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“Robbing” on-course bookies deserted at York

By Matt | August 19, 2009

Deserted bookies pitches 10 minutes before the off in the Juddmonte International

A lively online debate about on-course bookmakers offering scandalous value was illustrated yesterday as punters deserted the bookies in the Juddmonte International.

And the question of whether there is still any value in betting on-course in an age of online betting with a mobile phone will soon be settled if layers don’t start competing with off-course firms – or at least each other – and give people a reason to ‘come racing’.

The flagship race of York’s Ebor Festival should have been awash with punters’ cash as the crowds either decided betting on red-hot favourite Sea The Stars was buying money or saw value in opposing him and backing his opponent Mastercraftsman.

But with Sea The Stars a solid 1/4 across the boards and nobody prepared to risk offering better than a paltry 7/2 on Aidan O’Brien’s multiple-Group One winner, punters just went online to place their bets – or decided this was a race best watched.

Ten minutes before the off in the International, one of the top ten middle-distance races in the world, the bookies’ pitches were deserted. (Pictured)

Earlier in the day, punters were up in arms about the each-way terms on offer, with some layers quoting just 1/6th the odds on each-way places in the opening race – a 17-runner handicap.

Online message board The Punter’s Lounge highlighted this issue at the start of the month. One post from ‘billy the punter’ said the bookmakers were just “robbing uneducated race-goers”.

Horse racing’s funding battle
Horseracing is currently facing something of a funding battle, with big firms like William Hill and Ladbrokes moving offshore and potentially avoiding paying part of their profits back into UK racing.

The attraction of betting on-course was that racecourse bookies would offer better odds, to tempt people to the course. With the huge pots of money floating round at the big meetings, they would have to offer competitive odds to tempt people to their pitch rather than their rivals.

Offering paltry each-way terms and failing to give themselves a competitive edge will no longer do this – especially when punters can just go online and find a competitive price on the internet.

How long before the racecourse bookies are crying that they can’t get punters’ business? And racing’s governing bodies are demanding a government bail-out? Like carmakers and banks before them, they will realise too late that forming a kind of semi-cartel (witness the way most on-course bookies will offer exactly the same prices as their neighbours) is no kind of business plan when faced with external competition that offers innovation and value for money. You can get all the government bail-outs you want, but if you don’t up your game you’ll go to the wall.

The threat to on-course bookies
British Leyland was killed by cheap, reliable cars from Europe and Japan; on-course betting could be seen off by Best Odds Guaranteed offers from Gibraltar-based firms; such innovations as Coral’s 10% cashback offer; imaginative offers from internet pureplay boys like SkyBet’s 1/4 the odds first five each-way betting (offered on today’s Ebor Handicap) or Bet365 with their Channel 4/1 offer; or Tote bets like the Placepot (or even place-only betting).

Bookies have to make a living, but they seem to forget that punters don’t owe them one. And the ‘horseracing industry’ is owed less and less by the high street bookies too (thanks to Turf TV they pay handsomely for TV rights but increasingly derive their profits from football betting and in-store fixed-odds gaming machines).

It would be sad to see an end to on-course bookmaking, but unless they stop offering such miserable value to punters I’ll bet they’ll be gone within a generation.

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