Crafty betting scheme leaves bookies in the doghouse

Gary Keep and Chris Bassani
21dec05
AN ingenious legal betting sting at the Gold Coast greyhounds ripped more than $200,000 from off-course bookmakers throughout Australia yesterday.



A NSW betting syndicate legitimately involved the Queensland TAB to inflate the odds of a short-priced favourite Lucy's Light, which won by seven lengths.

The syndicate set up legitimate betting accounts with several interstate betting firms including Centreracing, Sportingbet, Sportsbet, Betezy and Adelaide bookmaker Curly Seal.

These firms all offer punters Queensland tote odds on a dog race if requested.

The sting was executed on the second race, a stayers event with only six starters.

It was considered an easy assignment for top stayer Lucy's Light who opened up around Australia as a hot odds-on favourite at a $1.10 return for a $1 investment.

The syndicate backed Lucy's Light with the bookmakers who noticed the short odds and willingly held the bets because at that stage they were up for a minimal payout and stood to win well if the dog lost.

What bookmakers didn't know was that the syndicate would later place $15,000 on each of the other five dogs with Queensland's UNiTAB with only a minute before the race jumped. The bets were placed into phone accounts.

The $75,000 plunge pushed the price of Lucy's Light to $13 when the race started.

The Queensland win pool swelled to $88,645, compared to $12,292 on the Victorian TAB, where Lucy's Light paid $1.40, and $13,729 in NSW ($1.30).

Seal, who faced the largest payout, said he was seeking advice from stewards and his solicitor on the legality of the scheme.

"That's why I can't say too much, but, yes, I held some substantial bets on the winner," he said.

Sportsbet's Matthew Tripp, along with Sportingbet's Michael Sullivan, have reported the race to the Northern Territory Racing Commission.

Tripp said: "I've told all my punters I will pay out at $2 if the NTRC says something was untoward. If the NTRC says nothing is wrong, I will be quite willing to pay out at $13."

Centreracing manager Christian Sawyer has already paid the punters.

"These things happen, good luck to them. We know who the punters are and if they do it again we will simply bet back on the dog on their tote with their own money, thus losing nothing. By the look of things they had about $25,000 with bookies around Australia."

Besides Seal, the other bookmakers are estimated to have paid out between $10,000 to $30,000 each – Seal won't reveal his loss.

UNiTAB wagering manager Shane Adams said: "All rules were abided with."

Where did you find that article mate???? I was straight onto that yesterday as i was watching them go round but not betting. I thought something like that must have happened as it was such a huge pool!!!!!! 88 thou on a dog race at around 12 pm stands out like dogs balls that something has gone on.

i got that article from the courier mail, it was on the front page of the paper here in brisbane today. who wants to form a syndicate like that :P

lol cant even say b a l l s what about basket ball

Yes the puritanical nature of the word police is ***** ridiculous.. I am sure that a lot of the old hard heads that frequent this joint are easily offended by words such as mymumusedtosaybluddyallthetime, and she is now 75 (scuse the lack of spaces, I will BEAT this horrible thing) and and the colloquial for boys bits ******** I cant believe that this crap thing censors the correct name of body parts... can you beleive that GARBAGE ..SHAME SHAME SHAME as Derryn used to say.. Has the religious right all of a sudden taken over this site? Pat Robertson are you there?

gimme a break and let's get a bit real.. censorship has reached a new low,,

Yet there are no problems with people pontificating and degrading others and their methods, complete with 2nd grade standard grammar and punctuation... Some here, I am sure, do not know what a paragraph is in a long post.. yet we have the pleasure of reading the pearls these people have to say.. albeit most of it absolute garbage.. but can't use the Australian form of the language, which would not offend the ladies at the CWA.. but obviously upsets hard nosed punters ...Pathetic really

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Good luck and good punting

xptdriver@hotmail.com

Agree X; The country is going down the shute.

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be nice it's easy

The really bad word that has been censored by the police is the word ****.. how stupid

why cant i write the word ****?

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Good luck and good punting

xptdriver@hotmail.com

Don't worry. If our forum computer program could automatically censor these posts we would. Instead time - and money - is spent in moderating them.

Moderator.

Moderator

see above... why cant I write the word that is another word for examination... it is rather silly

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Good luck and good punting

xptdriver@hotmail.com

test

That is fixed up.