Question about bookies

alan4cult

When you place a bet and hand in your betting slip does the cashier type into the computer what you bet on and what your stake was.

It seems that they just photocopy your slip and give you the receipt. If this is the case how is the computer supposed to know "where the money is" and adjust the odds.

aya14

most cashiers are just typing in the stake amount at the time they take the bet afaik.
Then they do the rest later.

x MarK x

alan4cult wrote: »

When you place a bet and hand in your betting slip does the cashier type into the computer what you bet on and what your stake was.

It seems that they just photocopy your slip and give you the receipt. If this is the case how is the computer supposed to know "where the money is" and adjust the odds.

They photocopy your bet slip. If you win, they simply type winning odds into their bet calculater, and hand you the amount.

Famous45

and adjust the odds

adjust what odds?

Nowso

When they say that the money from the Offices has come in to shorten a horse i presume !
.
I thought about that myself a fewtimes and pressume its bigger amounts and the account betting that adds up

alan4cult

Famous45 wrote: »

adjust what odds?

Adjust the odds of say a horse when more money is placed on it.

jkmanc1974

Nowso wrote: »

When they say that the money from the Offices has come in to shorten a horse i presume !
.
I thought about that myself a fewtimes and pressume its bigger amounts and the account betting that adds up

Tis usually Laddys/Hills Rep on course that shortens up the horses on course in the UK, easily achieved on dog tracks with a bet of 100 Sterling on the Bags!

Brgds
Johnny

Famous45

Adjust the odds of say a horse when more money is placed on it

If you have a large bet (up to €500) in an office usually it won't reflect on the price. The betting odds in each bookmakers is compiled on-course by SIS. Usually 8 on-course bookmakers are selected and their odds are entered and recorded by PDA's which in turn feed back to a master computer which is operated by 2 SIS rep's in the grandstand. If a horse is best prices with 3 on-course bookmakers that will be the odds showed for that horse if it is 5/2 with 5 bookmakers but is 11/4 with 3, then it's odds will be 11/4, hence why you see odds bounce back and forth like yo yo's, most of the time. This information is then relayed to the SIS offices via phone and in turn the odds are typed into a computer program and displayed on screen in the betting shops throughout the world. At the likes of Wolverhampton and Southwell only 4 on-course bookmakers will be used.

As mentioned above Ladbrokes and other big chains have on course reps who simply head to wherever the best price is and simply shout out the amount they want on, no money is exchanged, it's always word of mouth. In turn then this bookmaker would then shoot his price down and it may or may not have an affect on the actual odds of the horse cause as I already explained the 3 best prices stand, but most of the time these reps gobble up pretty much all the best odds available for the amount placed online or in the shops so in more cases than not it would have a reflection on the price of a horse but if the horse is priced up at 11/4 with most or all of the on-course bookmakers then the change in price with one or two bookies would'nt have an knock on effect on the price.

JM434

They take the bet off you and just type the stake before giving you the slip back. The details of the bet are "captured" later when the staff have a chance "Capturing" is easy for singles and doubles etc. but it can be an utter pain in the arse if some goon is doing ten 20 cent forecasts on the same slip. So if anyone on here continually has really awkards bets like this, the staff in the bookies more than likely hate you:P.

As for the odds shoretening, plenty of €20 and €50 bets in a shop won't be enough to adjust the odds on horse racing anyway. Bets of these amounts might lead to an adjustment in odds in small events such as the Rose of Tralee, The Next House of Commons Speaker etc.

The bookies compile the odds in the morning and the odds will only change if bets of at least €400/500 are taken. These bets are sent over to Headoffice to be authorised prior to the slip being handed back to the punter, therefore the odds compilers can see where all the serious money is going.

The prices in the fifteen minutes before the off are "the show" ie. they come straight from the betting ring at the racecourse. SIS and Turf TV take the average price from the on course bookies and relay them into the betting offices.

Healio

JM434 wrote: »

"Capturing" is easy for singles and doubles etc. but it can be an utter pain in the arse if some goon is doing ten 20 cent forecasts on the same slip.

