Has The Internet Age Effected Bookies Profit Margins?

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The "I got it too's" didn't last long where I worked you either paid attention or hit the street. The best clerks were able to move themselves to the next number the second they heard a call out.



wil.
 

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if my local ever finds out that there are gambling websites out there besides "the gold sheet" website, he will surely cut me off. hoping to get my daughter's college covered before he figures it out.
 

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As a sportsbettor, some things are better and some things are worse.

One must make constant adjustmants to be successful in this business.
 

ODU GURU
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wilheim said:
The "I got it too's" didn't last long where I worked you either paid attention or hit the street. The best clerks were able to move themselves to the next number the second they heard a call out.



wil.

Sounds like someone I know <b>kind of</b> misses it...:lol:
 

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Wilhelm

When it was crunch time and multiple syndicates were calling your office and the 20 plus clerks were taking all the action with all lines engaged since nothing was on-line it was easy to get 3 guys saying the bet at the same time. This wouldn't happen on every move of course but it would happen on more than one move a nite.
An office with 5 or 6 clerks could control it better than a high volume outfit which at the time only a few were in the early to mid 90s so maybe you could control it better or slow walk or just hang up during a rundown to a syndicate number.
 

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Aquatic - even with more than 20 clerks (rare in any case) most big offices only had to worry about 4 or 5 outfits getting to a number, so natruallly when an experienced clerk got one of them (BW for eg.) on the phone he (or she) alerted the rest of the room (snapping fingers perhaps) and everyone went on maximum attention status. Sure even the best sometime got "double popped" but even that doesn't come close to how much books have to bend over backwards these days to do well. Just the menu available to bettors these days opens books up to getting beat much easier than the limited side and total major sport only days of 20 years ago. Hell halftimes were limited to Monday Nights and NFL playoffs until the early to mid 90's.



wil.
 

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You're right Wilhelm on the betting menu opens up alot more exposure now.


My point was the rundown game that groups played before Don Best was live opened up big decisions or large middles to get the games as even as possible. This is 92-96 I'm talking about. Were you working at this time in an off-shore office?
 

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Paper books, of course

Offshore, No. Becuase of the volume.

But I bet the first 5 years Betcris was in business were some damn fine years for Mr. Secco and company
 

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blue edwards said:
if my local ever finds out that there are gambling websites out there besides "the gold sheet" website, he will surely cut me off. hoping to get my daughter's college covered before he figures it out.

Know exactly where youre coming from, mine knows I play online too, but has no idea how sharp the lines are.
 

RPM

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lots of good feedback in this thread, but i still find myself wondering what the win % of current players is, vs. the win % of players say 20 years ago....
 

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wilheim said:
Sharp books with sharp clerks only took one hit at a number from syndicates and made a ton off followers chasing steam at bad numbers.



wil.

You are 100% correct, I am not bragging but I cant ever remember being double hit, I worked practically my whole life in wiseguys office, I had a big advantage, I knew just about every customer I had on the phone, they all recognize my voice, I can remember in the early 1990"s one day Gary Austin called and told me I have to vote you as the best clerk on the phone I have ever had, he told me if you ever need a job look me up in Los Angeles California, which I never did. I think its no excuse to ever get double hit, I trained alot of clerks in my life, I can remember this one guy I trained he was the hardest, I told him please dont hold a game after you quote a line, I dealt with quite a few that would give the line and than hold it, easiest way to get double hit. I always hold the game first and get the ok, and than I would quote the line. I promise you 99.9% of the customers knew I was fast on the phone and they also knew if the line was available I would defintely give it to them. I miss them good old days. I can remember one day we got triple hit on a game and I was furious, I start hollowing and screaming and said I had the game on HOLD, if you cant hear me you better go to an ear doctor, the problem was they had already quoted the line before I held the game but they didnt hold it. it took a while but it finally got completely organized. that was some good old days in the Dominican Republic.
 

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Rainbow, did you ever know or work for a guy known as The Swamper in the early 80's? I think he might have been from Oklahoma? LT
 

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Coach LT -Swamper was out of Louisiana. His name was Eugene Nolan.

Rainbow- What office are you talking about in the early 90s in the DR? Mickey Wheelchairs or Ron S. with TonyB charting before the '93 feds raid?

