'Tales of the unexpected'

[BillyHills]

Seeing as i've got no jump racing to keep me busy I thought i'd open a thread where members can tell us some of their favourite stories that they have experienced in the betting or horse racing arena. Short or long, funny or not tell us a tale. :ok

[StuSimmy]

Re: 'Tales of the unexpected' When I was a bit of a newbie to betting I had placed a horse each way on in the Cheltenham Festival, probably 50p each way, can't really remember the odds of it but I used to think each way betting was a half off the price after each position it finished in. So for example, this had 4 places: 1st - 50p on price and 50p on half the price 2nd - 50p on half the price 3rd - 50p on half the price then half again 4th - 50p on half the price, then half again, then half again :lol My horse was tailed off so I left but found out it finished 4th but had binned the ticket but thought won't be worth it anyway (which it most likely still wasn't) but would probably have been £1.50-2.50 back rather than my 33p or whatever I had calculated :lol :$

[Trendsman]

Re: 'Tales of the unexpected' My first experience of betting was in a shop called Arthur Prince which was situated in Fenchurch Street Station.A colleague i was working with asked me if i have ever layed a bet on a horse. Me being a quiet lad and never gambled in my life, he showed me how to right out a Lucky 15, in them days you had the 10% tax on top, so my bet was placed and cost me £8.25, 50p win. In my lunch break i watched my first three horse's win, and went back to work, and on my tea break i ventured back to see if the final horse had won or loss, i can still remember the fourth horse (Rope Trick). It had won at odds of 12/1, i placed my ticket on the counter and the teller replied that i had won what i thought £6.75, and was disappointed to not get my stake money back. When she started counting out these £50 notes i had to ask what the bet came to, she said £675, i was dumfounded and could not believe my luck, talk about beginners luck, i was hooked from that day.

[Trendsman]

Re: 'Tales of the unexpected' A year on i was hooked and became very foolish and erratic in my gambling, i would back on anything and edged my bets to much playing Lucky 15's and losing lots of money in the process. I was working for a Security firm in Mincing lane London and i just got payed my wages which then was around £270. I had lost the lot in my lunch break and have never had a churning feeling in my stomach of the stupidity i had done. I went back to work, but no rent money or food money not even a pound and would have to borrow to get to work the following week. the guy i was working with i asked to borrow a pound for a drink, cheeky i know after losing my money. I decided to venture back to the same bookie and i thought this is it, i placed a 25p r/f/c double on the greyhounds 5&6 & then 4&2 was the forecast double, it came up and payed £279 i could not believe it. from that day i vouched to never put money into a bookie. i did not for 7 years, not even 10p. that was 15 years ago i only got back into it in 2003

[BillyHills]

Re: 'Tales of the unexpected' Part One As many will know I spent a fair few years in the betting industry and the things you see over the years is amazing, its one of those times when you say to yourself 'I could write a book etc...' This is a true story from early on in my career. I'll set the scene, i'm working as an Assistant Manager for a leading high street bookie in a smallish shop in a nice respectable if quite at times village. Dont get me wrong the shop had its moments like most, the shop was the type which took about 400 bets a day and the average punter bet in tenners race by race. We only had about half a dozen 'logged' clients, those were the ones that every bet was recorded, apparently any punter that had a 5% impact on turnover had to be logged. Anyway my immediate boss at the time was Bob, in his late 50's had been in the betting industry before there was a betting industry if you know what I mean. Typical old school type of manager, quite scary at times and always wanted a baseball bat under the counter rather than 'bandit' screens in the shop. Looking back now I have a lot to thank Bob for, he took a chance on me when I was at a loose end and was unemployable, loved the idea that I knew a lot about betting but nothing about working in a bookies. He seemed somehow to adopt me and took me under his wing and tought me everything about bets, settling and the ways of making this underpaid job a pleasure to do, one thing I learnt early on was if you love your job you can actually be good at it. We were both in early one day, just two days after xmas, just setting the shop up when we had a knock at the back door, the shop has an office upstairs where the District and Area managers often held meetings and such like so we both thought it was either of them. I opened the door and there stood 'Daz', he was one of our logged clients who ran the Chippy next door, the surprise was that he didnt usually become concious before midday so why he was knocking on the door at 9.30 was a real shock. He came in and explained he had placed a bet the day before in another one of our branches, near another one of his chip shops in Grantham. He wondered if we could ring them up and get the bet paid out here, now to any normal manager that isnt a problem but we are not dealing with a normal manager, this is Bob who protects his profit like its his own. For those that dont know the way it works (or used to) any bet that you pay out under a grand for another shop comes off your profit as though you actually took the bet, now when you realise that the grade of the shop is based on the figures that the shop generates and the salary of the manager is based on the grade of the shop you start to realise why the managers dont like it. Anyway Bob had a grumble before he even saw the bet, knowing that Daz usually had a minimum £100 bet he half expected to be paying out two or three hundred quid before we even opened, you could just see him working out how many 10p lucky 15's we would need to take off the OAP's that day just to break even. What happened next will stay in my memory forever, its one of those times when you realise anything is possible and you should never be surprised by even the people you think you know. Daz handed over is betting slip, it was a lucky 31, now that was the first time in 12 months that I had ever seen him with a Lucky 31 slip, he always backed singles, he was like clockwork, 1st or 2nd fav, started off at £50 and increased as the day went on if he was winning. Anyway without looking at it properly I made a remark about the bet and he just said he was busy all day so just left the bet to run all afternoon. I passed the bet to Bob, who more or less snatched it out of my hand and asked which branch it was put on at, it was down to the paying out shop to settle it before ringing the other shop so after a short pause Bob quietly asked me over to double check the returns, it was quite surreal, he had a £10 lucky 31 with 5 winners, with the added bonus the bet was worked out to £31,750. We looked at each other in amazement, Daz politely asked if he could have it in cash, apparantly he was in trouble with the taxman but thats another epic story. This was just the start of a very strange day............. To be continued.

