Thursday, November 17, 2005
Wet Weather, Work and More Dodgy Punters
I think I may be coming down with a nice dose of SAD. Walking home from uni last friday (gale force winds in Scotland!) was a thoroughly miserable experience, getting battered by driving rain and gales isn't pleasant, and it was capped off by getting splashed by a big dumper truck as it drove past, ruining my jacket. Bastard!
So it was quite a fun weekend of work last week, good meeting at Cheltenham so we were fairly busy. Carlisle was abandoned due to the wet weather, not that the racing was particularly good anyway, was pretty quiet on Sunday. Took 1 bet between 5pm and 6pm - now thats what I call work! Another positive side effect of EPoS is that my breaks are awesome now - whereas before I'd be lucky to grab 10 mins to hoover a roll into my mouth, now I have at least 1 hour off to sit around and read the paper, occasionally answer the shop phone, chat with punters. It's a benefit to the company in that sense because it's good to build up a rapport with our customers - we want to make them feel wanted and to come back!
Anyway, I was browsing over at Bill Sticker's "Walking The Streets" and he wrote a nice piece about 'chancers' or (as I'd describe them) people who are on the dodge. I did leave a comment but I wanted to have a wee talk about them myself over here. As you can imagine, or as I have no doubt pointed out, that the bookies is a place where the less salubrious members of the public tend to gather, and obviously these people have no moral qualms whatsoever about trying to cheat you out of money. Thus, it is very important to always have your wits about you when taking bets, as there are a few methods to try and cheat you. Let's see a few.
1) The "Bet Back" Scam
Nullified due to EPoS, but this was a big problem back in the days of carbon copies and manual settling. Don't want to go into too much detail (unlike the Daily Record, whom when reporting about the scam, also proceeded to give a full page diagram outlining how to do the scam... I mean... honestly...) but it involves tricking the cashier into giving you the top copy of the bet back, changing it so you win big, and managing to get it back over the counter.
2) The Cheeky "Already Kicked Off and Finished" Bet
Normally seen in coupons, this is where a punter comes in at 2:50pm to put his saturday bets on and has accidentally also slipped in a bet on the game that kicked off at 12:30pm, and has not only surprisingly picked the winner, but also the correct score. Again, mainly nullified by EPoS but we still do settle some bets manually so extra care has to be taken.
3) The Price Pincher
Presented in the medium of an IRC conversation
* DodgyPunter enters #bookies
* DodgyPunter casually mills around, picks up a betting slip, looks at the price screen
* DodgyPunter watches as the price of the favourite in the next race drops from 4/1 to 7/2
* DodgyPunter hangs around to see if it will go back up, however seeing that it doesn't, goes over to the counter
[DodgyPunter] I'll take a price please mate, 4/1
* Kaiser looks at selection and meeting, and then the price screen
[Kaiser] It's 7/2 now mate.
[DodgyPunter] It was just 4/1 two seconds ago for fucks sake mate!
[Kaiser] No, it was last 4/1 fully two minutes ago mate, I know what you're like so I've been keeping an eye on the prices of the favourites since you walked in the door. Now do you want 7/2 or not?
[DodgyPunter] Just let it run...
I am not always this harsh, I tend to operate a one strike and you're out policy - i.e. I'll probably give your dodgy price request the benefit of the doubt if I don't really know you, but any more requests that don't tally and I'll be straight into harsh mode! Known price pinchers get harsh mode by default.
4) Damn Machine! It swallowed my money!
But yet, it didn't. If it all the money input adds up, and there's no sign of any stuck money (i.e. whirring etc) then I'm afraid you're talking shite, sir. We may call an engineer to check but normally it isn't worth the hassle.
5) The British Rail Punter
Never on time with his bets, always running up on the off. It's difficult to obtain a huge advantage from this, and generally our off system is very fair. Virtual racing is the best opportunity to try this trick but we close the offs before it starts. Nothing better than a punter who's been refused a bet due to persistant lateness, then starts F'ing and C'ing because his "bet" "won". (Yes sir, I'm sure you were going to lump £10 win onto that 66/1 shot that just won, and if you truly were going to, and aren't actually talking rectally, then un-fucking-lucky.)
