SIMON NOTT: It’s Coming Home

I’ve been hanging around betting rings for most of my adult life. They have been the topic of several of my musings, mostly in the misty-eyed context guessing that we’ve seen the last of the good old days. I’ve also been a punter since before I was allowed to be, I do my money in cold blood unless someone clever marks my card, that’s why nobody should take too much notice of what I guess.

Before we get into the nitty gritty, I’m reliably informed that the last rites of the betting ring have been read on several occasions in the past. The most recent in the 1960s when betting shops became legal then again in the 1970s when everyone was potless. I caught the end of the glory days of the 1980s and business was good. There’s no point boring everyone with history, bookie’s on-course lists and the exchanges, we all know about that.

The most recent clobbering for the on-course bookmakers was taking them out of the equation for returning SP’s. This effectively made them irrelevant, apart from to those who consider the betting ring an essential part of the racecourse, colour and fun of a day at the races.

The racecourse bookmakers had no say in the decision and no option but to get their heads down and crack on with their businesses. Meanwhile, off course, the Industry SP – which as far as I know is still shrouded in secrecy as to how its compiled – cracked on and started to immediately behave as many suspected it would. Simultaneously, off course bookmakers and exchanges appear to be ramping up their efforts to ensure that anyone who even looked to have a sniff of winning had their accounts restricted to pennies.

Have affordability checks and ID been used as a weapon to that end too? I don’t know, but what I do hear is that plenty of people have been unable to bet on the exchanges in recent months for whatever reason. It’s all getting a bit tougher for serious punters out there. I don’t bet very heavily so it doesn’t really affect me.

So, I’m not so much of a punter but am a betting ring aficionado. I just love being in amongst the bookmakers. I’m very lucky to be able to do so at least once a week in the depth of winter and a lot more in the summer. In recent months I have worked with Star Sports in their pitches at Cheltenham and Kempton.

Local to me I’ve been racing at Wincanton, Taunton and Exeter, I’ve even had the good fortune to be part of the Devon and Cornwall Point to Point live streaming project monitoring the punting action in the betting rings of various courses hosting racing between the flags.

I think most would agree that’s from the perceived top to bottom of the betting spectrum. There has been one constant, the proliferation of big cash bets. Yes, that even includes the point to points where the bookmaking is still organic, no exchanges for a guide or hedging. There were two monkey and one grand bets at Chipley Park on Sunday, that in addition to a 12/1 into evens gamble thwarted. At Cheltenham on the Star Sports pitch at the tail end of last year there were plenty of four-figure cash bets tendered.

At the most recent Kempton jumps meeting there was a punter having lumps on all around the ring, reported in the Racing Post. At Plumpton before Christmas three and four grand bets were flying around the ring. The last Exeter meeting I was at, a punter had a total of £5000 on the runaway winner of the concluding bumper, OK he bollocked the bookie that didn’t want to take it in one lump but had no problem getting it on in total. It’s not just been those types of bets but also notable the number of bigger £50 and £100 wagers that the bookmakers love to take on course. Nobody gets knocked back for them.

I can hear the old ‘Ah yes but they have it all back on the machine’ comments coming at me already. Yes maybe they can, and a few do, but so can the off-course firms. Working on course you soon clock the people that know the time of day, It doesn’t have to be lumps, there’s a Westcountry trainer whose wife’s fiver is certainly a bet to note. That money marks cards and used to have workmen nipping away from their posts to have it on. That’s the sort of business, the trainer’s wife’s fiver aside, that’s been largely missing since the exchanges took off. It’s now back.

It may be early days, but with the off course squeeze and firm’s reluctance to lay bets, the sharp, informed and just well form read money is returning to the racecourse betting rings. The upside for on-course punters and bookies is that they get the marks from the meaningful market money while the off-course on-line odds-makers are in left in the dark because they’ve stopped that sort of action getting on. This is it, 2022 is the year when the betting ring’s going to burst back as the vibrant and most informative market in racing it once was.

It’s coming home.

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Views of authors do not necessarily represent views of Star Sports Bookmakers.

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