They’re sh1tty small pens though :)

…Or the question should be clarified: “How often do you gamble in bookies?”

Hi Eoin, That’s a fair point – though when we had the question in mind we did think/expect readers to include the Lotto as a form of gambling. I suppose you’ve stumbled onto a fair point, though: that people don’t really consider a lottery and a sports bet to be the same thing…

apparently 5 million isn’t worth your time

It’s arbitrary, I know, but I don’t want to end up playing twice a week, every week, so there needs to be some cut-off point. I set mine a six million because it means I could pay off my mortgage, buy a house outright for each of my kids, and still guarantee their and my financial security for life( in as as much as it can ever be guaranteed ). Could be 5 million, could be 7 million. I chose 6. I like the number 6.

I used to work in a bookies and I’ll say 2 things: never bet on dogs, and NEVER EVER bet on Irish horse racing.

Betcha a fiver it’s not……

Taxi….

Its like this, high street bookies have a very expensive infrastructure and wage bill – that money didn’t magically appear out of thin air!

Gambling and betting are two different things. Gambling would include games such as roulette or the lottery whereby you take your choice and have a specific chance of your pick being successful. These las vegas style games will systematically see the punter lose (apart from the few incredibly lucky). Betting on a sporting outcome does not compare to the flip of a coin. Naturally there are still a huge amount of people that bet on a horse or other event with no knowledge at all other than the hope that the 40/1 “tip” they got off their barber will win.

However, sporting events are rarely toss of a coin events and considerable skill and research can go into getting the better of the bookie.

@Shanners Don’t be deluded man. The odds are still with the bookies and probably even more so than a casino. Have you ever seen a two horse race with both horses at even money?
No. It’s usually about 5/6 on both which will give them a sixth of the money regardless of the result if enough gamble on both, if more gamble on one they adjust the odds to suit them. They make money on everything because the odds are in their favour.

@declan, my point was not about the bookies making profit. If they didn’t make a profit they would not exist.

If a person is betting on a two horse race with no knowledge on the event, for example that one runs better in the rain than the other, or one is more fit than the other etc, then that person is gambling on the flip of a coin. However the guy who follows each horse’s history might easily pick the winner. The bookies odds are often distorted because of mass market opinion. Just look at odds on horses at cheltenham each year that lose.

@Shanners Your point is that one can look at a horses form and pick it based on that. Do you not think the bookies think of that when choosing their odds? Hence why your barbers horse is 40/1 and Frankel is 1/10. Either way it’s not the actual odds of the horse, it’s always worse cos the bookies get a cut.
I’d say you are trying to write some form of clever paradoxical statement, unfortunately there is no difference between gambling and betting.

Frankel is free money. Hardly a gamble to back him in a race he is clearly superior in. not exactly tossing a coin. Like I’ve been saying, odds reflect market opinion.

Your argument is that bookies make money because of the odds ensuring them a profit. That’s obvious. Not every cent that is bet goes into bookies profits.

@shanners Frankel is as much free money as you are making a valid point.

Bookies are not infallible, Declan. Far from it.

The overwhelming majority of punters lose money but not all.

I don’t think I ever said bookies weren’t infallible Steve, nor did I think it.

My point was that someone claiming there is a difference betting and gambling is clearly wrong. Be it a bookies, casino or the lotto mathematically you lose. And the more you bet mathematically you have a better chance of loosing. The odds are always against, no exceptions.

Comparing sports betting to roulette is ridiculous because sports betting odds are subjective.

And with it subjective, the bookies will get it wrong sometimes.

Say a bookie prices a tennis match at Player A 5/6 and Player B 5/6. If a punter rates Player B as having say, a 60% chance of winning, then the 5/6 on offer if a good value bet.

If the punter’s perception of value is consistent and correct in the long term he can win.

If the punter rates the match as 50-50 but bets on the 5/6 anyway, then he is an idiot who will lose long term.

Another government sponsored social disease….

Steve, a perception is never consistent because the variables are always changing depending on what you are betting on. Even if you could bet on the same tennis match with same two players all the time. It’s still just a perception.
Bookies have teams of people judging the variables and if they have doubts they just make the odds less. They’ll always have the better hand.
If you put on 1 bet on in your life u could get lucky.
If you make statements like bookies being “far from infallible” and roulette being a “million miles from sports betting” you’re unlucky…cos ur a bit deluded.