I know many clerks who Gary Austin used to run that drag on that they were the best he has talked with while he waited for the move. Davy K and Stevie Z also would go for those. Many times during a rundown syndicate guys would just scream out the game number , with the line in the rundown, they wanted and weren't going to a specific game that anyone could just click fingers or yell out that the game is on hold. I don't know of one guy that never had a line come out of their mouth and as he said it someone else yelled out that game for the limit. So unless you then just said now the line has changed that I just quoted you as the guy was betting or just hung up there is no way around it. This created more than one hit with multiple people doing rundowns and making changes that the charter was yelling out.
 
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Z was an originator most of the time and never had to play games with clerks. Same with the Koshers, BW and Chuck Sharp. The rest like David, Artie, Gary, the Philly crew and maybe half a dozen more were always trying to beat the number but were usually 5 seconds late. By 1993 Ron's office was off the DR and eventually by a circuitous route headed for Costa Rica (got there May of 94 I think). Mickey wasn't far behind. I will say it again a group of sharp clerks with an on the ball charter could handle these guys. You just could'nt take any crap off them and had to be able to take control of the call, let em yell.


wil.
 

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wilheim said:
The internet has revolutionized bookmaking and created a whole new hybrid breed of bookmaker/marketer. Not an easy combination for a lot of the oldtimers to adjust to. While there are many more sports bettors these days the competition for their action is stiffer than ever. Personally I believe bookmaing 15 years ago (while risky in US) was much simpler and quite a bit more profitable. Overheads have gone through the roof for most large on-line books with no end in sight. Players have more information at their fingertips and can't help to be even a little sharper with a bit of determination. Just writing action these days does not guarantee automatic riches as in the pre internet past, back then bookies had a license to print money.

Thanks wil, I'm still rather new here but your posts always are solid. The larger local books here get their big action from other books laying off action they had collected.

They sometimes have to eat bad # when layoff guys call back with plays they have collected. They also have them on a percentage of losses or net figures.

I dont see how they make money now with most big players having access to lines and of course changes. I cannot get a large local to keep me around for long unless I'm on a live number. Since I have to go to live # I simply prefer to play most of my action online. I play several games daily and several dimes per day, and that type of action isnt plentiful in this city.

A few of the 10+ dime players around here still use locals and that's because they don't trust having all that money offshore and getting it there to have a bankroll is something they would rather avoid. Also, some of the shallow pocket 50 cent and buck players still use locals and play local parlay cards at the corner bar or bowling alley.

Local books have lost much of their business to internet and certainly their margins have been squeezed. Anyone that doesn't believe that simply hasn't studied this business.
 

RPM

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dawoofdaddy,

im surprised some of those big players havent found a way to set up credit accounts.

they are wasting a lot of opportunity by not playing offshore.
 

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Methods may change, but the players stay the same

Don't get your hopes up fellas.

The local bookmaker is alive and well, he may have had to adapt, but even the many still operating with a stale line, set @ 5:00pm central, for 9:00pm basketball are still rakin it in...

Every response in this post, although mostly true, is missing the single biggest component that is directly responsible for the profits of bookmakers of all breeds. It is the level of idiocy in your average player out there. Listen folks, they are NOT reading the RX, sitting in front of their DB, shopping for lines.... They ARE calling the toll free line # with the local, writing the pre-recorded lines down on the back of their checkbook while sitting in a bar watching sportscenter..., they think for about 2.54 minutes, then call in a couple dimes worth of action...and then ROOT, ROOT, ROOT. These types FAAAAAR outnumber your average RX,Majorwager, Madjacks, donbest, degenerate...to the tune of about 99 to 1.

So with that component of the market alive and well, it won't be soon that bookies are operating with negative margins, or even vastly reduced margins. They are and will be... fine, simply because of the laziness of your average GAMBLER.

You could given em all the info in the world, but no-one can give em a work ethic, hell...half of em, don't really (deep inside) do it to win money anyway, its simply entertainment.

Just my opinion.
 

RPM

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ironlock,

you work for a book, or a local or something?
 

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RPM said:
dawoofdaddy,

im surprised some of those big players havent found a way to set up credit accounts.

they are wasting a lot of opportunity by not playing offshore.

I had not heard of credit accounts prior to coming to rx. What books offer credit and what is the criteria?
 

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