[Trendsman]

Re: 'Tales of the unexpected' More BH i am glued now

[billy the punter]

Re: 'Tales of the unexpected' This is pretty embarrassing as it happened in 2007 and I had been betting on internet sites for at least five years by then. I was at a juicy poker game the night before and it ran longer than expected. We got back to my mates house around 9am and I crashed out. Now I couldn't fancied much that day as I allowed myself to sleep through most of the day's racing. When I woke my mate was in full betting mode, ATR on and three betting accounts up on the internet. I planned to play in a late race at Lingfield (just checked it was the 4.45). I wouldn't normally bet in this sort of enviroment, I work alone and at home in full concentration. But I had little choice this day. One of his accounts that were up on his screen was Laddies. Now I hadn't used their site before. I wanted £x EW on Lord Of The Reins. However I clicked for £x win. Bah! I looked to see if I could get a place bet, dunno why I was looking, at that time there was no place only betting with Ladbrokes. I was still very tired and rushing by this stage. I put the horse in a betslip again and noticed a "PLACE BET" button. I don't know what was going through my head as I thought that meant a place-bet, of course it meant to place a bet. So I struck what I thought was £x a place, instead it was another £x win. So now I had £x (x2) to win and nothing to place. With that the race was off. :@ I obviously wasn't myself that day to be so confused by an internet betting account. Like I say I'd used internet betting almost everyday for the previous five years, albeit on different sites, mainly Betfair who did offer place-only markets. That was around the time I decided to put poker on the back burner, I could no longer justify the time it took up or the negative effect it was having on racing at times. Oh, the horse gagged up by the way. 12/1.

[mowgli77]

Re: 'Tales of the unexpected' During Royal Ascot a few years back I was at work and wanted to get a bet on Boscobel. I had not used Betfair for long and had downloaded it onto my phone. I tried to place a win bet on the horse but it came back as unsettled, I clicked again and it said unsettled again. I clicked it a 3rd time and this one settled. I checked the "my bets" section so I could cancel the unsettled bets but they both showed up as settled. I now had 3 win bets on a horse but only wanted one. I was annoyed but listened to the race and the horse won (SP was 7-1) but I was still pissed off with the application for saying my bets were unsettled when they were actually settled before the one that went through. Anyone else had any problems when trying to use Betfair mobile?

[Gingertipster]

Re: 'Tales of the unexpected' Think it was 1987, the Hungerford Stakes. Managed to persuade my father and grandfather to go racing at Newbury. My grandad never bet on course, only in the National and Derby. However, this jockey went very steadily (almost walking) to post. Grandad "Put a fiver on that for me". Me "Nah, got no chance". Grandad "Yes it does, he (the jockey) hasn't come here for nothing". Me "You sure, it's 33/1"? Grandad "Yes". Me "£2.50 each way"? Grandad "No, on the nose". Me "What? At least do an each way". Grandad "On the nose". Me "o.k. if you want to throw money away". I go all around the bookies searching for the best price and find one with 50/1 and hand him the blue note. There wasn't much time to get to a good vantage point and the PA system wasn't that special either. Three horses went flashing past the line together. PA "First No ? Abuzz". :cow :clap Wow! :eek Phew! That learnt me not to try and persuade anyone not to back something. :loon Clive Brittain does it again with a rank outsider. Was the jockey going slow to post significant? Well, this was (I believe) the first year South African Muis Roberts rode in Britain. He was to become a familiar site, taking most of his mounts just as steadily to post. :eyes Lucky Grandad! :lol

