It's as SIMPLE as Yes or No with EASYBET
And with Matchbook
The Edge
My mate Larry was the first person that I knew when I started going into William Hill in Tiverton who was successful at betting, at least he had good purple patches. He also had a Crombie, but also wore worn out daps so I’m not sure if he had an overall winning profile but seemed to do well. Years later, I didn’t see Larry about much but did bump into him one day, he was excited to tell me that he’d been making a second income betting on races as they were being run using Betfair, he was getting a few quid at it too, I was very pleased for him, it's always nice when your mates are winners.
My old boss Ivor Perry used to like betting in-running too from his home in the Channel Islands, he always bemoaned that he was always matched when he was wrong but never when he was right. That must just be Ivor I thought, after all Larry was chopping it off. Except, the next time I saw Larry, he wasn’t, quite bemused he was too, he was doing everything the same as before but was just finding it impossible to win.
Years later I found out, or at least was told why, some clever guys in the midlands describing themselves as ‘Internet Entrepreneurs’ had found a way to grab the live pictures from racecourses when markets were suspended off the TV giving themselves up to 10 seconds advantage over players at home, imagine that, literally finding it on the floor, especially if that’s where a leader ended up at the last. They had found an edge.
When I worked for bookmaker Dave Phillips were used to love going to Windsor on a Monday night when it was still heaving with Yuppies with money to burn. The racing was very competitive and the market full of ill informed money, the best bit was when the judge called a photo followed by a print. Calling for a print meant it was desperate, but there’d always be one that the punters thought had won, and odds on. Dave would get stuck in to the short one, after all, the judge couldn’t tell so how could the punters, if the result was a dead-heat laying the odds-on was still profitable and if the other one got it you could sometimes win more than on the race itself. Great fun and an edge that not many had latched on to.
A few years later, I was working with Ivor Perry at a Westcountry meeting, the exchanges were in their infancy but also in full swing at that point, but before the days of wi-fi so most business was done on the phone. There’d been a desperate finish, my phone rang, it was a pro-punter at home, he just asked me to keep my phone open so he could hear the result as it was called, I was on for half of anything he managed to cop with his fast finger. I was excited to be involved and looking forward to a bonus. The photo had taken a while, but as the PA crackled into life, to hopefully give the result, his voice came on the line first saying forget it, someone has scooped the lot, before the announcement was made they'd had copped the lot, on the correct result of course. Someone had found an edge.
Around the same time I had a mate who worked for a fledgling internet firm, he told me about the number of ‘shewdies’ that bet with them and that they were impossible to beat they couldn't work out how they knew. He offered to mark my card with the shrewdie bets anytime I went racing, for a while they were amazing marks, winner after winner, though they did hit a nasty run of seconds just after I decided to open my shoulders. Still, it was an eye-opener as to the sort of winners beyond the ability of us mere mortals that there were out there. They had an edge though theirs was I suspect through hard work and seriously good ratings. I had their edge for a bit, but that eroded via my haphazard staking and the firm ultimately waving the white flag to the shrewds before sinking into the surf themselves.
Betting is never fair, someone always knows more that most of us, be it by an massive technical advantage or just better info or ability to decipher form. Everyone likes to moan when they see it, but to a man we’d all like to be on the inside too wouldn’t we, we'd all love that offer to be on the inside come on be honest. Excuse the pun.
Simon Nott
18+ | BeGambleAware.org