Sport is made for betting

Today at Wetherby, leading jockey Barry Geraghty took the wrong course on 9-4 favourite My Petra when leading and was instantly out of the race. His negligent actions cost punters hundreds of thousands of pounds. Nothing against the guy, he is a class act and threw his hands up to admit his guilt, but for the stewards to only give him a 12-day suspension shows just how little respect the industry has for itself and its patrons. Booed as he returned the paddock, Geraghty said: "I walked the track earlier on and I was well aware of it..." It wasn't as if he was riding on the track for the first time. It is a jockey's responsibility to know where he is supposed to go. Actions which cause punters to do their dough cold deserve harsh penalties. Remember Roger Loughran on Central House ? Similarly the judge Jane Stickels and anyone like her should be either banned from the sport or forced to perform cross-checks every time (like people in most jobs) before declaring result...

Good article here from Bill Saunders, describing how South Australian racing is moving forward (granted, it was in rather poor shape) by rolling the sleeves up and dealing with the modern age, rather than trying to stick to believing in a Flat Earth like their counterparts in New South Wales. South Australia Shows How It's Done Long considered a basket case by the rest of Australian racing, South Australia is suddenly showing strong growth from a combination of embracing non-TAB wagering operators, government taxation reform and self help from rationalisation of resources and cost cutting. The net result is a stunning year to year turnaround in performance by TRSA, from a loss of $2.1 million in 2007-08 to a profit of nearly $6.8 million in 2008-09. By far the biggest factor in the improved performance was race field contributions from the bookmaking sector, which boosted gross revenue for TRSA by $9.2 million for the 9 months of the year that the contribution was paid. After payin...

On the last day of the season, Brazilian club Viana were going for the Maranhão State League championship. With rivals Moto Club also banging in the goals in a 5-1 win, there is some suggestion Viana might have got a helping hand with their late goal glut. Nine goals in nine minutes! Needing to win 11-0 to clinch promotion from the Second Division, Viana found themselves leading Chapadinha by just 2-0 with 81 minutes played. A bit of fatigue might have been setting in, of course, but surely not enough to see them ship nine goals in the final nine minutes! Blimey, even Hull defend better than this...

Ever thought of doing something different and creating your own lines, rather than just blindly following what everyone else does? Bookmakers living a nightmare in Vegas Favourites winning all the games, bookies crying. Similar thing happened early in the EPL, then it all turned around. Much harder to do that when only betting point-spreads though.

This might seem second nature in the UK but it's a new development in Australia. On-course bookies had to be just that, and while recent law changes had allowed local bookmakers to form companies and trade 24/7, that was only if they were on track within that state. Now Victoria has allowed Centrebet, Sportsbet, and the big one, TABCorp trading as TAB Sportsbet, to work on the rails. Bit controversial they have been allowed to queue jump and not be subject to the normal procedures of Victorian bookies during spring carnival time, but it's hardly surprising. TABCorp goes on the rails TABCORP will join the Flemington rails as an on-course bookie for the first time on Derby Day. Tabcorp has won approval from the Victorian Commission for Gambling Regulation to short-circuit Victoria Bookmakers' Association rules to gain a rails berth. Derby Day, this Saturday at Flemington, is the best day of domestic racing anywhere in the world. Quality from start to finish, and over 100,000 ...

It's a natural fit for Betfair to get into India. Cricket betting is enormous and local bookies are mostly traders, offering a buy and sell price with each quote. Legalising betting in the country is the next step, and the most logical way to crack down on illegal, unlicensed betting, the most common route for corruption. Indian law means foreign companies must partner with local firms to do business there, in any industry. Betfair and William Hill target India Britain's biggest betting companies are bidding for the first online gambling licence in India to gain a slice of the country's $60bn (£37bn) betting market. The high-street bookie William Hill, along with internet players Betfair and Bwin, are bidding for the internet licence in the Himalayan state of Sikkim in early September. A decision is expected in the next two weeks. Some 13 betting companies, including local Indian operators, are battling it out for at least three licences in Sikkim. Sources said they want th...

Weird match this. Tennis authorities looking into Wozniacki match US Open finalist Caroline Wozniacki led 7-5 5-0 against local veteran Anne Kremer in a round one match on Tuesday. She was battling with a hamstring injury which she knew she wouldn't be able to play with in the next round (these things almost always get worse once the athlete has cooled down and tries to play again). During the coaching breaks which are allowed in the WTA, her father, speaking in Polish was clearly telling her to retire because she wouldn't play the next round anyway. I applaud her father for doing that - firstly, it's to save her from further injury and secondly, it gave a local player, who will probably retire soon, the chance to play in R2 instead of having that match given as a walkover. There is honour in that approach in my opinion. But because the rules say that microphones must be able to pick up what is said during coaching breaks, sharp viewers who can understand Polish would have ...