[mileni4uk]

Re: 'Tales of the unexpected'

During Royal Ascot a few years back I was at work and wanted to get a bet on Boscobel. I had not used Betfair for long and had downloaded it onto my phone. I tried to place a win bet on the horse but it came back as unsettled' date=' I clicked again and it said unsettled again. I clicked it a 3rd time and this one settled. I checked the "my bets" section so I could cancel the unsettled bets but they both showed up as settled. I now had 3 win bets on a horse but only wanted one. I was annoyed but listened to the race and the horse won (SP was 7-1) but I was still pissed off with the application for saying my bets were unsettled when they were actually settled before the one that went through. Anyone else had any problems when trying to use Betfair mobile?[/quote'] Phil, it could have been unmatched bets just getting matched when you went to cancel them??

[SteveO]

Re: 'Tales of the unexpected' This is a story about a guy nicknamed Scooker who's in his fifties now and used to be a fitness fantatic and has always been a sick gambler with a total disregard for money. I walked into a Ladbrokes shop around about 2002 which was next to my local and I bumped into Scooker. He told me to get on Ladybear which was his nap of the day. Now I never take any notice of him as he's mainly a favourite backer who doubles up to chase losses etc. I looked at the form and Lady Bear did look thrown in and was 11/8. I studied and stuidied and Decided to stick £100 on it. I placed my bet and Scooker asked me how much and I showed him and he showed me his slip for £50 and I thought to myself he must be skint as that's a small bet for him. Anyway during the race Scooker was on edge biting his nails and acting extremely nervous 'That's strange', I thought to myself as that amount of money means nothing to him. Ladybear came from the back of the filed to win by a small margin. I later found out that Scooker had £5,000 on the horse and when he showed me the bet earlier that day he craftily hid the other two noughts:eek

[cc75]

Re: 'Tales of the unexpected' Before I really got too involved in racing I remember a pretty funny story about a guy who knew quite a lot about horses and he had contacts at a few of the local yards. Me and a couple of others had been playing golf at our local course and we're enjoying the 19th hole when this guy, Eckie, comes in and chats away about the horses with one of our company. He told us that there were a couple of horses that he had heard "stable whispers" for next time out. He couldn't remember the exact name of one of them (handy) but he said the other horse was called Sea Storm from David Macleod's stable (closed now) and to back it next time out. Got back to house that day and went onto RP site to find it's entries and noted it was out that week at Ayr. The day came so that morning popped into local bookies to have a bet on it and as I wasn't a regular punter at the time I didn't really understand about early prices or each way betting etc so just wrote out the slip for £20. Went to the bookies to at race time to watch it romp in at 12/1. I was absolutely buzzing. Went up to golf course that night for 9 hole bounce game and after i'd finished I went into the clubhouse for a pint only to see Eckie standing there at the bar. I went up behind him, slapped him on the back and said "Nice one mate, Sea Storm, ya beauty!!!"; he looked at me blankly until realisation dawned on him that he had forgotten to check the horses entries and had missed the bet!! :wall Nightmare for him... bought him a couple of pints though :ok

[BillyHills]

