Bullying bookies are certs to cry foul
The original William hill was a legend in the betting ring. The workingclass son of a coach painter, he rose from taking illegal bets at a factory in Birmingham to being regarded as the greatest bookmaker of his age.
The late Geoffrey hamlyn saw hill in action, at a time when he dominated the ring at the biggest races. hamlyn returned the starting prices for The Sporting Life for 42 years. As such, it was his job to go into the betting ring and follow the odds. It was estimated he did this on 45,000 occasions.
‘Four or even five-figure bets were nothing unusual,’ he recalled of hill in the 1950s. ‘he would stand horses in the ante-post races for £50,000.’ That is the equivalent of roughly £2.4million today. hill (below), who died of a heart attack at the Rutland hotel in Newmarket in 1970, would weep if he could see what his industry has become. Not because a company founded 30 years after his death, Bet365, are now the best and bravest in the game.
Not even because this week it was announced that William hill, the business that bears his name, have sold their 82 racecourse pitches for £2m, and will now try to maximise returns from their on-course shops. But because the days of fearless men backing their instinct and accepting significant wagers are gone.
Kids. That is what the bookies want these days. Potless teenagers trying to land impossible 10-bet accumulators with a two-quid stake. None of the adverts that overwhelm sports broadcasts are aimed at serious gamblers. They are targeting lads, mugs, anyone who is in no danger of hurting them. every now and then one of these hail Mary accumulators come in and the bookies milk the publicity of the pay-out for all it is worth, to make it seem you have a chance. You haven’t. Not really. And if you did, you couldn’t get on.
A friend of mine tried to put £500 on Roaring Lion in the Queen elizabeth II Stakes at Ascot last week. Corals were quoting 3-1. They said they could take £1.63 at that price. A mighty liability of £4.89. Another acquaintance recently placed £2,000 on a double: Manchester City to win against hoffenheim, Juventus to beat Young Boys. It was paying out £1,500. Juventus were comfortable, City’s winner came three minutes from time. So, at 86 minutes, the bet was losing £2,000, at 87 minutes winning £1,500. There is absolutely no skill in that win. Nothing that can be gleaned from inside knowledge or form. everyone knows City are better than hoffenheim, so it’s no more than a hunch and good fortune that David Silva scored a timely goal to bring the bet in as planned.
Yet the following day the bookmaker got in touch to say their successful customer was no longer eligible for best odds guaranteed deals: the ones that protect a valued punter from taking a poor price. Typical. Write about this and you get deluged with stories: 40 quid offered on an attempted £2,000 stake was another recent travesty. Labour are proposing that bookmakers are prevented from advertising during live sports events — horse racing excluded — in a bid to curb the nation’s growing gambling addiction. It would certainly stop the industry preying on the most vulnerable. Maybe then, like William hill, they will pick on someone their own size.