on betfair. He linked in through their API to automatically find odds discrepancies and move money accordingly. This was. A few years ago now, and I know he doesn’t do it anymore – I think betfair may have changed their API. Or something.

    edlong
    Free Member

    I think he’d be better off using betfair for hedging positions.

    Apparently not, he reckons he gets better odds the way he does it. Not my cup of tea, so I can’t provide any illustrations of this.

    atlaz
    Free Member

    Before someone suggests spread betting on the stock market as a good idea, when I worked for one of the UK’s biggest SB companies, their rule of thumb is 95% of people break even or lose money.

    grum
    Free Member

    Fair enough. Not saying this applies to your mate but IME there were an awful lot of people who fancied themselves as professional gamblers and thought they had super-clever systems for beating the odds, but were massively delusional about how successful they actually were.

    PMK2060
    Full Member

    The only time i bet is when i go to the horses (once a year). I take a set amount for betting and i am prepared to lose it.

    I used to go to the bookies to bet on the Grand National and it was always full of ‘experts’ who were all skint.

    makeitorange
    Free Member

    I knew a guy at uni who claimed he made the equivalent of about 18K a year playing online poker for a bit. He had no social life as the best time to play was Friday and Saturday nights when other players would come home from the pub drunk and play badly.

    Unlikley I know, but does anyone know of a bookie that takes bets for the DH world cup? its the only sport I follow avidly enough to make informed bets!

    uwe-r
    Free Member

    I would imagine it is much like other forms of investment, if you can make a 20% return over a year and had over £200,000 to play with to make a good wage and keep the pot growing in line with inflation then it could work. 20% a year would be a 0.4% target return a week, that must be achievable.

    I would assume you would only be taking minimal risk positions and using extensive hedging to minimise your losses – not very sexy stuff and quite dull tbh. Anything involving taking serious positions is not a realistic long term strategy it would be a matter of time before you were undone – even with inside tips / blatant cheating there is risk.

    Do many people do this – i would say no.

    jota180
    Free Member

    Unlikley I know, but does anyone know of a bookie that takes bets for the DH world cup?

    None of the main price providers list it so Betfair would probably be the best place to look
    or maybe Paddy Power for a more conventional bookie

    jota180
    Free Member

    I would assume you would only be taking minimal risk positions and using extensive hedging to minimise your losses – not very sexy stuff and quite dull tbh. Anything involving taking serious positions is not a realistic long term strategy it would be a matter of time before you were undone – even with inside tips / blatant cheating there is risk.

    Do many people do this – i would say no.

    Google ‘sharbing’

    zilog6128
    Full Member

    There actually is/was a guaranteed way to make money from online betting sites – there was a whole thread about it on MSE. IIRC It basically involved signing up to all the sites and taking the free credits, then betting on opposite outcomes on different sites so you basically ended up winning the value of the free bet, which you could (eventually) cash out.

    seosamh77
    Free Member

    If you are going to gamble regularly and take it serious, keep a spreadsheet of every bet you’ve ever made. That’ll let you know when it’s getting out of control. most people don’t do that, and get all giddy when they win a couple of hundred quid, when in reality it’s probably cost them a grand to get there..

    People only tell you about their wins. Don’t fall into that trap and treat it like a business.

    I don’t gamble myself, apart from on occasion or a few fiver/tenner games of poker with my mates.

    Saying that, I’ve one mate that has won a couple of hundred grand at it.. Though again, i’d like to see his final profit/loss. i know he chucked alot of it away.

    StefMcDef
    Free Member

    I bet on football fixed odds, since I’d be following the football anyway and can kid myself on that I know enough about it to make “informed” selections. Quite often it’s because I’m working at the weekend. I have a telly at my desk and having a couple of lines on makes the Vidiprinter on a Saturday afternoon more interesting.

    It’s very much just a hobby though, it’s never going to be a ticket out of the ghetto. On a good month, typically, it’s self-financing for the next month. On a bad month, it isn’t and I wait until the start of the next month to top up my stake. On the very rare occasions my winnings stray into three figures it’s a Weakest Link-style BANK! from me.

    I can see how people would get into trouble with it though, if you were of an addictive bent – having it on an app on a phone, given the astonishing volume and cleverness of ads for online bookies while you’re watching sport on TV, for example, seems to “normalise” gambling from what was once considered a vice, that you had to go into a seedy bookies’ shop reeking of fag smoke and despair to partake in, into an everyday activity that is as easy as posting on Twitter or sending a text.

    chakaping
    Free Member

    Unlikley I know, but does anyone know of a bookie that takes bets for the DH world cup? its the only sport I follow avidly enough to make informed bets!

    Maybe we should run a sweepstake along with the Fantasy League this year.

    Sky take bets on road cycling.

    jota180
    Free Member

    It’s still relatively new [although been around for a few years] but ‘in play’ gambling is one of the biggest opportunities for bookies.
    Fast mobile internet has opened up some very lucrative markets that were previously closed to them e.g. gambling in pubs.
    The ability to bet on the outcome of a corner or free kick etc. live will earn the bookies a few bob more.

    deadlydarcy
    Free Member

    I like nealglover’s day-at-the-races idea too. 🙂

    I’m not a gambling man at all. I have to remind myself that when mates tell me about the ninety quid they won at the weekend on a fiver bet, that I never hear about all the fivers and tenners they lose.

    I remember a day at Chester Races years ago for a mate’s stag do. We were having great fun and on the second last race, four of us won around ninety quid on a race. This would have covered a fair few beers that evening. What did I convince them to do? Throw it all on a horse in the last race. We lost. To be honest, funny as it was, it sort of taught me a mini-lesson that I don’t really have the self-control to gamble; even for fun.

    woffle
    Free Member

    I used to chauffeur for a chap – v.clever mathematician. He left a Board Chairman position because of the stress and started ‘gambling’ (used to pick up the racing papers in the morning when walking his dog) but he had a ‘system’ though I’m buggered if I could understand it (he did try once to explain it). Quickly started making lots of money, more than he did at work, but then as bookies started shutting him down he had to go to meets in order to bet. Then it turned into a full-time job which wasn’t the point so he jacked it in and went back to work proper…

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