was at the bookies earlier to put a shilling on grimsby beating scunthorpe but some scruffier guy pushed in. i thought it was very rude at the time but he wanted to put £5k each way on some nag
£10,000
surely that is an enormous bet in a normal bookkeeper shop?
had to go for a meeting so couldn't stick around for the race.
Bookies are like arcades. They don't want people coming in and winning. If you walk into a bookies and start trying to put £10k on a horse the bet will be referred to head office, even the so called big 3 bookies. This would take at least five minutes, so to go in just before the off will give you no chance. They would probably give you a grand at the price and the rest at SP (or maybe just a grand). If you won regularly they would limit you to stupid amounts, like £25 or simply discourage you completely by taking even less. If the bet was at a small meeting, they would get their on course rep to shorten the price up with a few £100-£200 bets. They are not traditional bookies, just number crunchers.
good points Harry. the woman behind the counter seemed unfazed by it, even though he was pretty bolshy. she was on the blower (presumably to head office) and ultimately he told her to rip up the ticket and he stormed out. so he didn't get his bet on but presumably went up the road to ladbrokes or paddy power.
i'd be interested to know if there were any irregular patterns about 15.00 yesterday. i think we all realise that there is a deal of bentness in horse racing but i don't know enough about the nags to have any real inkling.
Betfair's memorandum of understanding provides an audit trail of any suspicious betting patterns and is available to the racing authorities. Tradition bookies don't do nearly enough to weed out the rogues and won't pass on "client information". Indeed some bookmakers take some money from stable staff to gauge if the horse is fancied or not, especially in places like Newmarket and Lambourn.