Any views?

Some agencies are more specialised in greys....just depends who your friend was punting with and where he was trying to get on at.

Its one of the big agencies that i thought would have more "balls" to take the bets and at least have a better idea of the fixed prices.
Actually i dont even think they are worried about that but just dont like "winners" so that is what i think is absolute crxp!

If you are reasonably successful, you will be severely limited or closed down - the so called "big bookmakers" don't want to lay punters who know what they're doing.

The limits that are applied are ridiculous - if they are feeling particularly generous, they will offer to take a bet to lose 20.

Much better to use the exchanges - better odds and no limit to stake.

It's happened to me a few times, and on more than one occasion I was told "if you don't like it, take your money elsewhere".

If you want to bet late, chasing the best odds, then use Betfair.

Outside of thursday,friday and saturday night greyhounds in melbourne the holds are generally less than 1500 per race ( i have seen the sheets) despite the rhetoric.What the corporates want is punters who bet all the time in a lot of races or the punter that perenially loses.The former helps create a book in a lot of races over the week and they will work on the theory they will make money out of you from rebate commission from the betbacks on the tabs (some corporates do this for all bets) or reduce the risk on any one dog in a race given several are backed.

Your ability to place a larger wager is certainly helped if you are a regular customer not a once a month punter who bets big and sometimes wins.I was banned by sportsbet because it was account that i would only use if i was having a large wager (more than 5k) across several agencies to lower the impact on price.I won i think 8 out of 10 bets over 12 months and they closed the account.

At the time i was using "ias" almost everyday and they took some large bets from me which won consistently but no complaints. They once told me get on early so they could lay off with several bookies not so much the Tabs. The problem with betting early is you don't know what the price is and i tend to have a lot more on the bigger the price i am never too keen on short odds.

Melbourne is the heart of racing for gambling and thursday and staurday night is very healthy for gambling and bookies being able to set a book on a race with several backed but make no mistake we are (dogs) not in the same league as gambling on horses or sports.I think this largely because there are not too many professional punters on dogs and most of it is retail (pubs clubs) turnover and trainer money a large % of which live below the poverty line. I can tell you there are several leading trainers in qld that have already eaten the paint off the walls and are on the undercoat.When someone says to me a trainer has a lot of money i doubt it because say you train 100 winners a year at average of say 1500 (mixture of city and tab) well that is 150k per year before and thats a big before expenses.

Back to punting if you are going to have a large bet outside of thursday night you are better to spread the money to improve your odds. Lets say 4000 if you put the lot on the dog you like then that will crush the odds and effectively you are buying your own money. You would be better off having 3000 on your pick and then in the last minute having 1000 on 1 or 2 other picks to suck the mug Tab money in and improve /blow out the price of your favoured pick and achieve a better middle tote odds.Also it gives you a second runner in the race in case yours gets beat.I guarantee you that your odds will be better overrall then betting all on your pick (depending on the size of the wager). There is nothing like a blowing price to turn mug punters off.

James,

You got a lot of good comments here - with the exception of Jeff H claim about betting relationships (that's a fallback to the good old days when there were actually betting rings).

The short answer is that the so-called corporate bookies (and TABCORP F/O) are not bookies at all but just financial manipulators.

Close behind that is that greyhound markets are so small and there are so many players that no-one on either side of the fence has decent pools to play with. Allied with that are the poor prices on offer - eg books of 130% or so. Petrol is poured on that fire when Ozchase and Watchdog suggest prices at a similar level - why do they do that?

Enough foolish people are taking the crook odds on F/O that the tote pools are now also pretty hopeless. Bringing in Ubet will help a bit but not much. Favourites will still be overbet. 99% of punters will still lose over a period.

The Productivity Commission on Problem Gambling did not know much about the wagering caper but at least proposed a national pool and common commission to stabilise the market. That will not happen so long as the peanut government in NT effectively controls the nation's betting.

The gallops will get away with a reasonable outcome due to the weight of money from all sources, including the TAB. Dogs and the red hots will not. They will remain prisoners of mugs and Mysteries.

Betfair is the only legitimate outlet left.

All this is part of the reason that Sports betting is going from strength to strength.