Can you please explain this further? When capturing a bet you are only telling the computer the total stake; be it a tenner single or doubles from 50, all you need is the stake.

JM434 wrote:

So if anyone on here continually has really awkards bets like this, the staff in the bookies more than likely hate you:P.

Unfortunately this is the typical attitude of most betting shop staff these days. If you cant calculate how much stake should be on a bet then you shouldnt be working there or at least should ask your superiors to teach you.
God bless these people, back in the day before computers came into industry standard.

JM434 wrote:

As for the odds shoretening, plenty of €20 and €50 bets in a shop won't be enough to adjust the odds on horse racing anyway. Bets of these amounts might lead to an adjustment in odds in small events such as the Rose of Tralee, The Next House of Commons Speaker etc.

Probably the most sense you have made so far. The volume of money wont necessarily move a price, but the source will. But even that is dependant on the shop staff giving a ****; which in this day and age is not a regular occuence.

Bluetonic

Healio wrote: »

Can you please explain this further? When capturing a bet you are only telling the computer the total stake; be it a tenner single or doubles from 50, all you need is the stake.

After the bet is capture it has to be validated against the market the bet is against. The teller is presented with captured bets which have not yet been validated, they then attempt to read the bet on screen and assign each bet on the slip to it's correct market on their computer, along with the selection, odds and stake. The more bets and combinations/markets on a slip the longer it take to validate.

What a lot of tellers will do is leave awkward bets on the system unvalidated and wait for one of the selections to lose and then assign the bet to just that selection. This saves a lot of time for the teller. Of course if all the selections win then the bet must be validated correctly.

JKF

Having worked for bookies through both modern computer systems and back in the good ol' days of manual settling all I can give is my tuppence on what I do..
We work off a system called the alphameric/SIS slip capture system an thats where we get our live feed for prices, going, etc from(as I think someone has already pointed out)

Customer writes their docket and hands it across the counter. We 'stamp' it... The computer takes a copy of the image and prints out the receipt half way then we have to enter the correct stake after which the full docket is printed and given back to the customer. The computer registers the image and the stake given

Then we have to manually 'enter' dockets into the computer system. The computer already has all the info about runners, non runners, prices, etc. We enter the bet type, stake(if its wrong the computer will beep and you have to go back and alter stake), the runners and also the prices.

Prices can cause hassle because a customer can write a price on a docket whic may have been correct at the time of writing but may have changed in the meantime. If so the computer can tell us how late the price is and whether or not to allow that price to ber taken. Where I work theres a limit of 20 secs on late prices... Anything over that we hit a button and it enters an automatic price regardless of whats written

Thats everything I can think of for now but I'll probably think of other things later!!

raheny red

JKF wrote: »

Having worked for bookies through both modern computer systems and back in the good ol' days of manual settling all I can give is my tuppence on what I do..
We work off a system called the alphameric/SIS slip capture system an thats where we get our live feed for prices, going, etc from(as I think someone has already pointed out)

Customer writes their docket and hands it across the counter. We 'stamp' it... The computer takes a copy of the image and prints out the receipt half way then we have to enter the correct stake after which the full docket is printed and given back to the customer. The computer registers the image and the stake given

Then we have to manually 'enter' dockets into the computer system. The computer already has all the info about runners, non runners, prices, etc. We enter the bet type, stake(if its wrong the computer will beep and you have to go back and alter stake), the runners and also the prices.

Prices can cause hassle because a customer can write a price on a docket whic may have been correct at the time of writing but may have changed in the meantime. If so the computer can tell us how late the price is and whether or not to allow that price to ber taken. Where I work theres a limit of 20 secs on late prices... Anything over that we hit a button and it enters an automatic price regardless of whats written

Thats everything I can think of for now but I'll probably think of other things later!!

Entering the lotto can be bitch!

alan4cult

So is the customer allowed to write the price on the betting slip? I thought only the teller could do that?

JKF

raheny red wrote: »

Entering the lotto can be bitch!

