Believe it or not?

On the the homepage of the Saftote website(and the citizen,I think) there is an article by Nicci Garner,which can only be described as advertorial and is either incredibly coincidental or bullsh!t.
It describes a punters "all to come" bet and said genius picked the ONLY 3 races on the card whereby the tote win exceeded the SP.

They truly have contempt for their customers intelligence.....but maybe us customers have earned it?

Rob maybe they do read the site ?

quote!

scotia
Re: Tote building a card house which will tumble?
October 04, 2010 07:28AM

Let me put it this way, if I was in charge of marketing for P and GC

I would have as a headline on tab online first thing this morning

Lucky punters wins R20,000 for just R100 in our Benoni branch on Saturday, by picking x/x/x/x

Come join the fun and be a winner with our new ATC bet...................blah blah

But no good finding a truthful bet!...because,almost always,the fixed-price bet would be advantageous.

rob why they comparing it to sp is beyond me as any punter who can read a betting market will 9 times out of ten get a better price than sp..also bookies give stretches on prices that are on offer...this atc bet is the biggest theft i have seen and the sooner it is scrapped the better

Pirates,only because it was an "after the event" nonsense that had to stand up to comparison.
Typical Saftote "spin"

The furore raging around the ATC bet is a little like trying to convince consumers that a white loaf is more nutritious than a wholewheat loaf. It isn't.

Inasmuch as a white loaf will stave off starvation the habitual consumer of this and many other highly processed foods might well suffer a life shortened by diabetes. That's the pay off for filling a hungry stomach without regard for other considerations.

The ATC pretty much represents white bread in this equation - looks like food, tastes like food but has a nutritional value not far removed from cardboard. Excepting in exceptional circumstances the ATC will look like a proposition, feel like a proposition but probably only work where a relatively tiny stake is concerned. The moment a punter constructs and starts connecting a 'life changing' bet the impact of the carry forward is likely to benefit nobody other than the tote insofar as aggregated dividends are concerned. In effect the ATC is rather like a scenario where a committed form studier uncovers a 'live one' in the lucky last and then tells the whole world about it! It duly wins - but at odds on. Which is rather what happens when the carry over flops into the final leg of the ATC if some of the preceding legs were at long prices and the punter had speculated a decent sum.

Where detractors of the bet are being a tiny bit unfair is with regard to comparing historical tote payouts with bookmaker fixed odds offerings. With respect - comparing SP (starting price) with the tote dividend IS the only fair comparison despite the temptation to say : Yes but you could have got such and such a price.........Indeed you could have but that is not comparing apples with apples. And that, of course, is the fatal flaw in the bet for the more astute punter - you just cannot secure a price.

Saftote is desperate to boost turnover. Probably NOT because it is all that concerned with punters, owners and the other perceived-to-be irritating persons who make up the industry but rather because Phumelela is not too excited about confronting its shareholders with a reduced dividend or the painful prediction that their investment in the group may well be ending up as tram tickets. A quick glance at who has been accumulating the share will suggest personalities not accustomed to or comfortable with losing money. And believe me....a failure on the JSE sends a far louder message than a small handful of passionately disgruntled fans whinging on ABC. The latter can be muzzled, ridiculed, discredited or simply ignored. With a corporate failure the odour hangs around a lot longer.

The bottom line is that there is a culture encouraging uninformed gambling. The bombardment of foreign racing, for which the average tote punter has no idea of form and the constant advertising for the ATC bet goes to show that responsible gaming is hardly a concern.
We see no gallops, we seldom see horses in the parade ring, sometimes we cant see them going down to the start. Turnover turnover turnover, nothing else matters.

Nice post Garrick

Its been said before Ruffian - Tellytrack is a slot machine, not for the race enthusiast - Thats out of their own mouths. They never quite "said slot machine" but used the term "betting opportuninty" instead.

If this site is a rule no one is interested in UK and overseas racing in SA

Dewhurst

hibernia Wrote:

---

> If this site is a rule no one is interested in UK
> and overseas racing in SA


Speaking for myself, the only time that I will get involved in ANY overseas racing (even Dubai) would be when there is no local racing; I like to think that I am not a mug punter, who needs to study form before placing a bet and there just is not enough time in a day - even if there are 2 local meetings on a day, I often (except on Saturdays perhaps) concentrate on only one card - so I guess I am the opposite of the 'ideal' punter form P's point of view><

How come this"punter" managed to pick the only 3 winners that returned at a greater ammount on the tote than with the books?