The Christmas Hurdle from Leopardstown, a good Grade 2 race during the holiday period. But now it will go into history as the race which brought Betfair down. Over £21m at odds of 29 available on Voler La Vedette in-running - that's a potential liability of over £500m. You might think that's a bit suspicious, something's fishy, especially with the horse starting at a Betfair SP of 2.96. Well, this wasn't a horse being stopped by a jockey either - the bloody horse won! Look at what was matched at 29. Split that in half and multiply by 28 for the actual liability for the layer(s). (Matched amounts always shown as double the backers' stake, never counts the layers' risk). There's no way a Betfair client would have £600m+ in their account. Maybe £20 or even £50m from the massive syndicates who regard(ed) Betfair as safer than any bank, but not £600m. So the error has to be something technical. However, rumour has it, a helpdesk reply (not gospel, natur
Sadly, the 'recreational' ones are easily available to the young and wealthy.
ReplyDeleteIf performance is a guide to detecting use, amazed that Marat Safin has tested clear for all these years.
Hi Rob. Not sure if cocaine could ever be listed as a cause of good, bad or erratic results. Mats Wilander allegedly had it in his sweatbands, Ben Cousins (elite AFL footballer) used to go crazy on it on weekends and Tom Boonen the cyclist has just gone again for it, and then of course there's Kieran Fallon. Plus Mark Bosnich and Adrian Mutu at Chelsea years ago. I doubt it made one iota of difference to their performance, they were just all loaded with cash and had the lifestyle that exposed them to such problems. Lesser mortals probably would have at least as many failed tests, just there's little point of testing further down the sporting chain...
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