Betfair's link into US pools finally begins with the peak meeting of the year. Betfair, Breeders’ Cup reach deal on wagering revenue Now if they could just start slapping the US tracks around on some of their exorbitant takeout rates, the interest in American racing would soar....

Hyprocritical muppet. I'll leave it at that. Productivity Commission Gambling Report Represents Community View from Racing NSW CEO Peter V'Landys: "The Productivity Commission allowed presentations from a myriad of wagering operators but at no time sought to provide Racing NSW with the opportunity to make a presentation on behalf of its 50,000 participants." V'Landys fails to point out that Racing NSW did in fact make a submission, which was mostly ignored, much to his chagrin. In terms of poetic justice he might like to reflect on the very limited consultation process that Racing NSW engaged in when formulating its race fields strategy. Submissions were not considered from any wagering operator other than TabCorp and the one provided by Betfair was ignored. ... Racing NSW is furious that any party would want to dictate what it should charge for its racing, saying: "The two most ridiculous recommendations are that an independent organisation set the price of ...

Is it really 1973 in Sydney, or just in the ivory towers that Peter V'Landys lives in? The guy is that out-of-touch with his thinking that he surely still believes the world is flat. Yesterday the Australian Federal Government Productivity Commission released a report into the gambling industry in Australia. It delved deeply into problem gambling, advertising laws, online operations at home and abroad, hypocrisy of racing authorities and TABs, and all the other related issues. From what I've read, and there are 630 pages of it, it appears to be quite a balanced report. It outlines how the world has changed, how competition improves businesses and for the end consumer. It outlines how the ban on online casinos for Australians was a waste of time. And many other stories. If you fancy a few days of bedtime reading, you can download it here . Naturally, the muppet in charge at Racing NSW has come out and slaughtered it because the researchers actually believe in life after black an...

News this morning that the New Zealand Racing Board, which controls the NZ TAB, has signed a deal with Australian based software company, Media and Gaming, developer of Typhoon Pools, to deliver its new totalisator betting platform. Most totalisator and pari-mutuel platforms are old technology, locked into maximum size fields (Aus TABs), slow calculation of dividends (UK Tote), problems with co-mingling and dividend displays (US)etc. This announcement could signal the first radical change to tote betting systems in many years. NZ Racing selects Typhoon Betting platform “Tote operations throughout the world run on legacy systems that do not enable them to compete against more technologically advanced gaming enterprises. This is holding racing back in its attempts to match other forms of global entertainment,” said Nicholas Plowman, MD of Media & Gaming. “TyphoonÒ goes a long way to solving these problems.” Mr. Plowman identified several key advantages of the new TyphoonÒ betting sys...

More rain forecast and a pair of drivers on the front row with terrible records at the track. You can read my race preview here.

Wow, I thought I'd see hell freeze over first but Betfair have successfully negotiated with Sky Racing to bring live Australian Racing to customers in the UK & Ireland, in addition to Melbourne Cup Day (where the broadcast rights are held by another network). Streaming Deal Just a day after announcing a deal with the VRC to stream Flemington meetings to Betfair customers on its wagering website, Betfair's chief executive Andrew Twaits yesterday revealed the betting giant had also agreed a deal with Sky Racing to cover the spring carnival. Twaits said the deal would enable up to 1.4 million Betfair customers in Ireland and Britain to see the best of the Melbourne spring carnival racing. It allows Betfair to have live streaming of today's Caulfield Cup meeting, the Cox Plate meeting next Saturday, three days of the Melbourne Cup carnival at Flemington and the Sandown Classic from Betfair Park on November 14. If you're interested in trading on it, the fastest audio fee...

Hooray, we won't have to put up with the depressing John Berry on AtTheRaces all night! Betfair to market Melbourne Cup overseas Betfair and the VRC today announced a landmark agreement that will see the VRC's Melbourne Cup Day races streamed online to Betfair's overseas customer base of over 3 million people. ... VRC CEO, Dale Monteith said, "We look forward to working with Betfair to maximize the returns to Victorian racing, from this exciting new initiative, which hopefully can be expanded in the near term to include days other than Melbourne Cup Day at Flemington." It's crazy that SkyRacing hold the international rights on Australian racing, yet the pictures shown in the UK are the rubbish which comes via America, complete with $50 pools and filler between races from two tracks. Get a deal done, get the proper stuff screened and give the UK bookies rebates for betting into the Aus pools (like they do with the American racing).