Re: 'Tales of the unexpected' Part Two....... So this Greek Chip Shop owner called Daz had just handed over a slip worth over 30 grand and wanted it in cash. Now on the face of it this was a logistical nightmare and any manager on this planet would have said no chance, heres a cheque. But remember this was quick thinking Bob we were taliking about, he politely said to Daz, give us a bit of time and we will let you know whats happening. He happily went back to his potatoes, leaving the slip with us. My initial thoughts were, what are you doing, is this possible and what a jammy git, not neccessarily in that order but by this time writing out the off slips had become lower on the list of my to do jobs. Before I could speak Bob was in full steam ahead mode, he carefully explained that we could be in for a very nice tip here if we could get him this cash, if we gave him a cheque we wouldnt see a penny. Also Bob knew that the bet wouldnt count against the profit but how much of the 30k could we get an over excited race by race punter to part with and bump up the yearly turnover before the end of the year which was only days away. I think your beginning to see the real Bob here. I just agreed with the plan, what else could I do? For those that dont know the procedure this would normally take 3/4 days to sort out. First we had to ring the other shop and get the bet matched, anything with a big win like this needs to be checked by Leeds security which means they have to go to the shop and lift the camera, take the film out and check the bet was put on in time and was actually what it was meant to be. You would be surpised how many blank betting slips slip through the camera! Once ok'd and the amount agreed we had to let the bank know how much we wanted, anything over 2.5k had to get permission from higher up than a manager. Now again this would normally take a couple of days for a bank in a small village to get this cash together. Bob had lived here all his life, knew everyone and was a big help in the community, lets put it like this, a few people owed him. Luckily or by coincidence the Security guys were in the area already changing films in another shop, they got the film back to Leeds by dinner time, we got the call from the Area Manager that all was ok and we could proceed with the bank, we already had just over 5k from the busy boxing day take so we needed around another 25. Bob knew that we were working together the next day so arranged for the lovely Nat West to have it ready for about dinner time and somehow they agreed to get it. Talk about trying for a double whammy, Bobs idea was to give Daz the loose change (1,750) that day to play with in the shop and have the rest the next day. Not strictly within the rules but hey anything goes now. We let Daz know the score and arranged to meet him at 1pm the next day, it was company policy that the client had to take the money from the manager in the bank so if anything happended from that moment on it wasnt down to us. Bobs plan worked pretty well, that afternoon Daz managed to turn over about 4k on his own, normally the shops takings on an average day, and we safely netted nearly all of it. Lucky 15's, 31's were flying in all over the place, talk about chasing rainbows, someone needed to tell him he had already found his pot of gold and now it was time to chill out. The next day arrived and Bob was quite excited at the prospect of paying out over 30 grand to one customer, or about how much he thought he was going to get for pulling off this feat. Since that day I worked with Bob for another couple of years before getting my own shop, we remained close until he retired and apart from a 23k bet on Dettori Day which was paid by cheque neither of us got anywhere near a pay out like this. Daz came into the shop spot on time, the first question was how are you going to carry 30 grand, as it was obvious he hadnt thought of that bit. He just said he would pick up a couple of bags on the way to the bank which was at the end of the high street. Well he could afford them. They both went to do the deed and around 20 minutes later they returned, you couldnt make it up honestly. In walked Bob carrying two Wilkos bags follwed by this Greek chippy carrying another two, it was classic, they marched round the back of the counter and plonked the bags down in the corner, I had to see it to believe it, 25 grand in Wilko's carry bags at my feet, apparantly Daz had asked Bob if we could look after it for a couple of hours as he didnt trust the guys in the chip shop. We gave him the balance which he pocketed and off he went to scan the Racing papers. That afternoon was the longest of my betting shop life, bets were flying in all over the place, most of them were having to be phoned off such was the stakes, it was nightmare but Bob was as calm as he ever was, probably thinking of a nice bottle of wine with his tip. I cant remember the exact figures come closing time, all i know was we hit a record turnover, apart from National day, this meant we had made it into the next grade salary wise for the shop, we were near but this made sure and at the end of the day I reckon this was Bobs big plan all along. We gave Daz back what was left, about two Wikos bags and he left with a smile on his face said 'happy new year'. For the record he gave us just £100 to split between the staff, 3 of us in total. Some two years later he lost his chip shop to the taxman, his mother in law runs it to this day.

[punterpete]

Re: 'Tales of the unexpected' Just a bit of back ground for starters. Met my current partner in a night club in Bristol after a cracking day out at the festival, it was the year Kicking King won the Gold Cup. It turned out she knew very little or had little interest in horse racing apart from the usual bet on a family name pick in the national. At the time I was part of syndycate that had a horse with Peter Makin. The relationship developed and a couple of years later I took her to watch our horse run at Lingfield. The first race of the day was a 5F sprint and she as usual ignores my advice to back the favourite and picks an outsider priced at 16/1. She asks me to place the bet for her and I inform because of the price I will put on the bet on as an each way stake, she looks confused but says...whatever!!! I come back from placing the bet and we take our place close to the winning post to watch the race. The favourite wins and her selection finishes second so its happy days and I am pondering why I didn't do the SF. I turn to see my girlfreind with an absoloutely confused expression on her face....I ask her what's up?....well when do they race back up this end? was her reply....she thought each way meant they raced down the course turned around and raced back up the other way thus giving you two chances of winning....bless her little cotton socks!!!!

