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Indo letters: "Bookies remain odds on to win"

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  • 05-08-2010 10:39am
    #1
    mambo
    Registered Users Posts: 697 ✭✭✭


    This guy is caught in a severe time-warp.

    Has he never heard of betting exchanges?
    THE racing festival season is upon us again. The media do a wonderful job reporting these events, but what a pity the commentators get it so wrong in referring to the bookmaking trade as a betting market.

    A market should involve buyers and sellers bargaining on equal terms. However, the betting trade is a book where the bookmakers set and control the odds. And like many other self-regulating bodies, the business is run for the benefit of the bookmakers rather than the punters.

    The odds offered to the public need to be looked into by a proper authority, and the system of setting odds needs to be regulated properly.

    GERRY MOLLOY
    Dublin 4

    http://www.independent.ie/opinion/letters/bookies-remain-odds-on-to-win-2278213.html


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    #2
    Cavehill Red
    Registered Users Posts: 6,109 ✭✭✭Cavehill Red


    Can you imagine the BS that would proceed if the government set up some quango to set odds on gambling events?
    Bookies would be out of the Irish market faster than you can say 'odds on'.


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    #3
    Warper
    Registered Users Posts: 5,377 ✭✭✭Warper


    I think the exchanges reflect the bookies odds a bit more than the other way around.


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    #4
    mambo
    Registered Users Posts: 697 ✭✭✭mambo


    Whatever about the bookies, in the "old days", colluding on setting odds, etc. surely there's little argument that with the advent of peer-to-peer betting exchanges where you can back and lay at almost identical odds (i.e. with very little "spread" between the back and lay odds) and which the bookies have to compete against for punters' business (even if the bookies still only offer backing), then there is reasonably transparent competition in the sportsbook betting market, and therefore good "value" for the punter.


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