The diary of a bookmaker
The sports betting industry in Romania had a spectacular growth in the last 3-4 years, as the figures themselves show, but this fact can also be simply observed on the street where the number of betting agencies exceeded the number of pharmacies or banks which were renowned for their large number of branches.
If 7-8 years ago, when I entered this very complex field of betting, one could hear that only football fans were placing bets, nowadays it’s no wonder when a respectable lady or a medical student comes out from a sports bet operator/agency. And it is obvious that once this phenomenon developed in Romania, the complexity of the betting slip, of the types of betting but also of the ways of betting has increased.
As the title says it, inside this article you will find out less known things about bets, things behind the odds or a match, details of a bookmaker’s life.
Let’s first explain a little about what “bookmaker” means and what he does because you will not find it in the job nomenclature.
Behind every offer that clients see on the billboards in the agency or on the organizer’s website, there are a few passionate boys in sports and math and a multitude of interconnected programs. The “bookmaker” job cannot be taught at any particular course or in any specialized school, one can only steal the secrets from another bookmaker.
At first, you start at the bottom and have limited responsibilities (enter the results of the completed matches or check that the offer displayed in the agency corresponds to the one in the software you are working in). Behind every offer there are days of work and verification.
Because the field of betting has strongly evolved, likewise the work of a bookmaker has evolved a lot. 7 years ago most of the tickets were simple and played on the final result, today there is no gambler who doesn’t know what “GG”, “P2.5” or “GG3 +” means. The Romanian players have evolved a lot, they are very passionate, they have many sources of information and this can also be seen in the winning tickets I see on a daily basis and I am amazed and delighted.
Seven years ago, at Get’s Bet, you were surprised when you saw a winning ticket of 1.000 RON, currently, and winnings of RON 30,000 are common. The market in Romania has come a great deal to meet its customers, and this can be seen in the odds being much higher than the average of the betting houses in Western Europe.
The first thing to ask when a friend or acquaintance learns about the field I’m working in is to give him a tip or tell him about a counter. They all remain quite disappointed when they hear that a bookmaker has nothing to do with either. The only advantage of a bookmaker is that he has access to more information than an average person and to quota oscillations.
Behind every betting time are actually a lot of mathematics and some very precise algorithms. Statistics and math are essential to creating each quota.
At Get’s Bet we display one of the most extensive and most complex offers, especially for football, bet types like: GG4 +, GG + 2, 1 / 1PR2 + or WP1.
As a bookmaker, I grew up with the company, which had about 100 agencies 7 years ago, and nowadays more than 500 are spread all over the country. This expansion of the company meant a huge increase in the workload, but also the in the standards imposed by Get’s Bet.
A bookmaker’s attribution includes also the authorization of tickets entering the filter imposed by the company, be it the high stake on the ticket, or that a customer wants to repeat the same ticket 100 times and exceeds the maximum win. The most important task of a bookmaker alongside generating the offer and transmitting it to agencies in the morning is to monitor increases and decreases in quotas throughout the day. As most of today’s bettors know, Real Madrid’s odds of winning a match may be 1.65 at 11:00 in the morning and in the evening before the start of the match to be dropping as low as 1.35.
Unfortunately, these situations are some of the biggest inconveniences for our customers, and we at Get’s Bet are always trying to make the less dramatic changes possible and keep the largest odds in the market.
Because Get’s Bet is one of the oldest companies on the market it is renowned for its variety of sports and betting types, but especially for the highest odds when it comes to major matches such as those in the Champions League or in major European championships.
Besides football, the sport that most players bet on (93.6% of the total stake), lately, due to the spectacular performance of Simona Halep, it is tennis which has become the No. 2 in the preferences of bets with 3.3% of the total stake. That’s why at Get’s Bet we’ve implemented new types of tennis bets like: 1/1 (first set / final) or combo 1 & over.
In Romania, it is important to know your client very well, to try to adjust to his preferences and to grant him with trust.
The Romanian gambler has grown to be very demanding, to follow and to know in which championship there are more goals, where the matches are deferred, which play surface suits Roger Federer best, analyze in which league are given more corners or what hockey championship is to be avoided because there are many surprise results. In 2013, if there was no match in the Czech league in our offer, in 99% of cases no one noticed, but today I get calls from clients that there are no matches from Tanzania or Iran League 2 included and according to the famous saying “our client, our master”, at Get’s Bet you can find in the betting offer championships such as: Czech Republic League 3, Algeria U21 or even Gambia. The life of a bookmaker is hectic, full of unexpected and new experiences.
Therefore, more interesting revelations will follow, interesting columns and lots of details from the less known world of betting.
