Betting shops

[Melvil]

Thought I'd make a wee punt on Nadal vs Federer tommorrow so I went to a betting shop for the first time in, I reckon, five years. They're so different to how I remember them! Perhaps it's the smoking ban but they seem so, well, civilised than before.

Anyone else go to the bookies?

 

[Noodley]

not often, but there is a big change to them - apart from they still take your money!

 

[mondobongo]

Just stay of the Roulette machines.

 

[Melvil]

not often, but there is a big change to them - apart from they still take your money!

Not if my punt comes in at 5-1!

 

[Noodley]

Not if my punt comes in at 5-1!

I'll take a fiver as well if you want. I'll also name the bet if that's okay.

 

[Abitrary]

Wouldn't bet on tennis, but if you did decide to do it full time, then you would make more money than on the stock market.

Avoid the dogs, and just bet during the horse flat racing season.

 

[Melvil]

Wouldn't bet on tennis, but if you did decide to do it full time, then you would make more money than on the stock market.

Avoid the dogs, and just bet during the horse flat racing season.

Funnily enough I know of two professional gamblers who go about their trade in very different ways.

One is a maths genius - a statistician who has devised a computer programme that can generate a running profit.

The other is also a maths genius but spends hours in pubs with fruit machines and logic chops them.

I am neither and fully expect to lose my bet tomorrow (Nadal beats Federer 3 sets to 2),

 

[Abitrary]

One is a maths genius - a statistician who has devised a computer programme that can generate a running profit.

Yawn, don't tell me... it uses a neural net. With all respect you and he would be wildly rich if it worked.

 

[Melvil]

Yawn, don't tell me... it uses a neural net. With all respect you and he would be wildly rich if it worked.

Don't care if you believe me or not, Arb, but I am given to understand that because it uses large amounts of very small sums of money to make a running average it would make nobody a millionaire and anyway, that is as far as I comprehend it. As said, I am not advanced at maths !

 

[Noodley]

Yawn, don't tell me... it uses a neural net. With all respect you and he would be wildly rich if it worked.

I'll give you better odds than that. Send me a tenner. If it's 3-2 I'll give you 60 quid.

 

[Melvil]

I'll give you better odds than that. Send me a tenner. If it's 3-2 I'll give you 60 quid.

 

[Keith Oates]

A friend of mine used to say that he'll start betting when he sees the first bookie going bankrupt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Dayvo]

I stayed in Sydney for 6 months nearly 20 years ago and all my Aussie mates gambled. The premises were impressive then.

Normal pub on the ground floor.
Upstairs was a restaurant.
Top floor was a nightclub.
Basement was the bookies.

They were clean and tidy, no idiots around, good jovial atmosphere, and even though I'm not a gambler, my mate owned a greyhound, which kept me in beer for most of the six months I was there.

Haven't been in a bookies in England for about 15 years.

 

[Aperitif]

I stayed in Sydney for 6 months nearly 20 years ago and all my Aussie mates gambled. The premises were impressive then.

Normal pub on the ground floor.
Upstairs was a restaurant.
Top floor was a nightclub.
Basement was the bookies.

They were clean and tidy, no idiots around, good jovial atmosphere, and even though I'm not a gambler, my mate owned a greyhound, which kept me in beer for most of the six months I was there.

Haven't been in a bookies in England for about 15 years.

That's the trouble with Aussie greyhounds Dayvo - right pi55 artists most of them, but generous with it!

 

[rich p]

I have a bet on major tounaments (golf, football etc) and it almost makes me feel a bit subversive going into a bookies. They're not as edgy as they used to be though. A lot of people do it online now.