Consequences of a "Sure Thing"

thehairyone

Hi Guys,

First time poster to this forum, not a big gambler but would put a few quid on the horses and the football.

Here is a hypothetical question, that I would appreciate if anyone could answer.

If someone was in a position to know the outcome of a "novelty bet" (that I would imagine not a lot of bets would be placed on the outcome) before the winner was announced e.g. If you knew the first manager hired/fired in the premier league a week or two before it was announced.

If someone was to put a lot of money on this market, would the bookies notice any irregularities and would they be in their right to not honour the bet if they were suspicious or would they have to pay out regardless.

My apologies if this doesnt belong in this thread.

Cheers,

thehairyone

UrbanSea

Not sure,but they'd probably reject the bet and just cut the odds if some punter came on who usually would only bet on one or two sports and then go for a huge amount on a novelty bet.

jive

They would usually take the bet but if a few people are putting money on then they will cut the odds extremely short knowing that someone may have insider info.

Also if extremely large stakes are going on (e.g. before Hughton was sacked by Newcastle) then they will shorten their prices and cut their losses by betting on the outcome with another betting firm causing a domino effect resulting in the odds at all bookmakers being shortened.

Sometimes people get away with this kind of thing but sometimes investigations do take place. There was a lad in Scotland I think it was (maybe First Division?) who got a red card - looked blatantly obvious that he was trying to get a red as well, he kept hounding the referee after getting a yellow for a bad challenge. He was from Liverpool and a fairly large bet was put on him to get a red card in that match in Liverpool. So obviously an investigation took place here but I'm not sure what the outcome was. Same happened with Pakistan in the no balls fiasco.

So in short yes the bookies would realise the irregular betting patterns. You will probably get paid but may be investigated. I'd imagine if you are discrete about things then you will probably not get caught. I've often heard about horses being held up so that they look like crap horses and their prices gradually gets bigger and bigger. They get entered into a poor race then and laugh it home at a big price - people in the know obviously back these horses with big money at different bookmakers and obviously get away with it because how can you prove it?

Pj!

They won't let you bet much on a novelty market.