Christ.. Forgot about the lotto! Now that is a bitch

alan4cult wrote: »

So is the customer allowed to write the price on the betting slip? I thought only the teller could do that?

Well where I work they are! We have touch screens where customers can get their own prices which saves us a lot of hassle especially when its busy
Although tha doesnt guarantee you'll actually get that price because of the 20sec rule we have... Depends on the bookie though

ArmaniJeanss

alan4cult wrote: »

So is the customer allowed to write the price on the betting slip? I thought only the teller could do that?

In some bookmakers, the teller is actually forbidden from writing a price on the slip. S/he can tell you the price, but you have to write it yourself.

JM434

Healio wrote: »

Can you please explain this further? When capturing a bet you are only telling the computer the total stake; be it a tenner single or doubles from 50, all you need is the stake.

It's not as simple as just recording the stake. That's the easy bit. "Capturing" is entering the bet instructions onto the computer, ie all the horses selected, prices taken, all the permutations, etc. When added to the fact that a lot of people visiting a bookies have atrocious handwriting, which can be deliberate or otherwise, and poorly filled out bet instructions, eg failure to include the race time and meeting, capturing can be a difficult task.

Plus there are always idiotic customers who bet 10 FCs on a single dog race right before the off, which can be very time consuming to capture, and then charge up to the counter as soon as the race has finished to be paid out. So it's no wonder the staff in a bookies can detest certain customers.

Healio wrote: »

Unfortunately this is the typical attitude of most betting shop staff these days. If you cant calculate how much stake should be on a bet then you shouldnt be working there or at least should ask your superiors to teach you.God bless these people, back in the day before computers came into industry standard.

I'm not sure what you're on about here.

Healio

JM434 wrote:

"Capturing" is entering the bet instructions onto the computer, ie all the horses selected, prices taken, all the permutations, etc.

I would term that translating, but sure its seems it just a little mix up on words.

JM434 wrote: »

It's not as simple as just recording the stake. That's the easy bit.

Thats the point i was making.

JM434 wrote:

Plus there are always idiotic customers who bet 10 FCs on a single dog race right before the off,

These "idiotic" punters although small stakes are paying your wages.

JM434 wrote:

which can be very time consuming to capture,

I presume you mean translating the bets, not actually capturing, although it could be a different system to the one i used to use.

JM434 wrote:

and then charge up to the counter as soon as the race has finished to be paid out. So it's no wonder the staff in a bookies can detest certain customers.

I know exactly what you mean here, but you can take a minute to explain to the customer how the system works, just like you have explained to everyone here, no??

JM434 wrote:

Forgot about the lotto! Now that is a bitch

Agree here with this, but if someone is doing it so regularly with the same numbers would not try and get them onto the quickslips, or beat them to it and do it out for them on a quickslip, saves time all round.

Some of the oul wans are afraid of leaving them at home or losing them, so why not offer to mind them for them behind the counter everyweek, just the quickslip obviously.

JM434

Healio wrote: »

I would term that translating, but sure its seems it just a little mix up on words.

Capturing seems to be the industry standard term

Healio wrote: »

Agree here with this, but if someone is doing it so regularly with the same numbers would not try and get them onto the quickslips, or beat them to it and do it out for them on a quickslip, saves time all round.

Some of the oul wans are afraid of leaving them at home or losing them, so why not offer to mind them for them behind the counter everyweek, just the quickslip obviously.

I have tried to get some old women to use quickslips before but they look on them as if they were some form of witchcraft and so reluctantly I have to take them on plain slips.

Alyosha

Healio wrote: »

Agree here with this, but if someone is doing it so regularly with the same numbers would not try and get them onto the quickslips, or beat them to it and do it out for them on a quickslip, saves time all round.

We did this in the bookies I used to work in, saved an awful lot of hassle. No more LN49 D1 BB P2 P3 45-34-23 etc to be entered!

We had a regular who used do 4 x 10c perm patents on the one docket, with a 20c e/w accum thrown in to make it a €6 bet. Might do 4-5 in a day. Spent so much time looking at his handwriting I don't think I'll ever for get it!