[Aykay1]

Re: 'Tales of the unexpected' About 8 or 9 years ago, I got hold of a number for a guy called Edward Knight, who was a telephone tipster. Of course we all know that these guys are useless but at the time I was new to racing and a bit naïve and thought this guy was going to make me rich :lol

I used to follow his tips with a couple of blokes in the office, without much joy.

He used to leave a recorded message at 11.15 each day with a typical bet being 1 point each way (on a scale of 1-10). It was almost always 1 point each way, which were not particularly successful and definitely made a loss. There were 2 occasions where he increased the stakes to 3 points each way – both of these 3 pointers won. Once he gave a 5 point each way, this also won. As a result, me and these 3 guys in the office used to get quite excited by any tips that were above 1 point each way.

One morning I phoned up, as usual expecting the standard one point each way bet but was greeted by “Eddie” advising us he had some very special advice for us……. He was advising a MAXIMUM 10 point win bet!!! The name of the horse escapes me now but it was trained by Aidan O’Brien, began with M and was priced at 2/1.

Well that was it, we all thought William Hill was going to pay for our holidays that year – this horse couldn’t lose could it?!!

The 4 of us on our bank of desks were really excited by this and were talking about it all morning. People on other banks of desks could hear us and word was spreading round the office that I had received this horse tip that couldn’t lose. People who don’t bet on horses regularly seem to get excited by the words “horse tip” and before I knew it I had people coming over to my desk wanting a piece of the action. There was a £5 win from my team leader, a £20 win from Dickie in the post room, there was another £10 win from Bob on finance – even sweet old Rachel on reception wanted a £10 win on it.

This made me feel really uneasy. Not only because I had to go to the betting shop in my lunch hour and place what amounted to over £200 on a horse bet (my usual stake was around £5). But I felt responsible for everyone’s money. What if it lost? I couldn’t go back to the office could I? Would I be shunned for the rest of the day by everyone!! Any attempt I made to play this horses chances down were rather negated by my over-exciteable mate Simon who was firmly of the belief that this horse had already won and Edward Knight was our saviour.

We took a late lunch so we could watch the race in the bookies – it was about 2.30 I think. The horse got backed down from 2/1 to 11/10 by the time the race started. I can honestly say I have never been so nervous watching a race before. Not only had I had a big big bet on it, but pretty much the whole office was on “Arams horse tip” – yep, this was no longer Edward Knights horse tip, for some reason it was MY horse tip. The pressure wasn’t nice.

The race went by like a flash, it was only 7f I think. Everything went smoothly apart from about 2f out when the fcuking thing got boxed in on the rails!!!!????!!! I almost shat on the floor :$. 1 1/2 furlongs left – still boxed in, the leader extending his lead. 1 furlong left, still boxed in, the leader pulling further clear, ½ a furlong left, the jockey (Kinane?) switched the horse, found some room and he literally flew. The gap was closing, closing closing all the time but the winning post was only yards away, could he reach the leader? …………………………………………… our horse got up by the width of a hamsters cock!! Phew!

The feeling of all that pressure being lifted was amazing and I felt like the dogs bollocks walking back into the office dishing out everyones winnings on what had for some reason become “my” horse tip, not Edward Knights. Of course I milked the attention, but believe me, if the thing had lost I’d have made sure everyone know it was Edward Knight’s doing, not mine! I had a few beers bought for me that night. :)

I used to get asked for more tips after that but I never gave any out, partly because it invites pressure that “your tip” might lose and people get pissed off with you and secondly because deep down, I knew Eddie Knight wasn’t the god we all thought he was.

I turned out to be right because by about 6 months later we didn’t renew our subscription due to a horrible string of losers, which cost us everything we had won on his other successful tips. Our faith in him was shattered and Eddie was exposed as the average tipster I think we knew he was all along.

I just googled him and he is still going! He now has a “new” system that I imagine he made up when his last one went to sh!t.

[bowles10]