All good fun really. Anyway, more work this weekend (Doing saturday and sunday again, yay) so hopefully there will be more tales soon!
So it was quite a fun weekend of work last week, good meeting at Cheltenham so we were fairly busy. Carlisle was abandoned due to the wet weather, not that the racing was particularly good anyway, was pretty quiet on Sunday. Took 1 bet between 5pm and 6pm - now thats what I call work! Another positive side effect of EPoS is that my breaks are awesome now - whereas before I'd be lucky to grab 10 mins to hoover a roll into my mouth, now I have at least 1 hour off to sit around and read the paper, occasionally answer the shop phone, chat with punters. It's a benefit to the company in that sense because it's good to build up a rapport with our customers - we want to make them feel wanted and to come back!
Anyway, I was browsing over at Bill Sticker's "Walking The Streets" and he wrote a nice piece about 'chancers' or (as I'd describe them) people who are on the dodge. I did leave a comment but I wanted to have a wee talk about them myself over here. As you can imagine, or as I have no doubt pointed out, that the bookies is a place where the less salubrious members of the public tend to gather, and obviously these people have no moral qualms whatsoever about trying to cheat you out of money. Thus, it is very important to always have your wits about you when taking bets, as there are a few methods to try and cheat you. Let's see a few.
1) The "Bet Back" Scam
Nullified due to EPoS, but this was a big problem back in the days of carbon copies and manual settling. Don't want to go into too much detail (unlike the Daily Record, whom when reporting about the scam, also proceeded to give a full page diagram outlining how to do the scam... I mean... honestly...) but it involves tricking the cashier into giving you the top copy of the bet back, changing it so you win big, and managing to get it back over the counter.
2) The Cheeky "Already Kicked Off and Finished" Bet
Normally seen in coupons, this is where a punter comes in at 2:50pm to put his saturday bets on and has accidentally also slipped in a bet on the game that kicked off at 12:30pm, and has not only surprisingly picked the winner, but also the correct score. Again, mainly nullified by EPoS but we still do settle some bets manually so extra care has to be taken.
3) The Price Pincher
Presented in the medium of an IRC conversation
* DodgyPunter enters #bookies
* DodgyPunter casually mills around, picks up a betting slip, looks at the price screen
* DodgyPunter watches as the price of the favourite in the next race drops from 4/1 to 7/2
* DodgyPunter hangs around to see if it will go back up, however seeing that it doesn't, goes over to the counter
* Kaiser looks at selection and meeting, and then the price screen
[DodgyPunter]
[DodgyPunter]
I am not always this harsh, I tend to operate a one strike and you're out policy - i.e. I'll probably give your dodgy price request the benefit of the doubt if I don't really know you, but any more requests that don't tally and I'll be straight into harsh mode! Known price pinchers get harsh mode by default.
4) Damn Machine! It swallowed my money!
But yet, it didn't. If it all the money input adds up, and there's no sign of any stuck money (i.e. whirring etc) then I'm afraid you're talking shite, sir. We may call an engineer to check but normally it isn't worth the hassle.
5) The British Rail Punter
Never on time with his bets, always running up on the off. It's difficult to obtain a huge advantage from this, and generally our off system is very fair. Virtual racing is the best opportunity to try this trick but we close the offs before it starts. Nothing better than a punter who's been refused a bet due to persistant lateness, then starts F'ing and C'ing because his "bet" "won". (Yes sir, I'm sure you were going to lump £10 win onto that 66/1 shot that just won, and if you truly were going to, and aren't actually talking rectally, then un-fucking-lucky.)
All good fun really. Anyway, more work this weekend (Doing saturday and sunday again, yay) so hopefully there will be more tales soon!
# posted by Kaiser @ 3:33 PM 
