October 2009 newsletter
The October newsletter has been delayed, due to other things being given priority over it. Now it is October 9th, and the Velka Pardubicka is just 4 days away.
I went to the Velka Pardubicka press conference, where we were told that the racecourse is in perfect condition after being watered every night for the last month or so. I hope it may be true, but a 6900 metre crosscountry course, plus the flat course, plus the trajectory of the other crosscountry races on Sunday is a lot of work for two men and their watering cans. We were told that there has been some useful rain from the sky in Pardubice in the last few days, and the weather forecast, for what that is worth, makes the ideal prediction: a fair amount of natural precipitation until Friday night, and then bright afternoons on Saturday and Sunday. [latest news: the eather forecast has deteriorated, and a chilly wet Velka Pardubicka days is now forecast]
At the press conference, we were also addressed by the monopoly bookmaker, who told us how lucky we are to be offered such attractive odds on the Velka Pardubicka. Funnily enough, I had just made a quick calculation of the monopolist’s margin and come to the conclusion that the odds were bad, albeit less bad than last year’s VP odds. Am I a trouble maker? I asked myself. Is it not awkward of me to look at the evidence like this, and reach a conclusion contrary to that of the gentleman?
To be fair, the monopoly bookmaker has made some kind of effort. There are even fairly long prices for most of the no-hopers. Rubin, which will get into the race and be ridden by Martina Ruzickova, who addressed us at the press conference, only if one of the 25 others does not go to the post, is offered at 500 to 1. The bet is not worthwhile, but at least the monopolist is showing some enterprise. In a field of 25, half a dozen are offered at 40 to 1 or more.
When challenged by a fellow writer about the short odds, even money, on the favourite, the monopolist appealed to our softer side. Surely we know that, after deduction of expenses, any surplus goes to horse racing, and he cannot risk losing money, our money, by giving odds against a mare that only has to get round to win.
Normally at these press conferences I draw the scorn of the monopolist by suggesting that he could do a better job. Not every racing day of the year. I know that at most of the smaller meetings there is a low level of betting, and we may perhaps accept bad odds as the price to pay for having legal betting at all. What I question is whether Velka Pardubicka day should be treated by the monopolist as just another day, like Benesov or Mimon, let us say.
On Velka Pardubicka day, there are plenty of people who would make big bets, by our standards, but not when it is clear to them at first sight that the odds are not good, and it is an easy choice for them whether to take these odds or leave them. On Velka Pardubicka day, the betting achieves a critical mass, and it would be worthwhile to try something interesting: at the very least, to offer not only monopoly fixed odds but also the alternative of tote betting. It would probably be legal for the monopolist to license more than one Betino bookmaker for the day. These bookmakers could generate some of the colour of hue-and-cry bookmaking and attract more bets.
If our monopoly bookmaker refuses to be enterprising and take the risk of losing a limited amount, on a single race, not over an entire season, it would be better to do away with him. In the small number of countries where racing is in a good financial state, there is a monopoly totalisator. The tote not only cannot lose - unless it generates excessive overheads or is robbed by its staff - and it also does not need to employ a team of experts to set the odds.
I do not in reality see Betino losing its grip on its comfortable monopoly, and becoming a creative and money-generating servant of the racing community. We are not the only racing community to be preyed on by our bookmaker. In Britain and Ireland, there may not be a bookmaking monopoly, but there seems to be a cartel of bookies, all offering almost identical odds, and taking large sums of money out of the sport while contributing rather little to it. From the bookmaker’s perspective, we are just the mugs that they make money out of. We and they should not expect to get on with each other.
By the way, I think the bookmaker has made his book on the VP very competently, and I cannot find anything like a "value bet". If I were forced to bet, it would have to be on the even money favourite Sixteen, which is really a much better horse than the others, with the best record, the best recent form, the best jockey and the best trainer.
[As the Czech pages of Paddock Revue note, Blue Square is offering 2 to 1 against Sixteen, but shorter odd than the Betino monopoly on Mr Big and Lucky Nellerie. The immediate response of the monopoly was to shorten the odds on the English horses and retain its much shorter odds on the favourite. Later, Sixteen went out to 2,25:1, i.e., 5 to 4 against ]