Re: 'Tales of the unexpected' some great stories here, pity about that £100 tip Graham, mine is betting shop & tip related also the 1st day of the jumps season always used to be i think one of the 1st saturdays in August & the meeting was Bangor. We were told 3 days before that "our" source had a tip which would be backed in the 1st race of the new season. The meeting was the week before the start of the footie season and i thought having paid for my season ticket, this could be a way of paying some of it off. Well, we were having problems previously placing bets with some of the local bookies as my dad had already been sacked by a few phone accounts so on the Friday night, we decided to sit down and work out a strategy. I was living at home at the time and about 18yo. This meeting was very surreal and like plotting a world war, we had a map out of the local area with betting shops ringed in certain areas in surrey, our nearest shops were esher and cobham, esher was a ladbrokes & cobham had an independent, think it was Arthur Prince. We decided we didnt want to use the same bookies at all, so we worked out we needed 6 people all to place £100 at 11am (shop opening times) and take the price, which was likely to be 5/1 first show. This meant we had to rely on these other 4 people, one was my brother, & the others were my dads mates, we collected money frm everyone who wanted some & the total was £600, about £300 of my dads money, i think i had £25 which was 1/3 of my weekly wage at that time. Came the morning of the "sting" and there was no drama, we all got to the shops in time & placed the bet, i got Ladbrokes in Esher and shoved the £100 over the counter with a wry cheeky smile on my face, the clerk looked at me & possibly thought, thats a lot of money for a kid so i expecting the inevitable "i'll just check with my manager" when i blurted out "its ok its my dads bet, he is on the yellow lines outside and avoiding the wardens", with that they took the bet & got the price 5/1. What made this weird, was that we had no mobils so it wasnt until we got home to "base" that we could check what we got on ! once home, my dad was like a "general" counting his men back after war. He had it all writen down and we waited with baited brreath for the 1st at Bangor They sent it off 3/1 fav & it truly bolted up, leaving us to celebrate at home, my old man made sure everyone got thier winnings, mine did go towards to my season ticket (prob paid for most of it) & i recall going to pick up the money & the clerk saying "dont tell me, your dad is waiting outside on the double yellows again" !! well my dad is a generous fella and he always made sure the shop got something from a decent win & told me to leave them £30 from the £500 winnings. Again he didnt need to but ended up giving £180 from £3k win as a "tip" always makes me laugh remembering that day just for the military precision we had !

[billy the punter]

Re: 'Tales of the unexpected'

who was a telephone tipster. Of course we all know that these guys are useless

How very dare you. :lol Great stories chaps I will post a couple more myself later.

[Aykay1]

Re: 'Tales of the unexpected' I didn't know you were one billy :lol

[BillyHills]

Re: 'Tales of the unexpected' Lovely stories guys, I knew everyone would have them and nice to look back and how some of us have changed our views on life and betting. Might help some of the youngsters out there! I'll put another one up later if i get chance:ok

[Galronix]

Re: 'Tales of the unexpected' I'm not usually in the ATR, infact the last bet on the horses I had was last Feb at the PL raceday at Musselbourgh. For those that remember it was a bitterly cold day with the wind coming off the sea. Anyway I wandered down to the parade ring to look at the horses and they looked as cold as me. Heads dropped and looked like they couldn't be bothered apart from 1 horse. He was trotting round, right up on his toes, ears pricked and looked "up for it". Straight round to the bookies and had £5 e/w @ 25/1. He stormed up the home straight to win. :nana Another time was me and the wife 1st lived together. It was a saturday morning and we were a bit skint til the monday. All I had was a spare £5 that I decided to have a bet and watch the racing on channel 4. Just before I walked down to the bookies to put my 10p Lucky15 on the wife said ohh theres a horse called Village Green running, could you put £1 on it for me. ( She do like to back horses with the word Green in) Well my 1st horse win in. (can't remember the price) Then the 2nd horse went in. Next was the 3rd race and Village Green was also in the race. I had about £3.50 going onto my horse who lead most of the way until they all caught up and a blanket finish ensued. Yep you guessed it Village Green got up and won by a nose and returned at 100/1. :loon I walked down to the bookies to watch my last horse which obliged and gave me about £35. When I went to the window the guy said "You've got some bottle to pick this up" which I replied with a huge grin. He went on to tell my if I'd paid the 10p tax I would have got the full £100. I replied "yeah but I'm still £89 in profit for the bet". We had a great night out on the saturday night and managed to pay 2 bills out of it. :ok One last one was when I worked on the railway. A mate who wanted to put a bet wouldn't have made it and asked me place it for him. It was 2 x £1 singles and a £1 win double. Unfortunately his 1st horse lost so I waited for him to come in and give him his slip. As I was leaving the bookies a horse caught my eye on the screen called Daring Dee. Well Denise was my ex-wife's sisters name. The Trainer was Johston, which was my ex's maiden name. The Jockey Was Adams, who was the ex brother-in-law's wifes maiden name. I checked the stopwatch ratings in the Sporting Life to find it was top so I walked over and had £5 on it, sat down to see the price of 25/1 quoted. I thought Boll*cks, I've just wasted a fiver. It burst through and won in a photo finish and returned @ 33/1. :cow As I was queueing to get my winnings there was a horse over the jumps called Own Up. I thought yeah I'll have to own up why I'm late home from work and wrote out a slip for a £20 win on it but changed my mind thinking this is stupid betting on horses without even looking at any form. Bloody thing romped home @ 20/1. :\ For those that know as I have posted it before on here, I missed out on £120,000 on the Dettori 7 but thats another story.

