It only affects the two market leaders really because of the huge 'square/rec' client bases they have. The bigger the client base of this type the bigger the liabilities. I don't think people outside of the industry actually realise the figures involved if he had won all 6. They are off the charts large. Albeit its a million he does it the very next day the 'sheep wagons' all follow in the next day for a laugh and the liab's would have been even bigger the next day. There isn't a way to manage it short term other than to turn off the facility or have a position that literally could send the firm under.
The day's of shortening up the sp of the last 2 legs is long gone for 99% of the online BOG (multiples as well as singles) business as punters virtually always take a price now so sending money back to the track to shorten a 20/1 shot into 6/4 is pointless as all your punters have taken 20/1 in the morning on that acca's. 365 also price match all rivals on the day of the races in the morning so it's a perfect cocktail of chaos which just can't be managed effectively. Add in the fact it was one of the rare occasions when they did the bollocks EV wise to cash out punters after 4 legs because they were 7/2 the next jolly and letting the punters cash out at that price when it was a 20/1 poke earlier.
There is also the related cont argument which is very valid for a jockey like Frankie because without the first four winning there is no way he rides the 5th horse in the style that he did imo so the price does change subsequently given the first four have won.
Arb nails it here, if you got unthinkable amounts running on to the 6th leg if Turgenev wins then a responsible firm is never going to put themselves in that position again. If you have a max payout per customer that is much smaller and you take a fraction of the bets of the biggest firm then you have already put your get out of jail position in place already. 365 did what any regular business would do and protected themselves from calamity.
The icing on the cake is the arber/ BOT trader HBF spokesmen doesn’t take any positions at all, rarely has a losing position and never worked for a huge bookmaker which is why the niavity of his comments shine thru.
I was managing a Hills Key shop when Frankie rode his 7 timer in 1996. We had 24 multiple bets that returned over xxxx that needed the camera man to come the next morning to get them validated. Coz it was a Saturday tea time we ran out of money and couldn’t get any more, there were lots of other winning bets that had 3-4-5 winners that fell under the ‘dont need to be validated by checking the camera roll’ but all added up to a lot of money too. That was one shop that took around 2,500 bets on a busy Saturday in 1996.
Fast forward to now and the way bookmaking has changed it would have been catastrophic to some firms and it would be irresponsible if you didn’t take action to avoid. Don’t forget 365 owners are playing with their own money as a privately owned firm, not part of a conglomerate with other wide ranging business interests (tho it would probably have caused Stoke City’s relegation odds to be slashed if Frankie had ridden all 6) and no sensible business owner would risk their family business.
I guess going forward treating multis like that should be priced up as related contingencies. If you want to bet Man City to win the next 6 Pemier League titles you don’t get their current price for next years Prem times 6. You price it up as if Man City win next year what price are they the year after, so when you get to year 5 and 6 the price of them winning the next season is much shorter than their price for just next season, because they have now won 4 or 5 on the trot.
I’m not saying that’s ideal btw, customers still want to have their lucky’’s, yankees and ew Acca’s on non related races but when you are going to reach your max comfortable loss as a firm by a long long way no firm can put themselves in that spot.
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