Precision betting operation sees Irish recruitment company sting bookies http://www.metro.co.uk/news/832496-prec ... ng-bookiesIt was an operation that had been planned with military precision. Some 200 agents were given money, synchronised watches, written instructions and a taxi ride to their drop-off points to pull off a spectacular, and legal, betting tactic.
At precisely 6.55pm they swung into action and netted the masterminds as much as £165,000 – despite a few hiccups because most of the agents were foreign and could not read the English instructions.
Bookmakers in Ireland were taken to the cleaners after a recruitment company paid 200 people to each place a £165 bet on the same horse at different betting shops.
They were promised £25 each if they placed their bet when the watch alarm went off, five minutes before the race start.
The horse, D Four Dave, won easily at Kilbeggan in County Westmeath on Monday at odds of 5-1, sparking the pay-out for MCR Group, whose managing director Douglas Taylor part-owns the horse.
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‘It’s an absolutely amazing story,’ said Sharon Byrne, chair of the Irish Bookmakers Association, adding that the operation was not illegal.
‘The staff could see two watches on most of the [punters’] wrists and were aware that something unusual was happening. I was on to all the various bookmakers this morning and they were all done.’
The instruction note read: ‘Dear Employee, enclosed you will find: a completed betting slip for the betting shop you have been sent to and €200 in cash for which you need to place the bet.’
It then told them to be at the counter before the alarm went off, to hand over the slip and say to the person: ‘I will take the price’.
Can anyone tell what the trick here actually was? Because I can't. Am I just being dense, or is this just bad journalism (or is the writer perhaps reluctant to reveal how the trick actually works)?
24 Jun 2010, 4:24 am