[billy the punter]

Re: 'Tales of the unexpected'

I didn't know you were one billy :lol

'fraid so. They are a little different these days though. Pricewise (Segal, Williams, Collier etc) have and with mine and Nevision's at least you know it's coming from an actual pro rather than some short-price loving chancer. Anyway, enough of the advertising. :lol I once told this story to someone who had heard the line before so perhaps the person in question stole it or it's got around locally. Anyway, this was how I heard it... A pal of mine Mark, who has been known as Placepot for many years due to his love of the bet, was one of the dealers for the poker game I used to frequent. Now it was common knowledge a certain high-street bookmaker had been chasing him some time for an unpaid credit account. They had little chance of seeing the two grand owed. It was Thursday afternoon at the speil and the game was in full flow, it was a pretty big game so everything was above board and run correctly, for example the dealers were not allowed to take calls when working. Placepot was dealing away and his mobile had been ringing constantly, he was in a panic as he thought it was some tart he'd recently copped in a local over 30's gaff. Now usually he is a bit of a call-screener, for the reason I gave earlier and a few others, but as soon as he'd finished his shift the phone was ringing again, desperate not to miss the call he answered without looking at the caller ID. It wasn't the bird from the over 30's haunt. It was the bookmaker in question chasing the £2,000. After some initial flustering he issued the the following deal... "I currently owe six bookmakers £2000 each. Now I do not have twelve grand and there is little chance in me getting twelve grand. All I have is two grand. I've decided on the fairest thing to do. On Sunday I will put the names of each bookmaker in a hat, I will pick one out and they will recieve the £2,000 payment. However if you keep pestering me until then you won't even go in the hat!" He hasn't heard from them since. Such a character, once described his sister as "the only bird ever to get out of Ted Bundy's car". :rollin

[Aykay1]

Re: 'Tales of the unexpected'

For those that know as I have posted it before on here, I missed out on £120,000 on the Dettori 7 but thats another story.

Shit a brick!!!!!!!!!! I'm all ears!

[Galronix]

Re: 'Tales of the unexpected'

Shit a brick!!!!!!!!!! I'm all ears!

:lol How My Dinning Room Cost Me 120k

[BillyHills]

Re: 'Tales of the unexpected' This is a true story that happened to a colleague of mine that maybe either proves that all footballers are not money grabbing so and so's or that they have too much money. This all happened some years ago when a particular team was in the Premier League back then, most afternoons at least three of the squad, two very well known would visit a high street bookies and pass their time away. Usually in the same shop but as you will see later on they did pop in to other branches from time to time. This particular afternoon one of them was doing his brains as per normal, it was not unusual for him to betting on £50 tricasts on the dogs or £100 rv/fc. When he won he won big, when he lost he lost big. On the horses he was a fav backer, though nothing of having a monkey on the next fav running without even looking at the form. You got the feeling this money didnt mean a lot. Anyway, he was losing heavily, about 3k down and he was about to leave to pick the kids up from school, something he did everyday. He had placed a £100 treble some half an hour previously and was waiting on the last one, the other two had won at 7/4 and 5/2. The last horse was around the 11/8 mark and would win over 2k and get most of his money back. He was cutting it fine for the school run but stayed and watched it win in a close finish, he rushed up to the counter to collect and the my mate the manager quickly settled the bet and paid him out, off he went with a smile and thinking he probably got out of jail that day. Within minutes they called a stewards inquiry, the replay showed a coming together, in these days it would be a no brainer for the result to stand but back then it was fashionable to throw out anything that caused the slightest interference, the inevitable happened, it got kicked out and the manager was over 2 grand light. No bets over £100 were supposed to be paid out before the weigh in and managers losing money like this had been sacked in the past, he was a very worried man. Against all the rules of the company he decided to put the slip in the pay out till and treated it as cash, just so the money would balance at the end of the night while he though of a plan. He was friendly with a few other managers and told his tale to one or two of them that also had visits from the footballers. They had sympathy has they know they are good for business and following exact procedure isnt always as easy as the manual says so under pressure. Three days passed and they hadnt been back in the shop, was avoidance the reason? it was getting close to the time of doing the end of week figures and this bet had to be declared and the music faced. He had a call mid afternoon from a shop about 10 miles away, the manager said the player had just walked in his shop. Beleive it or not but its against company policy to ask for any money back but this was different, his job was on the line, he persuaded the other manager just to mention in passing that he was lucky the other day when he got paid out, well thats not exactly asking for the money back is it. To the disbelief of my mate, the footballer asked how much it was that he owed and passed over the cash, all £2,200 of it. I dont think he realised that he had saved someone his career, or maybe he did, it was a while before he came into my mates shop again, to be honest I think it was more in embarrasment than anything else, they just said a few words and got back to business. For the record later that season he was transferred to a much bigger team and his wages quadrupled, hopefully he changed his betting style and kept hold of some of it.

