Do you bet on greyhounds Neil? Can you assess the races in a similar way to horses?
Ive been to a racing night at Newcastle before but the races were frantic and very competitive. The only knowledge I managed to pick up was that "It used to be mint when they put monkey jockeys on them" I checked on the internet and they actually did train capuchins to ride the dogs!
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I used to love going to the dogs. I was a regular at Reading dogs as a teenager before I ever went to the casino to play poker...I sort of thought my family would be more ashamed of me for the former than the latter. By the time I went to university I was going to Wembley, (the old stadium so gone now), on a Monday, Reading on Tuesdays and Thursdays plus some Saturdays, (gone now), Portsmouth some Fridays, (gone now), Wimbledon if it was the Greyhound Derby, (maybe going soon) and Exeter when I was a bookmaker at the dogs at the age of 22 (They ran around the rugby pitch...great fun).
It's definitely possible to assess dog racing in the same way you assess horse racing but the problem you have is that the bookmaker overround, effectively their profit margin, is very high, often 140%+. If you bet on a football match the overround is often 110% so you have less to overcome. The reason that bookmakers are very cautious with prices on dogs and operate with a higher profit margin is that they are worried about inside information and maybe some corruption in the races. For the normal guy who doesn't have inside information the high margins are impossible to beat.
If you focus on meetings that are on TV though, the Sky dog nights, you can definitely win. The bookmakers are very competitive in their morning prices on these...Sky Bet often go best price every favourite for example. The overround between the big bookmakers is very low on these and it is much easier to win.
I still love the dogs but there are easier things to win on for sure.
I have had a couple of meals with Mark in Vegas. A very nice guy. He goes to the WSOP most years. One of my oldest friends has a couple of dogs with him. He currently has a good one that went quite deep in the Derby last year which he owns with some poker players.
Mark loves a bit of poker.