Do we study form as much as we used to?

For me personally if you study form, you at least have a chance - and I personally do not blindly follow any ratings / selections put forward by someone else - if I lose, I prefer to lose following my own 'logic'.

And bar the occasional totally inexplicable result, one can mostly explain the outcome of a race after the fact - the trick of course is to pick up these 'pointers' BEFORE the race :dry:

exactly Frodo well said

Last night the concluding episode of punters and bookies aired.

Corals, the bookies, invited a pro gambler of golf, football and tennis, to the races. He brought along a few friends and Corals organised their box and lunch and all the trimmings. They were accompanied by one of the top guys of Corals. Just before the meeting kicked off this Corals guy phoned his office (the odds guy) and asked him for two winners. He passed this on to the pro gambler.

Obviously both of the horses won. Need I say more. The pro gambler now was hooked into horse racing.

They also showed a new Corals shop been set up. They focused of one or two punters one of which was a guy who only played FOBT. He put £350 into the machine and when he doubled his money, which took a few minutes, he cashed up and left. We then saw him again but only this time he put £2200.00 into the machine. He lost it all and started kicking the machine and blaming the staff. He was asked to leave and not to return. In the UK if you are banned from a pub or a bookies means you are banned. You dare not go back in or the cops will be called. They also had a bookie on at the dogs at Romford. He reckons that within 5 years the single bookies at the dog meetings and small race meetings will be a thing of the past. Its all about FOBT where the money is and the bookie shops are raking in the money.

Corals also wanted to open yet another shop. This time in Hayes, SW London where in the same street there were another 6, yes 6, bookies within a mile of each other. That's how bad it is in the UK regarding gambling.

Across the road from the proposed new Corals there is a YMCA. They fought against it as they had extremely vulnerable youngsters who where addicts of drink, drugs and gambling. The YMCA won and Corals withdrew their application although these gamblers could just walk another 100 yards and there were all the other bookies.

The UK Government want us to believe that they are trying to help gamblers stop and drinkers and smokers but that's where they make all their money.

I stood behind a person in the shop yesterday and he bought a packet of 20. It cost him £8.62 that in rands is around R165 for a packet of 20. Wow. The Government take a large puff out of that.

Chicken i would have called that guy a " big gambler" not a pro,he never had a scooby doo and corals wouldnt entertain him if he was a winner.

The campaign they ran for responsible gambling is absolutely disgusting and would never had been passed by the south african gambling boards.

These fobt machines are the only reason most Betting shops in the UK are open and along with Betfair are the reason prizemoney for the "normal" races is so poor

If I think I'm onto something I will look at detailed form. Much more lazy about it in general though. I blame sites like these for assuming others have done the job well and I can just choose to agree or disagree with them while making my choices.

chicken n chips wrote:
In the UK if you are banned from a pub or a bookies means you are banned. You dare not go back in or the cops will be called.

My mate and I were thrown of a pub in the UK for being too drunk and too stupid, I still remember the name, The Gander Green Inn in Cheam or Sutton. We had the nerve to return a couple of days later and the barman just told us to be careful. But that was like 36 years ago!