I see a punter has a bet running which will scoop him £511,225 for a £5 bet if the last one comes in at Cheltenham today- and it's a hot favourite (4/9) called Envoi Allen in the 13:20
www.bbc.co.uk/sport/horse-racing/56435950
Runners and riders www.racingpost.com/cheltenham-festival/marsh-novices-chase/
Betfair have offered him £275000 now. He's been fantastically lucky so far.
But I'd take it. Too much to lose, wouldn't you look a plonker if it fell?
Would anyone let it run?
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>> But I'd take it. Too much to lose, wouldn't you look a plonker if it
>> fell?
Wouldn't you feel a plonker if it won and you'd sold out.
>> Would anyone let it run?
Its a tough one, if it falls - what have you actually lost £5, £275,000 or £511,000
I dont have balls of steel, the race would probably give me a heart attack, so I'd sell out
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Looking at the link he's cashed out. If the last horse comes in he's still up 311k.
Risk vs reward, no brainer cash out. For me anyway.
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>>If the last horse comes in he's still up 311k.
Why's that? I've read the link and I'm none the wiser.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Thu 18 Mar 21 at 09:44
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Sorry its 322k, that's the way I read it.
I've no idea how it works, don't know anything about betting.
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>> >>If the last horse comes in he's still up 311k.
>>
>> Why's that? I've read the link and I'm none the wiser.
>>
Well I asked someone who does know about betting, think he's partially cashed out and put some back into the exchange.
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I don't really know what I'd do. Take the £275k I expect.
£275k is a chunk of change, but £510k is a lot more.
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I was given the share dealing advice that when not knowing to sell or not, to sell half.
In his position I'd be tempted to take the money and put £140K on the horse.
I'll add my share dealing history has been disastrous and I haven't had a wager since Red Rum won the national.
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He's risking £275k but stands to win £511.
If he put £140k on the horse at 4/9 he'd get £200k back for a total of £335k
So I wouldn't do that.
NB: I don't go horse racing so I am assuming that's how odds work.
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Yes that's correct.
The article has been updated since I linked it. He hadn't cashed any out at the time but has now taken some. Originally they didn't say that was an option, it was all or nothing. He's taken £250k with a chance of a further £300k if it wins.
Apparently he has another £22k from other bets if the horse wins. Maybe not surprisingly, he is clearly someone who bets a lot (maybe only small bets) but also knows quite a bit about horse racing and betting as he must have placed the bet before the first leg in June last year - so knew back then at least who was likely to be running in this race today but not what their chances/odds might have been. It's worked out very well for him!
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>>He's taken £250k with a chance of a further £300k
I really don't understand this. I thought it was now a total of £300k if it wins and a total of £250k if it did not.
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Sorry my bad, you are right. £300k if it wins, £250k if it doesn't.
Plus a further £22k in other bets if it wins.
You obviously DO understand it then :-)
Last edited by: smokie on Thu 18 Mar 21 at 10:33
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Aside from Smokie trying to hurt my brain I do realise one other thing; if I won that much money gambling I would worry if I would ever be able to stop gambling afterwards, however much I lost.
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>> Aside from Smokie trying to hurt my brain I do realise one other thing; if
>> I won that much money gambling I would worry if I would ever be able
>> to stop gambling afterwards, however much I lost.
I think you have to have periods of gambling induced poverty to get the massive buzz from a big gambling win.
Professional gamblers dont have that failing, their risk, odds and longer term biased mindset makes them immune. They dont immediately try and chase a loss.
The guy in this case is clearly pretty experienced, he seems to have spread a lot.
Last edited by: Zero on Thu 18 Mar 21 at 11:18
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Apparently it fell at the first??
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>> Apparently it fell at the first??
The Guardian says fourth but it didn't win.
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He'll be happy with that then.
I would have been worried that if it was worth £250k to somebody for it to trip up, it would trip up.
The whole professional gambling thing interests me and always has. It seems to be basically about finding good value bets. It's the polar opposite of what many gambling addicts do and some of the worst value bets are the compound bets with massive potential payouts.
At the moment 'All 4' is showing us nothing but gambling ads - online casinos, bingo, and what appear to be online fruit machines. Chuff knows why, I'm far too tight to gamble. Pity the poor devils who pour their cash into the fixed odds games. It's tempting to say it shouldn't be allowed but if the UK regulated legal stuff was banned they'd probably find a way to get ripped off even more.
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>> At the moment 'All 4' is showing us nothing but gambling ads
Minor thread drift, sorry.
All4 ads were what tipped me into investing a day sorting out a Pihole on a Raspberry pi. Since then, no ads in All4 or on any other device on the network in any software, with the notable exception of the impossible to stop Youtube ads.
It's not hard to set up and you whitelist sites if you want to let ads through. Also things like local news sites load a trillion times quicker and only show you the actual news article.
Depends how much ads bother you I guess.
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>>Depends how much ads bother you I guess
Thanks, I'd never heard of it. It could be a bit beyond me but I'll see if I can figure it out.
It would be worth getting rid of ads, yes.
