Online Bookmakers - Are they as stupid as we think ?

In any industry you will have pioneers. In terms of online bookmakers Sportsbet ,Bettingworld, Marshalls and Keith Ho were the first to use the internet to sell their product.They have benefitted from the early gamble and are making great profits. The rest have battled trying to tackle the pioneers early market gains.

In my opinion South Africa's biggest gambling product is the online poker sites. They have attracted a new young breed of gambling addicts that have either thrown away university studies or good jobs to play poker up to 16 hours a day.

Anyway back to my first point. I am totally bemused at the amount of online sites offerring sport and racing betting. I now see a new company Voltbet who are pumping millions into advertising in what has become a totally saturated industry.

The biggest clowns however are the overseas mob who had 5 years to plan to enter our market in time for the world cup and yet still never made it here. I am refering to Stan James,Ladbrokes and Sportingbet.Now the fools are arriving ! What these European giants see in the South African market is beyond me. Let me spell it out "THIS IS NOT THE UK - WE DO NOT GAMBLE ON HORSES LIKE YOU DO AND SPORTS BETTING ALTHOUGH GROWING IS NOT A RELIGION HERE"

Being involved in the industry I can tell you that most online bookmakers are swerving. People like Morris Vee and Shirley Kruger hear stories about how well others are doing ( what must they say ? We are going bankrupt ?) and like 'monkey see, monkey do" enter the industry.

No wonder online sites cut players limits, the only people betting with them are the winners, the rest simply do not have the money to deposit.


Ladbrokes will be entering the market early next year with an advertising budget big enough to buy a mansion in Clifton. They believe they will revolutionize the online gaming sector here. What will this do to the small online bookmakers ? I suspect they will all be put out of business by the global giant. Ladbrokes itself wont make money, but you can be certain that the other monkeys will soon follow.................................William Hill, Bet365 etc etc etc

Kevin.................take my advice....................you wasting your time...............best of luck though.

And lastly to any new bookmaker, try being original. Use your own software and do not copy all and sundry who go the Turfsport route. You need to stick out from the rest if you are to have any chance (however slim that might be).

to buy a mansion in Clifton costs about 300k Thats peanuts to Ladbrokes

A mansion in Clifton costs between R30-50 mil pal.

All I wish is that we could have Betfair here.

Betfair,with a Rand envelope would be preferable,but any exchange will be an improvement.
That will be the end of bookmakers sites except for those who have the imagination(and the balls) to offer combination bets,as these are limited on exchanges
Many bookmakers will be better off betting into one large pool,but those who rely on the price-fixers to understand odds and guide their business will fall away,and good riddance anyway.
Wait until local punters catch on to a whole new world called 'trading'

chicken 'n chips Wrote:

---

> to buy a mansion in Clifton costs about 300k Thats
> peanuts to Ladbrokes


CnC.. wat clifton u thinking of mate???...hehehe

Ladbrokes and Hills,will close accounts faster the icecream melts in the desert

Harris

Thank you for the advise.

We at www.morrisvee.co.za , are not launching to capture the market "share" etc.... we are launching this website simply,because some of our clients wants the online and mobile service thats all.

All we doing is "complementing" the whole business.

However your advice is still much appreciated.

chicken 'n chips Wrote:

---

> to buy a mansion in Clifton costs about 300k Thats
> peanuts to Ladbrokes


C&C - You out of touch

Kevin,As you can tell I am in favour of exchanges,and I wish they had been around when I was involved in a cubicle,as our problem,as it is for many books, was the access to liquidity,which one big pool would have solved.
However until they come along I do not believe that the on-line market is saturated per-se'....it is saturated with a lot of pretenders and there is room for proper 'turf accountants' who understand their business and their customers. I remember Morris from my old Durban days and I would hope that with his experience,you guys will add benefit.
The one thing that confuses me though is the strategy of cutting certain punters' limits to almost nothing. Most books try to balance the field sheet by balancing the liabilities vs hold for the runners in the race.....so why would you want to limit liquidity by limiting some punters?
I am certain that,if alternatively, you played every one of your punters head to head,that would be a very profitable strategy,in the long run,anyway!

I find it interesting that while the fixed odds online market is now heavily traded there are very few sites that offer spreads and there are no sites specialising in spreads.

I know a few players have tried and failed and the size of the market may be the problem but personally I think the lack of spread betting education has been the key failure driver.

Many current spread punters are converts from the old Super Spreads program which went on to become Super Saturday.

Harris I would be interested in your and any other views on this.

I know Betxchange do spreads and so do Sportsbet which originally started out under the M-NET banner.

Personally I am very scared of spreads. I remember way back in the famous World Cup in the UK where Donald and Klusener had that mix up. If you can remember that event, the top order failed and Klusener bailed them out time after time. Anyway Superspreads (what were they called ?) with a South African client base made opposing South Africa the only way to go. I sold both Gibb's and Kirsten's runs and also sold the opening partnership all for R500 a pop. Below you will see why I spent the morning in my car drivng in circles and putting on the radio every few minutes praying that I would hear a new name at the crease.


www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/65228.html