I don’t want to comment on the Supreme Court’s judgement about whether Horse Racing is sports or a gamble played on mere luck. I might get arrested for defamation of court. But then according to my personal opinion, I don’t find anything sportive about horse racing. Instead I have seen families badly hit by loans & credits, and people who have ended up being a pauper after gambling their hard-earned money on these animals.
Before I start my blog on Gambling, here is a small news I wanted to share with you guys. I have started astrological consultation from home, and anyone who wants to have an insight into his/her future can mail me at kennedig@yahoo.com
My father in law is a hardcore gambler, and I always hated the way he saved the clipping from the last page of the Hindu (newspaper) that carried information about horses, jockeys and races. He has few colourful pens, which he uses to do some kind of study late night about which horse will win and which horses to bet on. He lives on the hope that he will win a jackpot someday, and will be able to build his own house and buy his own car. He is 60, and he has been gambling for some 30 years now. I am sure if he had saved the money he had put on horses, he at least would have built 2 houses by now.
Whenever I asked him about how exactly the betting is done, I could see a big smile on his face and he would love to talk about it for hours together. I always wanted him to stop it, but then I could not advice him until I know what exactly it was.
So we planned a day. We decided to go to the racing club one Sunday, and thought would gamble. I was accompanied by my father in law and two brothers in law..as if it was a big family fare. I never wanted to make money, but wanted to learn the whole system…
Here is what I learnt..
Homework
You can go through few newspapers and understand about the latest winners – both jockey and horse. You can do a complete study, and decide at home on which horse to going to bet on. You better don’t take advice from anyone at the race club, though most people will talk as if they have done a PhD in the subject. Go fully prepared. How much ever prepared you are the chance of you winning always remains 50/50!
Entry
You can get in by paying an entry fee of Rs 5 or Rs 25 or Rs 50. It naturally is based on the class of people whom you are going to be seen betting with. It varies from beggars to filmstars. I had an opportunity to see few beggars betting their HARD EARNED MONEY paying Rs 50 as entry fees!
Bookies
You are surrounded by bookies stall run mostly by Gujjus. You have two options, you can bet with these individuals or there are government run stalls, where the returns are less.
These bookies keep changing the percentage of amount that you would fetch after the race is over. For instance in any particular race there are few favourite horses, which have won few races before and whose probability of winning the race is quite high. The bookies will always quote the least amount for these horses. The rates go this way…
½ <
1
2.
.
.
. >20
So if you pay Rs 100 on a horse, and if its rate is quoted as ½ before the race, then you will get Rs 150 if your horse wins.
The maximum return is promised for horse that has never won any race.
The rates are not fixed it is different with each bookie and keeps changing every 10-15 seconds. I really didn’t understand on what basis they change it.
How to pay
The tax meter starts right from the beginning. If you bet Rs 100, the tax levied is 10 per cent, and you get a ticket for Rs 90. Again if you win the bet, you will be taxed again.
You can escape paying tax, but in this case there is a risk if you win HUGE amount of money.
How to bet
I had heard only about the concept of JACKPOT, before I myself went to the club. But there are many other ways you can bet, and still can lose money err gain money.
Winner
This is a direct method where you bet on a horse, and say it will come first. In most of the races, the favourites (as mentioned earlier) come first. This method is profitable only if the amount you going to bet is huge. For instance, if you bet Rs 100 on the horse and if you win the same you will make not more than 50 rupees profit. At the same time if you bet Rs 10,000, you will be making Rs 5000 in not more than 30 mns!
The risk is – you will never know which one of the favourites will come first, and also there is no rule that the favourites will always come first!
Place
The risk involved in this system is a bit less, and most people make impressive money playing ‘place.’ You need not bet on the winner, you just have to tell the order in which the horses will win.
For instance you can say Horse A will come 1st, Horse C will come 2nd and Horse B will come 3rd. You can bet on all the 3 possibilities and still walk out with zero loss.
Jackpot
It isn’t easy as it is claimed to be. In a day there are at least 10 races, and to crack the jackpot you should be in a position to tell the winners of all the 10 races without a single error. Moreover, the jackpot amount is distributed among all those who have given the right combination.
The chance of cracking a jackpot in my opinion is 1 in 100 million.
Who should play & who makes money?
Most people who gamble are the one’s who think gambling is a way of earning money. And whoever has thought that way has always led a miserable life. Horseracing isn’t for poor, thought 90 per cent of the people found in a racecourse belong to the middle class or people who are under the poverty line.
It is a sport for the rich, who can try their luck with few percentage of their income for the sake of excitement.
End of the day, the people who make money are the jockeys, the racecourse owners, and the horse owners like Vijay Malaya.
Fraudulent Activities
An astrologer or a psychic is always asked, when they know about the future why can’t they predict gambling results. To be honest it would be easy to predict the results, if everything remains transparent.
The whole set up works in such a way that end of the day the organizers don’t make any losses. The jockeys are ordered to lose the race deliberately, so that the money which was betted on the best favourite remains with race club.
The amount of frauds is less in bigger races like Derby, organized once a year by various race clubs, where the Cup or the title matters more than the money.
The amount I lost
I deliberately betted on the worse horse so that it doesn’t win, and also kept praying for the same. I didn’t go the race club to make money, but wanted to learn the rocket science behind it.
I remembered what Tamizh poet Thiru Valluvar had to say about gambling in his famous work Thirukural…
Winning a game at gambling can be compared to the fish that has just swallowed the worm attached to the fishhook, it is happy about worm but the truth is that it is entrapped for life!
I lost Rs 210…and I am glad I did!