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>> Thanks, I'd never heard of it. It could be a bit beyond me but I'll
>> see if I can figure it out.
Well I won't talk through it much here, as it might be major thread drift, but if you do decide to go ahead, Manatee, we could put another thread in computing.
it's a "just follow the instructions" mostly, and there's loads on the web of varying length, but:
You need to be able, on your specific broadband router, to edit the place it looks for DNS queries, (and change it to your new Pi's address because it's going to handle those)
Optionally turn off the router's DHCP server, (because the Pi can advertise itself as the new DHCP server for your network), although even this isn't actually vital.
Find out the IP address of the newly installed Raspberry Pi (to tell the router what the Pi IP address is on your network), either from the Pi itself after installing, or from the router if it shows attached devices.
On my Virgin router, you can get into the web interface for it easily, the settings password for that is printed on the box. Those three things are displayed easily in "advanced" and changed trivially, so it all went smoothly.
If you can't find that stuff in the router, or your router won't let you, forget it unless you want to get heavy with it. So check and understand how to do those things before embarking I'd suggest.
After that it's buy/repurpose a Pi, install the right OS on it (easy as buttons), install Pihole (free and as easy as buttons), turn it on, make the changes above in your router, restart all network devices, done.
If it all goes wrong and your network breaks, just undo what you did on the router, or at worst, factory reset it and try again.
And if all/some of that is just gobbledygook, suggest you live with ads!
Last edited by: Crankcase on Fri 19 Mar 21 at 09:06
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Don't you find PiHole doesn't seem to know where to go for some websites? I've got it running on a multi-purpose Pi but sometimes it couldn't resolve addresses. So I went off configuring it in the router (where it applies to all connections) and just put it on my PC, so I could turn if off and on as required - but that was too cumbersome - so now it just sits there with nothing to do.
Bit like me really :-)
If you say otherwise, I'll give it another go.
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Never experienced it failing to resolve. What have you set as your upstream DNS? I'm just using OpenDns.
If you put it just on your PC then why turn it off and on? Just whitelist what you want, but that seems a slightly unusual setup to me.
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I don't think I've given it a fair trial then. I don't remember spending much time with it - often happens that I install something and if it doesn't grab me before the next thing comes along it's history!! It's possible it's improved since I last looked at it too.
I'll have another look.
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>> Aside from Smokie trying to hurt my brain I do realise one other thing; if
>> I won that much money gambling I would worry if I would ever be able
>> to stop gambling afterwards, however much I lost.
>>
>>
>>
I have a rule on that. I place a modest bet every week (At least when the bookies are open), any win over £100 and no more bets for a month. Over £250 (Not very often) and it's three months.
I've worked with some heavy gamblers in the past and they all have one thing in common - whatever they win is gone back in the bookies pocket within the week and in their general financial situation they don't have a pot to P in.
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>>I have a rule on that............
Do you stick to it?
I find that the length of time my money lasts, and/or the value I get out of it, is directly related to the amount of effort I put into getting it.
I've rarely had easy money since I don't gamble, but I've had the odd fruit machine jackpot or other windfall. Gone in 60 Seconds would about sum it up.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Thu 18 Mar 21 at 16:27
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>> >>I have a rule on that............
>>
>> Do you stick to it?
>>
>>
Religiously.
I just hate the thought of being happily in pocket one minute and walking away empty handed the next. A decent win can make you reckless in your subsequent bets and it soon goes.
I only ever bet cash over the counter and never online as it is too easy to push the button when you know it isn't wise. It does mean I've had to miss Cheltenham this year and lose out on a few winners as Rachel Blackmore is one of my goto jockeys. I follow the riders, not the horses.
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I've played a fair bit of online poker in my time, though all for pretend cash. If it offers you a percentage counter, then you can build a pretty good pot up just by grinding away and playing only when the percentage of winning is good. One big bet on a "dead cert" and you've had it.
You often win tournaments by effectively letting everyone else lose.
Very very tedious.
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>> Very very tedious.
Whats your goto poker site?
Last edited by: VxFan on Fri 19 Mar 21 at 18:15
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>> >> Very very tedious.
>>
>> Whats your goto poker site?
>>
I used to play on Pokerstars about a decade ago. I just looked and they are still going.
These days I very occasionally launch the Scatter Poker app on my tablet, which is sort of easy pretend poker for a quick fix.
I remember I took the initial $1000 play money on Pokerstars to about $400,000 before getting terminaly bored. If it had been real money, I expect I'd have lost the lot in five minutes.
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>> I only ever bet cash over the counter and never online as it is too
>> easy to push the button when you know it isn't wise. It does mean I've
>> had to miss Cheltenham this year and lose out on a few winners as Rachel
>> Blackmore is one of my goto jockeys. I follow the riders, not the horses.
I think that if you have that level of self control it's a brilliant hobby, I am sure I would love it. But sadly I don't.
Following the riders sounds like a smart move though.
I guess I do bet if I am at a race course, but I have no idea what I am betting on so it's all a bit 'pin stabbing paper'. And in any case for me to be at a meeting is a very rare thing.