And you thought your politicians/courts were hopeless! (Applies to just about every nation in the world) 'Rights Recognition' Lands Unibet €1.2m French Fine Unibet has become the first victim of the highly controversial ‘sports betting right’ which is yet to be formally adopted in France, but which has been retroactively applied to the online gaming and betting operator by a Paris court this week. As a result, Unibet must now pay €300,000 to the Roland Garros tennis tournament in recognition of the ownership right, in addition to a further €900,000 in penalties. So a law which hasn't been introduced yet and will never receive EU approval now says Unibet has to hand over 1.2m euro for something which happened in the past. Funnily enough, Unibet will be challenging the decision.

Don't expect any companies moving to France in a hurry after the National Assembly voted to introduce licensing regulation for online wagering. Amongst the ridiculous items in the bill: - all accounts held by French citizens must be closed down until the respective company is licensed and situated on French soil - all markets must have a best pay back return of 85% (imagine betting on tennis or NFL with markets of 1.74/1.74!!) - big chunk (8%) of turnover (not profit) to be paid to the government and then the operator must negotiate with the respective sports bodies to pay more for the privilege again This will get struck down by the EU - all it does is protect the govt run duopoly of the PMU and FdJ. No competitive business will put up with such crap. European Gaming and Betting Association Secretary General Sigrid Ligne said “At the time when Europe is watching the developments of France’s reform, the introduction of even more unjustified restrictions is threatening to corrupt th...

Unlike some of their rival bookmakers who have headed offshore to avoid paying tax and levy, Sportingbet have chosen to make a voluntary Levy Board payment for the upkeep of British racing, beginning next year. From the Racing Post: Chief executive Andrew McIver, whose company is sponsoring a £50,000 four-year-old hurdle at Cheltenham on Saturday, said yesterday: "We're delighted to demonstrate our support of the British racing industry by committing to a voluntary payment of the levy, which equates to the statutory payments [ten per cent of gross profits] we would make if we were based in the UK. The figure is expected to be around the £250k mark. Obviously there is something in it for them, wanting to add credibility to their sponsorship of various races and the Racehorse Owners' Association awards night they have agreed to sponsor for three years. Other firms paying a voluntary levy fee include Betfair (assume because they weren't covered in the original legislation...

Last match of the season, the team already knows they will get the wooden spoon - what exactly is there to play for? Apparently a free night at a brothel... Victorian gambling board probes suspicious bets on Roosters game The Herald revealed last month there was bitter division within the Roosters team because of fears a small group of players had manipulated the result of the match against the Cowboys on September 6 to extend their loss beyond 13 points. The Roosters went from being 16-6 ahead at half-time to losing the game by 32-16, leaving the bookmakers and betting agencies with a payout of between $4 and $5.50 to the large number of punters who had backed the Roosters to lose by 13 points plus. ... It has been alleged that some of those Roosters players then ''celebrated'' winning the wooden spoon by visiting a brothel where they were provided with free services. The Herald revealed that one Roosters player openly accused a teammate of getting some kind of kickbac...

No great surprise there, but racing really needs to do something about keeping its superstars in the game for longer. One season is not enough to class him as a true champion - you have to come back and defend your crowns to earn that. As a 2yo, he showed potential, at 3 he was the best by far and at 4 and beyond he'll be shagging his life away making his shareholders very rich, and hopefully throwing some talented progeny. So what can flat racing do to prolong the racing careers of its stars? Jumping tops the popularity stakes in Britain mostly because Kauto Star, Denman, Hardy Eustace, Istabraq and other stars come back year after year. The public feel a connection with these horses built up over more than a few months. Here's an idea - create a jackpot pool so that any horse who wins a feature, open age Group I race two years in a row gets a bonus on top of the winner's cheques. So if Sea The Stars collected £1m for winning the Arc, next year he would be racing for an ex...

Here's a no-brainer if ever I saw one - England cricket sponsors want to see the Ashes back on terrestrial TV. npower do, Betfair surely will and no doubt all the others do as well, even if they have to pay more for it. When less than 1/3 of the 2005 audience watched the last Test at The Oval, that's a pretty strong argument. Betfair's volume on the whole series was no bigger than 2005, predominantly due to the broadcast factor. Sponsors want Ashes on terrestrial TV Not sure I'll be here for the next one, living here for two losses in a row has been hard enough!!

