Boycott the bookie

As many of you are no doubt aware, the bookies give themselves every conceivable advantage.  Their goal, as ours certainly should also be, is to make as much profit as possible.  They have countless ways of parting us from our hard-earned money and turning a profit.  I’ll attempt to identify a few things they do, highlighting a new phenomenon that punters have the power to fight back on.  It would involve a collaborative effort, but would be 100% effective if carried out correctly.

Juice –

This is where bookies set odds for a fight and immediately lower them by around 10%.  It essentially means no matter the outcome of the event, the bookie makes a minimum of 10% profit.  For example, if a boxing match is truly a 50/50 matchup, the odds will likely be 1.9 for fighter A or 1.9 for fighter B.  Not 2.0 & 2.0.  This is standard practice and not something they are trying to hide.  It puts up at an immediate disadvantage, but it's the least of our problems.

Tipster tracking –

When a tipster generates a large following, odds inevitably drop quickly when they post a new tip.  The books are usually reacting to the movement of money in the market.  A further step that they sometimes make is to follow the tipster themselves, so that they have advanced warning of what movement is about to take place.  They can adjust odds accordingly or suspend the market completely until they work out what’s going on.  It gets worse.  Bookies are partial to limiting or completely banning followers of a successful tipster.  Morals are left at the door to the offices of bookmakers.

Winners never welcome –

If you win on a consistent basis, you will be limited by almost all bookies.  I’ve discussed individual bookies in a past article.  If you have a system whereby anyone capable of making a sustained profit is removed from playing, then you have a winning formula.  Bin the winners, keep the losers.  It’s a license to print money and the bookies love free money.

Bookie ‘fishing’ –

This is the new phenomenon I referred to earlier.  It’s a low down dirty trick and one that punters happily participate in, unwittingly or irresponsibly.

The culprit is the joker that is Paddy Power.  When a new fight is announced, you will invariably find Paddy Power are first to release a line.  Furthermore, you will usually find the line is overly generous.  Don’t be fooled people.  This is a ‘fishing line’.  They have no intention of keeping the line anywhere near the initial mark.  They are testing the waters.  Who cares if Paddy Power change the line later?  Everybody does it, right?  Well, the kicker is that they are alerting other bookies of what the real line should be.  When punters, usually casual ones, hit hard the opening Paddy Power line, the other more serious books have seen enough to ensure they get the odds correct.  You will then see a less than generous line appear at other bookmakers.  I can’t emphasise enough how important it is that you leave the bait that Paddy Power are dangling in front of you.  Pretend it doesn’t exist, because in the grand scheme of things it really doesn’t.  Sure, you could ignore this advice and put £20 down if you’re lucky, but if you are at all serious about making a profit in this game you will want to put down more at other bookies.  The odds will now be far worse than you would have been offered had you left the opening fake line. 

If we band together, we can take the power back from the bookies.