Why Is Betting On The Date Of The Election Such A Bad Thing?

[hellywelly4]

Sorry if this has been discussed before but I can't find anything about it. I really don't understand what the problem is - if I went to the races (which I don't) would it matter which horse I bet on? Would it affect the end result? Why is there such a row going on?

[ToraToraTora]

ken: "Can you imagine Usain Bolt popping into the bookies and having a couple of grand on the 2nd fav in a race in which he was fav?" - like Willie Carson did back in the day? How many times did he ride a favourite to 2nd? Of course he'd not put the bet on the 2nd fav himself!

[Peter Pedant]

Can you imagine Usain Bolt popping into the bookies and having a couple of grand on the 2nd fav in a race in which he was fav?

happened-ish

Some footballer was laying bets on teams ( his own)

Ivan Toney repeatedly placed bets on matches his own team were involved in, including 13 occasions when he backed his club to lose, and gave “clearly false” answers to the investigation into his breaches of gambling rules, an independent regulatory commission has found.

Gee-gees - owner betting to win I woulda thought OK, but betting to lose ( and winning) may involve the question of holding it back

DOI - betting is a mugs' game

[Peter Pedant]

^^^ I will let the reader work out which bit  of my post is official cut and paste and which are my own pensaaaayz

[naomi24]

TTT, what are you saying about Willie Carson?  Did he do something wrong?

[Ken4155]

Owners do bet on their own horses. They can't affect the outcome of the race - unlike the pilots.

I do believe TTT's casting aspersions at the wee Scot, Naomi.

I once heard someone in a betting shop say, "McCoy's not that good, just look at how many times he gets beat on a favourite." 

Thats Sir Anthony McCoy OBE, one of the best riders ever to get the leg up on a horse.

[New Judge]

In the mid 1970s I had some decent connections with some bookmakers. As well as that, I had a small circle of  acquaintances who owned racing greyhounds. Dog racing was well known for its “fixing” (it’s dead easy to fix a greyhound race with no doping or illegal actions at all). The bookies tolerated the dog race fixing so long as it did not get out of hand. I made a decent monthly sum from information I obtained from these sources.

Anyway, back to the main story. In 1974 there occurred what went down in folklore as the “Gay Future” betting scam. You really need to read this to understand how it operated:

 https://www.racingpost.com/news/features/gay-future-the-cartmel-coup-and-why-it-went-down-in-racing-folklore-achsZ3v38eUp/

Long story short is that the High Street bookies knew very well and very early in the day that something was going down (though there were not quite sure what). One of my mates tipped me the wink and I toddled over to William Hill’s to have a flutter on Gay Future. As you can see from the story, it romped home. I was advised by my mates to collect my winnings promptly as there was sure to be some fallout. I did so and collected my winning which was, for me at that time,  just over two month’s salary.

Did I have “insider information”? Not really. I don’t think even the bookies did. They just knew something was afoot. Still remember it well, though. Two months salary at that time of my life was a very welcome bonus.

It will be 50 years next August Bank Holiday when it went down. I wonder if there will be a commemoration event at Cartmel?  🤣

[youngmafbog]

If you here a siren coming up your road, leg it out the back NJ 😁

[New Judge]

I've had a "priest hole" ready for 50 years, ymb. Mrs NJ is under instructions to tell the Rozzers I've gone Yeti hunting in Tibet. 🤣