Following on from the previous post... Kempton's not a track I get many results at laying the field, the camera angle seems to be too good (you want people to think horses are further ahead than they really are, running direct at the camera is great for that) and all-weather tracks don't seem to throw up the jackpots too often. But today we got lucky :D

One of the most popular search phrases for this blog is 'lay the field' which was one of the fun strategies we used to demonstrate regularly at our Betfair Education sessions. It's been a while since I've made a post about it so today I've decided to have a go and post an example of how it works. Quite simply, we are looking for at least two horses to trade short in-running, with a jackpot occurring if even more do (there have been races where four horses have traded at 1.15 or shorter, my favourite was the day at Worcester when I had three matched at 1.34 and not the winner because it was never in front until the line). In this example I have gone for the double lay - laying £20 at 1.45 on all runners (worst-case scenario -£9 if one horse hits the front and isn't challenged) and then again for £88 at 1.07 (risking another £6.16). Worst-case scenario of -£15.16. The second lay at 1.07 is for the jackpot, when one trades really short, but also not risking enough ...

In all the posturing between Gordon Brown and David Cameron before the UK general election sometime next year, the big debate is now how are we going to pay for the mess we are in, particularly the huge government bail-out of the economy. Brown has proposed a sale of several public assets including the Tote again, the sale of which had been put on the shelf during the economic downturn. Government's £16bn sale of assets Is this what is best for the country or just the bet they can come up with to save Brown's arse as PM? As Vince Cable says in the article, "This is not a good time to sell assets." Dumping it cheaply will not serve the racing industry like it is supposed to. Here's a thought. Rather than constantly talking of selling the Tote off at a fire sale price, how about floating it? Encourage mum and dad buyers to get involved, and hopefully increase the client base as well. People who buy shares in a firm are more likely to spend money there when given a c...

Beware when betting on awards and prizes where votes are cast by a committee or the general public - all logic can potentially go out the window! Has he got it for “Not being George W”? In a word, yes. I'm sure he will probably be worthy of that prize in due course, but he's hardly had time to do anything on a world stage apart from try to bail out his own busted economy. Obama was 25/1 at Ladbrokes with hardly any takers. Whenever it comes to betting on an award where people have to vote for it, be it the Nobel Peace Prize, Mercury Music Award, Man of the Match in a sports event, Big Brother eviction etc, you must consider the psychology of those making the votes and how much influence they have. Sometimes voters can just be blinded by the celebrity status or headlines around one person. Other times, they vote to an agenda - to get a certain player chosen in a representative team or to appeal to a particular audience. Any awards on the BBC for example are heavily-biased toward...

Despite egamingreview claiming Betfair were over the line six weeks ago , the French government have drafted their new online betting legislation this week, with a specific prohibition for betting exchanges. French government's new gambling law bans Betfair and all exchanges The French government has effectively outlawed the online betting exchange Betfair after passing an amendment to new gambling laws. These are being closely watched by sports bodies in the UK which are lobbying the government to bring in similar regulations. Under a surprise last-minute amendment, betting exchanges such as Betfair that allow punters to lay as well as place bets were excluded from the legislation in a move that the company described as "discriminatory". ... Passing the amendment, the French parliament also referred to a 2007 report from the British Gambling Commission that said 9.8% of punters using betting exchanges developed gambling addictions, compared to a rate of between one and t...

Could this be the first of a few teams from the old Eastern Europe in trouble for match-fixing? Latvian Football Club Banned Following Betting Probe One of the top clubs in the Latvian football league, FC Dinaburg, have been banned for the rest of the season after the club's Prsident and head coach were found to have placed bets on the outcome of the team's matches following an investigation by the Latvian Football Federation and UEFA. Had it been in England , they probably would have received a pathetic slap on the wrist....

When it comes to European nations taking their time to adhere to European Union directives regarding breaking down the monopolies of state-run gambling companies, you can't be surprised that the French have been dragging their heels on it. ZeTurf, a Maltese-based gambling firm which focuses on French racing, angered the French government last week when a 'press release' appeared in the free daily Metro paper in Paris, just two days before the Prix de L'Arc de Triomphe. Zeturf French advertising condemned Online operators have become increasingly impatient in recent months ahead of the market liberalisation which is planned for early 2010, entering into media and sports sponsorship deals as they compete to establish themselves ahead of the market opening. France’s proposed gambling bill will be presented to the National Assembly for discussion on Wednesday.

