Is YOUR livelihood threatened by Coronavirus (almost certainly a depressing thread)

[Billy Seagull]

I’m going off on a nosey tangent here but how does being a professional horse racing gambler work? You obviously need quite a lot of wins which are down to something other than luck. Do you have a formula? Or does it work on inside knowledge? I guess you need a lot of confidence in your bets to rely on this as an income? Genuinely intrigued.

It's all data driven, I have data going back to 2011. I've spent many hundreds hours analysing the statistics and have been doing it full time for eighteen months having being made redundant. I had been doing it part time for four years before that. I'm confident in my data and analytical skills but I have no inside knowledge neither do I seek it out or need it. I've made profits of 18% since 2015 but am a pure gambler so have losing months as well as winning ones which are tough mentally but it has always turned around in the end, just have to keep at it and not lose faith, easier said than done obviously. Having a big enough betting bank, separate from the family finances, is an absolute must. I've spent tens of hours working on staking plans to make the most of the edge I have and it's working well at the moment but I'm constantly working to stay ahead of the books.

There are certainly worse ways to make a living but there are no guarantees.

 

[tronnogull]

It's all data driven, I have data going back to 2011. I've spent many hundreds hours analysing the statistics and have been doing it full time for eighteen months having being made redundant. I had been doing it part time for four years before that. I'm confident in my data and analytical skills but I have no inside knowledge neither do I seek it out or need it. I've made profits of 18% since 2015 but am a pure gambler so have losing months as well as winning ones which are tough mentally but it has always turned around in the end, just have to keep at it and not lose faith, easier said than done obviously. Having a big enough betting bank, separate from the family finances, is an absolute must. I've spent tens of hours working on staking plans to make the most of the edge I have and it's working well at the moment but I'm constantly working to stay ahead of the books.

There are certainly worse ways to make a living but there are no guarantees.

Billy,

I'm sure that there are lots of folks on here who are very interested in this topic. I have a question, but please feel free to tell me to piss off if its none of my business or if you just don't want to spend time answering questions on here.

Do you just back horses or do you lay them as well on an exchange ? I have always thought that it must be much easier to identify a horse which will certainly not win versus picking the winner. And if you try to pick the winner you only have one horse running for you but if you lay a horse you have all the others running for you.

 

[Cian]

My employer is entirely funded by advertising income which has gone off a cliff; so its far from guaranteed. However there's plenty of other staff they'd dump first as not at all reassuring as that actually is. Its a radio station, I'm in engineering so actually critical to keeping it going - but they won't keep it going if the money runs out.

There will almost certainly be a wave of temporary layoffs very shortly.

My partner works in IT in a major state university, which is busier than ever due to trying to keep the show on the road with remote lectures and so on so no risk there I imagine.


A cousin's husband owns a "chain" (three stores I think) of independent bookies and a taxi firm (provincial town - those often go together) and he's expecting to close the stores shortly due to lack of anything to bet on; and not intending to reopen them ever as they were so marginal already.

 

[Grombleton]

Working in marketing we won't be directly affected, but outsourced marketing is usually one of the first things to go when companies tighten their belts, so we'll see what happens.

 

[Billy Seagull]

Billy,

I'm sure that there are lots of folks on here who are very interested in this topic. I have a question, but please feel free to tell me to piss off if its none of my business or if you just don't want to spend time answering questions on here.

Do you just back horses or do you lay them as well on an exchange ? I have always thought that it must be much easier to identify a horse which will certainly not win versus picking the winner. And if you try to pick the winner you only have one horse running for you but if you lay a horse you have all the others running for you.

I'd rather not say to be honest.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

It's all data driven, I have data going back to 2011. I've spent many hundreds hours analysing the statistics and have been doing it full time for eighteen months having being made redundant. I had been doing it part time for four years before that. I'm confident in my data and analytical skills but I have no inside knowledge neither do I seek it out or need it. I've made profits of 18% since 2015 but am a pure gambler so have losing months as well as winning ones which are tough mentally but it has always turned around in the end, just have to keep at it and not lose faith, easier said than done obviously. Having a big enough betting bank, separate from the family finances, is an absolute must. I've spent tens of hours working on staking plans to make the most of the edge I have and it's working well at the moment but I'm constantly working to stay ahead of the books.

There are certainly worse ways to make a living but there are no guarantees.

Interesting stuff and it obviously works given you’re 5 years in. Good luck going forward. In fact, it’s not luck is it, but you get what I mean.

 

[Billy Seagull]

Interesting stuff and it obviously works given you’re 5 years in. Good luck going forward. In fact, it’s not luck is it, but you get what I mean.

Thank you.

 

[Pickles]

I, like many others, will be affected, work wise, as I'm self employed.

Four days work has now been cancelled, not a catastrophe, but it's only going one way.

I rent, so a domino affect could happen in this case, and there will be 'bigger' dominoes than myself.

For my landlord, my rent is his pension, and I will find work to pay him, he deserves that.