Last edited by: VxFan on Fri 19 Mar 21 at 18:15
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Used to enjoy going to the dogs. Peterborough was my favourite track, a good meal with the waitress coming round to take your bets. The trick there was to bet on the dogs that had just been shipped over from eire, with no form. Either the first or last races when interest hadnt peaked or had died down. You could tell when the ringer was going to happen, a sudden queue of ITML would appear at the tote window and the odds would start to shorten.
Didnt happen at London tracks, only the provincial ones.
Last edited by: Zero on Fri 19 Mar 21 at 14:35
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We used to have work dos at Peterborough dogs, I remember it being very cheap if you went during the week. I think it was a tenner a ticket, plus you got a pint and a burger and a £5 bet thrown in as well.
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Re regional racing and the Tote. When I had something of a gambling addiction I used a Mecca bookies in Buckingham Palace Road, near work. I only really started gambling because of something mentioned upthread it think, where I had a good win on my first bet and thought "this is easy".
Anyway the manager was mixed up in a betting ring who used to make loads of money via the Tote. The way it went was that a few of them would go to what would then have been a sparsely attended mid week race meeting at a remote course like Cartmel.
By betting on not very large amount they'd manipulate the prices on the Tote. Usually making a hot favourite into at best a very lukewarm favourite by backing against it. The off course team would visit bookies around London placing large bets on the favourite at Tote prices. So it might end up equal to 2 to 1 or better with the Tote (which was a genuine pool with the winning return determined by the proportion of money staked) but the SP would be 4/9 in the bookies, because bets placed at the bookies were not added to the actual Tote pool.
It was the bookies being stung really as they couldn't lay off the bets then like they can (and do) now. They wanted to take Tote bets to get the income though, and I expect in the scheme of things the scams were small enough that the income outweighed the risk. There used to be plenty of scams in dog and horse racing.
My recollection was that off course tote betting was discontinued in the 80s or 90s, probably almost as a direct result of this kind of scam, except for in the Tote's own shops which were linked to the on-course pool. Then more recently (like in the noughties or whatever, I don't follow racing much now) everything got joined up and you can do a certain amount fo Tote bets off course in any bookies. May be wrong with that bit though.
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I have a similar conundrum running right now. Ok I admit its not on the same scale, but it has many parallels.
My old 2010 11" MacBook Air has gone TU*. Other than its internal problem its in excellent nick with original packaging. So its gone on the bay for spares or repair with a 30 quid starting price.
Within 15 hours I have had an offer of £50 - Listing has 6 more days to run.
I have until 06:30 tomorrow morning to take the offer.
So take the money and run, or let the auction continue.
*If you need to technical why I will provide but its not needed for the story.
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Let it run, I bet it goes for more than 50 quid.
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In my very limited experience of EBay people only show their hands in the last minute or two.
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Its called sniping, the last minute bid.
Yeah the offer has come in very early, if he wants it he can bid - he may even get it cheaper.
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I always snipe. There are probably better snipers but I have been using justsnipe.com for years. A free account lets you bid up (or down to) to 8 seconds before the close, in up to 5 auctions a week I think.
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It has 12 watchers - thats the decider, I'll let it run to conclusion.
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I'd let it run. He's not making that offer because he's nice, it's because he think it'll go higher.
Of course he might be wrong, but what the hell.
And anyway, it annoys me when people try stuff like that.
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And it sold, Jumped from 31 quid to 57 quid in the last 6 seconds.
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Looks like I was spot on ;)
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>> Looks like I was spot on ;)
Lets just say you got a place rather than a win
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>> And it sold, Jumped from 31 quid to 57 quid in the last 6 seconds.
I don't suppose you can tell if the person who made you the offer is also the person who eventually bought it?
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>> >> And it sold, Jumped from 31 quid to 57 quid in the last 6
>> seconds.
>>
>>
>> I don't suppose you can tell if the person who made you the offer is
>> also the person who eventually bought it?
I can and it wasnt - unless he has two ebay accounts
Last edited by: Zero on Fri 26 Mar 21 at 18:28
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If he offered £50 I assume that he thought it would go significantly higher.
Still 57 quid is 57 quid. Better than a slap in the face.
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57 quid less ebay and paypal fees. How does that compare to the earlier 50 quid offer?
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>> 57 quid less ebay and paypal fees. How does that compare to the earlier 50
>> quid offer?
7 quid more
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>> If he offered £50 I assume that he thought it would go significantly higher.
>>
>> Still 57 quid is 57 quid. Better than a slap in the face.
It was going in the bin, so yeah
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>>I've had to miss Cheltenham this year and lose out on a few winners as Rachel Blackmore is one of my goto jockeys.
Not trying to rub salt in any wounds here, but.......
www.bbc.com/sport/horse-racing/56459134
Ouch.
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Yup, it hurt.
My stable of jockeys is mostly female, Hollie Doyle and Bryony Frost completing the top three.
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I hope you got a few quid out of that, Robin O'R. 10:1 was it?
www.bbc.com/sport/horse-racing/56701659
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Deal or no deal - Zero