I've watched a lot of top quality racing in the 25 years or so I've been keen on the sport, and even seen a fair bit of historical footage.. but I can't think of any horse who can match what Sea The Stars has done this season. Six Group 1s spread over six months, beating his age group and open class, in three countries, and facing all the team tactics that the likes of Aidan O'Brien and co can serve up... and still braining them. He wasn't even at his best yesterday, and still cruised home in what the experts have called the strongest Arc field in years. I'd embed the YouTube clip but unfortunately it's all in widescreen and won't fit on the blog page - Sea The Stars wins the 2009 Arc de Triomphe It will be great to see his progeny gracing the turf in a few years' time, but it will be just as sad that he will almost certainly be packed off to stud and won't return to defend some of his crowns next season. Great call from Jim McGrath, his quote of...

Fair play to the IOC for being proactive and wanting to avoid any match-fixing scandals from ever tainting an Olympic Games. But it's a bit rich to single out betting as the evil one when over the years there have been numerous suspicious judging decisions in athletics, boxing and other sports to satisfy political agendas. Not to mention the old junkets and favours which used to be exchanged in order to succeed with a bid to host the Games. IOC sets up system to watch for illegal betting At last year's Beijing Games, the IOC used a system set up by FIFA for soccer to watch for irregular betting on Olympic competitions. The monitoring found that a wide array of bets were offered for all Olympic sports, but that bets laid were generally small — between $7 to $70, the IOC says. It says there were no cases of irregular betting. Firstly the title of the article is wrong - you can't 'monitor' illegal betting, the whole point of black market betting is that it's untrac...

Saturday's card at Newmarket featuring that impossible Cambridgeshire means the Scoop6 will rollover again, with £540k in the win fund and £232k in the bonus fund for next week. So tough were the Scoop6 races and the results they threw out, nobody lasted past the fourth leg and just one place dividend was paid. The lucky punter was the only one to name a placegetter in every leg, and claimed the whole place fund off £75,648 for his £2 stake. He didn't get one winner, just six placegetters. Nice work... much better than the all-up!

A very eventful qualifying day at Suzuka, with the qualifying list looking a lot different to how they'll end up on the grid tomorrow morning. Here's my preview

Has someone been having a go at manipulating the betting markets over the last 24hrs? Several UK bookies have suspended the book on Next Premier League Manager to Leave after substantial backing for Harry Redknapp starting last night. The man himself denies it, which doesn't mean a lot considering when he outright denied he was going to Portsmouth in a press conference as Southampton manager a few years ago, whilst the price on him getting the job was getting smashed on Betfair, allegedly by people he knew rather well.... But this one doesn't make a lot of sense, unless there's a lot going on behind the scenes. We saw a few weeks ago where market manipulation was the sole reason behind a massive plunge on Rafael Benitez leaving and Franck Ribery heading to Anfield . It seems that here, some guys with plenty of money to splash around have tried to skew the books by backing Redknapp from any old price into single digits before the market closed, almost certainly creating arbi...

This is supposedly a very good three-day meeting at Newmarket, yet in the final three races at headquarters today, there are 10 runners in total. That is shocking! Before withdrawals, there were just 13 acceptances. Any non-Group race which can't reach six final declarations should be scrapped. If the racing industry wants more money from the betting industry, then they have to stop delivering such shoddy product. The Tote, the biggest supporter of racing, is a lame duck when field sizes are like this - who is going to pay 4% per runner in a four-horse race?? This happens time and again throughout the year, with farcical two horse races regularly happening during the National Hunt season. Racing mightn't like being a 'servant' to the betting industry but the simple fact is that racing is funded from betting, thus they need to smarten up their act. If industry head honchos want to moan about not getting enough funding, perhaps they should get their house in order... Newm...

This goes out to Australian Betfair clients and is sometimes posted on betting.betfair.com.au. MELBOURNE STORM 1.66 (-3.5@ 1.83) v PARRAMATTA EELS 2.48 (+3.5@ 2.18) Total 36.5pts ANZ Stadium, Sunday 4th October, 5.15pm 2009 clashes: Round 19 – Parramatta 18-16 Melbourne, Parramatta Stadium Last finals clash: 2007 Finals Week 3: Melbourne 26-10 Parramatta, Docklands Last premiership: Melbourne – 2007; Parramatta – 1986 STORM Coach Craig Bellamy revealed this week how a team meeting in late August revamped Melbourne’s game plan and turned the team strategy on its ear. Limping into the finals with four losses in six, including against the Eels in round 19, the revised style has produced an average scoreline of 37-9 in the four matches since. Just twice in the regular season did the Storm rack up 40 points – they’ve matched that in just two finals games and defensively, the tries they have conceded only came after Melbourne had posted at least five of their own. Critics may argue that Manl...