Personally, I'll be ok to earn enough to pay the relatively low rent compared to a days work yield,hopefully, but I really feel people that rent and have jobs in certain sectors will suffer. I hope I'm so wrong with that.

This is going to be a strange and tough time, and I honestly reckon it will bring relative strangers a lot closer.

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

As posted elsewhere, completely shutting down as we have/will be potentially cause a lot more issues than the virus itself.

 

[BN9 BHA]

I am a self employed plumber and 95% of my work is small jobs in private occupied homes, many of my customers are pensioners and I'm expecting work to slow right down in the next few weeks if people are ill or don't want visitors.

With many people buying 150 toilet rolls at a time and staying at home i am hoping a few toilet cisterns will need repairing, and I may have to dust off my old drain rods to unblock a few toilets and drains
Every cloud and all that.....

 

[Pickles]

I am a self employed plumber and 95% of my work is small jobs in private occupied homes, many of my customers are pensioners and I'm expecting work to slow right down in the next few weeks if people are ill or don't want visitors.

With many people buying 150 toilet rolls at a time and staying at home i am hoping a few toilet cisterns will need repairing, and I may have to dust off my old drain rods to unblock a few toilets and drains
Every cloud and all that.....

Cobblers.

You lot get a blocked loo, show the rods, but actually shove the blockage down with a loo brush or mop......x

 

[ozzygull]

Not sure! I work for a company that supplies remote working collaboration tools and phone systems. In theory we should be ok as this sort of thing should be in demand if more people have to work from home and have video conferencing. But I am not going to assume anything.

 

[dangull]

Over 400 deaths in Italy in the last 24 hours. So the rate is still not going down yet.

Sorry wrong thread

 

[BN9 BHA]

Cobblers.

You lot get a blocked loo, show the rods, but actually shove the blockage down with a loo brush or mop......x

Have a cup of tea.
Go out to the van at least four times.
Clang about in the bathroom for about half an hour until i get bored. ( tap spanner against pipe )

Show the rods , but actually shove the blockage down with a loo brush or mop.
Clang around again for a while.
Get invoice book from van.

If homeowners chuck a ton of bog roll down their pan and don't know how to use a loo brush or mop they need an ' expert '
XX

 

[hampshirebrightonboy]

I’m a contractor for a large airline. My contract ends at the end of the month. Nobody has said anything yet but I would be absolutely astounded if the contract was extended.

Before all this happened the budget had been approved for a large two year project and everything looked good. One month later and it’s all ****ed.

 

[Rowdey]

Boiler repairs/installs/plumbing - I know of some bathroom projects in Brighton that have been postponed, and others citing mask wearing by trades as a requirement going forward.

Otherwise If you WFH more, then boiler on more, and it's more likely to break down, and parts might be a problem; i have about £4k of Viessmann parts coming over from Germany this weekend which are on schedule, but in future might be a problem. I'll have to fit Ideal's or Baxi's ..

 

[Ernest]

Won't be long till all zero hour contracts are exactly that, god knows how people will cope

 

[jonnyrovers]

One thing you can guarantee. Someone rich c**nts somewhere will be getting richer off the back of it.

Sent from my SM-A705FN using Tapatalk

I run an independent hospital. Three weeks ago I was paying £1.24 for a box of 50 surgical masks. On Friday last week I signed off an order at £52 a box.

Manufacturers and distributors of healthcare personal protective equipment will have fat wallets after all this.

 

[Weststander]

Billy,

I'm sure that there are lots of folks on here who are very interested in this topic. I have a question, but please feel free to tell me to piss off if its none of my business or if you just don't want to spend time answering questions on here.

Do you just back horses or do you lay them as well on an exchange ? I have always thought that it must be much easier to identify a horse which will certainly not win versus picking the winner. And if you try to pick the winner you only have one horse running for you but if you lay a horse you have all the others running for you.

I’ve gleaned the following from betting over the last 7 months, imho:

1. Professional gamblers often stick to each way betting, after a lot of research.

2. They and savvy others back bet on exchanges, where lay betters are subscribing to silly very long odds compared to those the backers would ever find on normal betting sites.

3. The fact that the pro gambler is visiting betting shops, means he’s back betting.

4. Using sites such as oddsmonkey, some savvy gamblers are physically visiting betting shops to take advantage of all too brief but very lucrative arbitrage opportunities.

5. Personally, I’ve found you can make a profit from lay betting, after researching for consistent losers. But do so with care, limiting your liability just in case the loser wins and wipes out all your previous good work.

6. Back and lay betting - there are loads of football opportunities in cup games eg LC, CL and and Europa League, but be very selective. The markets just don’t seem to have the odds nailed, as they do with PL odds which 95% of the time make complete sense.

7. Have a list of no-no’s in your betting and never, ever stray from it. If in doubt, do not bet.

 

[stingray]

Superspreader alert!

All jokes aside I’m glad the impact for you will be limited.


I tend to do three trips a year of around three weeks. Was supposed to be in Vietnam right now but they are in lockdown (only 50ish cases) and have closed all borders and banned Brits completely. People there at mo are being turned away from hotels if they are European or chucked into quarantine.