Bookmakers, that's what.  They're forever moaning that they've lost a fortune when a well backed horse has the audacity to actually win, well tough bloody luck.  They shouldn't accept the bets in the first place if they can't cover them, if you can't pay it then don't lay it.

Why should us punters feel sorry for any of those w*****s anyway, the odds are stacked ridiculously in their favour.  In any race, if you work out each horse's starting price as a percentage and add them all together it should come to 100%, but in reality it can add up to anything up to 140%, which means that many of the horses are at far shorter prices than they should be.  This happens at all meetings, but a good example would be the 2000 Cheltenham festival.  The Foxhunters chase SP's added up to 135%, and the County hurdle a whopping 138%.  I don't know how the b******s get away with it.  A book which adds up to more than 100% is said to be "Over Round", this is a particularly appropriate term as a lot of bookies are fat b******s, and you certainly don't acquire a 50 inch waist if you're living on the bread line do you?

Another thing, why do the b******s advertise prices in the Racing Post that are never available when you phone up?  In betting shops they are obliged to hold the advertised prices for the first fifteen minutes after they open, and they generally keep to this, but telephone punters have got no chance.  You can ring up about thirty bloody seconds after the lines open and they tell you that the price they advertised has gone, what's the point of advertising prices if you've got no bloody chance of actually taking them.

I'm not talking about small price differences either, a while ago I phoned up to back a horse that was advertised at 8/1, I phoned up about a minute after the lines opened and was told that the price had gone and it was now 7/2, yes that's right, seven to bloody two.  This obviously is not down to sheer weight of money because they haven't been open long enough, no,  they've just realized that their odds compilers have cocked up and quoted a price several points longer than their rivals and they're trying to cover their arses.  I don't know how they get away with it.  You can of course go to a betting shop to take the price, but if I wanted to go to a betting shop I wouldn't have opened a bloody credit account.

It should be the same for everybody, credit lines should hold the advertised prices for fifteen minutes as well, and if they've cocked up they should take it out on their bloody incompetent odds compilers and not on us punters.  I can't think of any other industry where you can s**t on your customers so badly and get away with it.  If I back the wrong horse I can't go and ask for a refund, I have to accept that I've made a mistake and take it like a man, and it's about time the bloody bookies did the same.

On course bookies aren't a lot better, they're like a bunch of bloody sheep, one of them takes a couple of large bets on a horse and cuts the price to try and balance his book, which is fair enough.  Then the other bookies spot this and cut their price as well, despite not having taken significant money on the horse concerned.  They're just s**t scared that people will back the horse with them instead and they'll be trampled under a stampede of punters and lose a load of money.  Bottlers.

Finally, the Tote.  They aren't as bad as bookmakers, their odds are completely governed by the amount of money for each horse and not lack of bottle.  The one bloody annoying thing about them though is the s**t payouts for place betting, apart from the odd freak dividend they're nearly always crap.  You can back a horse whose tote win odds are about 20/1 and only get about 6/4 for a place, pathetic or what?