[fintron]

Re: 'Tales of the unexpected' Some great stories in here. Galronix, the first reply to your original post sums up what I thought reading your story...ouch! A couple of the guys earlier spoke of confusion surrounding each-way betting and that was something that bamboozled me too when I first started out. I understood each way betting on a single, but working out the place component of an each way accumulator was something that I didn't get. What I didn't realise was that you treat the place bets as entirely seperate to the win bets and that if one of your winners doesn't win, none of them win. So one day I thought I'd won big, when it turned out I'd miscalculated the winnings by miles!! It must have been either a five or six fold but the only winner I can remember was Papal Bull. There were three winners in total I think. Most of the selections were favourites around the 2/1 mark but when I was trying to work out what I'd won I mixed up the odds from the winning horses with the place odds from those that had placed and worked it out that I was set to win £500 off a quid. Once I told the girlfriend she had already spent that money in her head and we were straight out that night for a slap up meal thinking it was all paid for. The next day when I could get back into town I went into Hills to claim my winnings at the first opportunity and was dissapointed to say the least when I was paid out a tiny fraction of what I was expecting, something measly like £15. So not only had I ballsed up with the calcs and led myself to believe I'd won big (and I was a student back then and £500 would have been very welcome) I was actually worse off financially having spent the 'winnings' on a meal! :lol Needless to say it taught me two lessons - don't go spending the winnings before you see them in your hand and two, and more importantly, don't tell your partner when you win big!!!

[cc75]

Re: 'Tales of the unexpected'

and more importantly, don't tell your partner when you win big!!!

Agree whole-heartedly with this one Fin - been caught out with that one twice!! :wall

[fintron]

Re: 'Tales of the unexpected'

Agree whole-heartedly with this one Fin - been caught out with that one twice!! :wall

Its hard to contain the excitement isn't it but for the best if they don't know. What they don't understand (or my girlfriend at least doesn't) is that I need those winnings to cover the stakes from the long losing runs, and when you go on those losing runs you don't see the women handing out the notes to cover the losses do you!

[Spooner]

Re: 'Tales of the unexpected'

Its hard to contain the excitement isn't it but for the best if they don't know. What they don't understand (or my girlfriend at least doesn't) is that I need those winnings to cover the stakes from the long losing runs, and when you go on those losing runs you don't see the women handing out the notes to cover the losses do you!

Amen to that.

[cc75]

Re: 'Tales of the unexpected'

Its hard to contain the excitement isn't it but for the best if they don't know. What they don't understand (or my girlfriend at least doesn't) is that I need those winnings to cover the stakes from the long losing runs, and when you go on those losing runs you don't see the women handing out the notes to cover the losses do you!

Spot on!

[mileni4uk]

Re: 'Tales of the unexpected' I don't have many stories like yours, following the sport from a country abroad and only starting few years ago, but when I first bumped into this forum I was following the guys posting here. BH, Bowles, Russ, Mowgli and few that are not around anymore. On Saturdays I used to bet a few e/w doubles. Now one such day I woke up and quickly after breakfast I went to the forum with intentions to see the tips and place my usual e/w doubles. There were quite a few horses tipped by the guys I was following, so the bet was going to be pretty biggish. 11 horses I liked the look of and I don't remember correctly, but I think my doubles stake was 0.5 quid back then. With 52 lines and e/w I was going to place a bet more than 50E, which was too much for me at the time. Newbishly I thought I can't exclude a horse and then see it win, so I thought I'd just lower my stake. I went on to palce the doubles at 0.10 cents, but I entered 1 instead and the bet turned out 52 lines x 1E e/w = 104E. Couldn't believe what I've done :eyes Well .. emotions quickly changed during this day and the first winners started romping in. Thre final result was .. :dude And had few of the horses in singles as well, which is the reason I am now limited @ Bet365 :moon