Horse racing, The Sport of Kings, is one of the most widely watched sports in the world, and most of the people who are watching, will also have placed a bet on one of the horses.
This makes it a huge business financially. From the punter who places the minimum bet, just for the fun of it, to the professional gambler who bets tens of thousands of dollars, pounds or euros, on a race, there are millions bet world-wide each day.
The old adage "there's no such thing as a poor bookie" is probably true. Every bookmaker, who is worth his salt, doesn't worry if a punter wins. What he will have done, when the bet is laid, is to have taken a small 'commission', as his share, and laid the balance off with another bookie. Remember that the bookmaker is not a book-keeper, and gambling is his game.
Before laying a bet the professional punter will 'shop-around' for the best prices available. Let's face it, if you are laying a bet of 10K, just one point can make a huge difference to your winnings.
Recently, after being kicked out of bed by my wife for continual snoring at 4am, I was able to find a price of 14/1 on a horse whilst surfing the different web-sites. During the course of the day the odds plummeted, and by the off my selection was 2nd favourite at 5/2! I had placed my bet each way and he came second. I had put a 5-figure amount on the race and did quite nicely, thank you.
Back in the days pre mobile phones, PC's and lap-tops when I started on my career as a gambler, I often wonder, when looking back, how I could have managed.
Shopping around for prices, in the bad old days, involved making phone calls to the various bookies, few, if any, offered ante-post odds. This was not only time consuming but was expensive, but it was either that or visit each shop!
That was the era of the10% betting tax. This was payable only in the betting shops, and so I decided to go to the courses.
I was betting £100 per race, even in those days (most race cards were only 6 races, unlike now). So I figured the £60 a day that I would save was better spent on my expenses than the government's.
Today I can go on-line and get the best prices available ante-post.
The racing press' information is, and it cannot be helped, slightly out of date, especially as far as 'the going' is concerned. That is because it is printed overnight. Nowadays we can get up-to-the-minute information on-line. Torrential overnight rain can, and does, make a huge difference.
By no stretch of the imagination could I be considered anything but computer semi-illiterate. I do use a computer nowadays, but I am not an expert. I feel that if I can do it, then anybody can!
The playing fields have now been levelled. We, the not so expert on computer generation, can do it quite simply. Just think what an expert could do!
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