There’s no point debating any further with you if you trenchantly refuse to accept that the bookies can’t be beaten.

You really have no clue if you think this is the case.

Bookies can employ all the people and look at all the variables they like but there is no magic mathematical formula for judging the talent, form and motivation of human beings. I see them mess up on a daily basis. I have yet to see a roulette table with incorrect odds.

Your point about value makes no sense at all. If a punter has the talent to spot value in the long term, he will make a profit, the same as a Wall Street trader can spot an under-valued stock.

It takes talent, knowledge, discipline and hard work but there are plenty of successful sports gamblers out there whose careers have nothing to do with luck. Stubbornly refusing to accept that is just arrogant.

Oh sorry, I get you now. You’re on about lads like Matthew McConaghy in that film with Al Pacino, wheree goes around cleaning out bookies. You’re saying there’s ‘plenty’ of these boys going around exploited the fact that bookies are ‘far from infallible’.
Sorry there I was mixing up fiction with reality. Sure all I had to do is look around at all the bookies closing and I’d have seen my argument was rubbish.

Surely the Lottery is still gambling?

Which is why I said “Excluding the lottery”.
The article tends to centre around Bookies as such.

I agree Biggins

Fair point – lots of little greyheads travel from LA to Vegas for a weekend playing the slots. They know they can’t win as the machines are programmed to only pay out 80% of what they take in, but they just see it as a weekend of relatively cheap entertainment.

In fairness Jane, they’d lose bet or no bet !

:)

Well said. Best comment on this article so far.

It is a mugs game, but nobody’s trying to stop you from being a mug – you’re an adult in a free country…

She would of course get £3 million…………..

To explain gambling and bookies odds for the uninitiated:
If Liverpool are 10/1 to win the league and you bet €10, then what happens is… you lose €10.

The bookies usually do.

Well according to the article the bookies do!

snap!

I k ow a perfect foolproof system that never fails

Go to the bookies Saturday morning
Choose two football matches, both favourites, put a fiver on both
choose three horses, two favourites one long shot, put a tenner on each,
Choose a greyhound, put €50 each way,
Then put a tenner on the whole lot as an accumulator
And here’s the clever bit
If you lose ,come back just before closing time with a balaclava and a sawnoff shotgun,
Never fails, can’t lose.

If it’s an idiots game what is drinking minerals, eating sweets, paying to go to a football match, having a pint….in fact paying for anything that gives you pleasure. Your statement is 100% nonsense.

Anyone who bets (sensibly) gets a great deal from it. I could give you lots of examples including one I posted below. Here’s a few more; I was on a weekend away with my wife in ’84 and nipped into a bookie and had one bet on Secreto in the Derby which paid for the weekend, with a friend we had two Yankees up on the same day in Slane at the Stones concert (bookie refused further bets), once got a list of unraced 2-year olds from an English yard with a rating against each and made a bomb backing them when they first ran, dropped into a very small bar in London, which turned out to be a dump but full of characters, a year ago after flying in from Ireland and started watching some minor Premiership match, stuck on £20 at 50/1 for 3-3 and myself and the entire bar had a serious piss up when it came in. Memories are made of this.

You’re just a grumpy git who has missed out on one of life’s great pleasures. Go to Cheltenham in March, get a life, stand in front of the Arkle bar and when the first race is off watch the crowd yelling and cheering and tell me it’s an idiots game. :))

Finally, isn’t it amazing it’s an idiots game when many if not most successful business men buy horses and gamble?

So just use the exchange on betfair. Odds set by users, betfair take 5% of winnings.

I use paddypower for a number of reasons.
1) user friendly site
2)better odds than most other bookies
3)money back offers
4)occasional free bets

Great till you came along… ;-)

how much ye spend a week?

now multiply it by 52!

price of a holiday?

V funny Niall ya mad b

Isn’t that exactly what the stock markets do?

Or pulling our trousers on standing on one leg.

Or not wearing a condom!