SIMON NOTT: You Can’t Train Experience

Possibly the most important people in the betting ring, apart from the bookies are the Betting Ring Managers.

It was hard to come up with just a couple of examples over my life working with on-course bookmakers where they saved the day. That’s because they are too numerous.

I’ve dredged one from way back in the 1990’s. I was working with Dave Phillips, we were paying out of the winner of the last race, it was already getting a bit dimpsy. A punter, visibly drunk handed over a losing ticket and demanded to be paid over the winner. He became very aggressive and louder by the minute, a crowd of similarly refreshed young men started to gather around shouting at us to pay him. Whilst Dave tried to reason with them, his son and I were busily stuffing readies into our pockets from the hod in case it got really nasty. Really nasty is how it looked to be going, most of our bookie brethren had gone and we were surrounded. Salvation arrived in the form of a Betting Ring Manager, after being told the situation he calmly advised us to pack up our kit and go home. Which is exactly what he did as he dealt with the baying mob. It’s a special quality of quiet authority and diplomacy to hold the read guard single handed while we made our escape.

Another, more recently, 2017 with Star Sports, working as a freelance on Grand National day, it was a similar scenario. A couple of young and aggressively drunk lads claiming that they had meant to bet the winner and not what their ticket said they had backed. Others got involved, you have to stand your ground when you are right, but it became quite intimidating. That is until the BRM arrived and defused the situation as we went on our way. Once again that uncanny knack of quietly talking to the hitherto belligerent whilst exuding that authoritative air. Remember at school playing up the young supply teacher and the headmaster walks into the classroom? Yes, like that.

Those are the more dramatic examples there were plenty of occasions when it was just a case of explaining to the punter about a rule 4 or that because of the non-runner they don’t get paid on fourth. It’s a skilled job where experience is everything.

It’s a week now since I got several text messages from various sources breaking the news that the AGT, the body that employ the BRM’s, had lost their contract with the racecourses. In addition to that, they had lost it to an amalgamation of companies still not confirmed. The story goes it’s a deal with a company specialising computer software and another handling on-course betting outlet infrastructure. I put it out there, fishing on social media.

There was nothing from those suggested to be involved.

Weirdly, a week on, it was announced the next day that AGT have indeed lost their contract and that it will terminate on August 31st 2022 but not a word about who has replaced them. You’d have thought that as mentioned in my blog last week, where there’s a winner there’s a loser, so they must know the winner.

The cynic in me thinks that the rumours may well have been right and that those details will be broken on a busy news day. That reluctance to reveal the story because it may not look good, especially as far as racecourse bookmakers go. Not least because if the BRM’s are to lose their jobs and a new broom sweeps clean, how can those men and women be replaced, you can’t train the experience needed to deal with the situations they are faced with.

Even more worrying, in my latest #BettingPeople interview with Jamie Hart of the Tote he talks about their ambitions for pool betting. I feel, as he does, that a strong Tote pool would be very good for racing. Not so good, he also mentions that those imitation bookies that are popping up all over racecourses are indeed Tote outlets but aren’t positioned by the Tote. Those pitches are in prime spots that money can’t buy and appear designed to attract novice punters who want to bet with bookmakers but don’t know the difference. After all, they don’t look the same as a traditional Tote kiosk or window that people would look for when actually wanting a pool bet. Those positions are run by a separate firm, owned by racecourses, that firm may or may not be the same people taking over the control of racecourses bookmaker’s pitches.

If true, it’s very worrying, not only for racecourse bookmakers but should be for everyone. Some courses appear to believe that racecourse bookies are surplus to requirements in 2022 and losing them would be a benefit to them. That is an attitude that could well eventually drive the final nail into the coffin of the betting ring, but you can bet your life that a whole slew of racecourses, soulless with their hearts ripped out, will surely follow.

Of course, we could all be fretting about nothing, but until an announcement is made regarding who is taking over from AGT, hopefully offering to re-employ the incumbent BRMs, speculators will continue to speculate.

SIMON NOTT

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Views of authors do not necessarily represent views of Star Sports Bookmakers.

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Simon Nott is author of: Skint Mob! Tales from the Betting Ring
available on Kindle CLICK HERE FOR MORE DETAILS

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