It is Doncaster St Leger week and for these festivals many of us from all walks of life like to have a bet. We have taken a look at the different types of punters that you are likely to find on a regular basis.
This is the person who looks at every horse and race with a magnifying glass, spending hour upon hour researching the form. The scientist does not believe in luck or chance, he or she believes that you can’t beat the science. For them, betting is a big chain of formulas and mathematical equations and their office will looks like a quantum physics laboratory.
Summary: This person will walk into the bookies, grab their cash over the counter and run out the door, not giving anyone a chance to ask them how they backed a 50/1 winner.
When you are around “The Jinx”, you just know that both that person and you are going to have an awful day. We all know someone who is just unbelievably unlucky and punters are no different. If this person backed a horse in a one-horse race, the horse would do a backflip and throw the jockey off 10 metres from the winning line.
Summary: If you want to be successful at betting, run a mile when you see this person.
This is the person who claims to know every owner, jockey, trainer and every single person associated in horse racing. He knows Ruby Walsh’s neighbour’s postman and the postman’s doctor. He claims to get the best information known to man and has three tips straight from the horses mouth every day. He’s in other words just full of nonsense.
Summary: This person is an attention seeker, is probably lonely and needs to make a few friends.
This is the person who has a penny jar sitting on the bedroom window sill and they sit and stare at it every night before they say their prayers and go to sleep. These people will come out of the woodwork for one day only and that is for the Aintree Grand National in April. This person knows absolutely nothing about betting but still probably has a 10,000% return on investment in their betting lifetime because they had €1 on Mon Mome at 100/1 and €5 on Tiger Roll because they liked the names.
Summary: This person will come out of the woodwork for one day only each year.
The superstitious punter is convinced that betting is in the mind and that you have to use your mind to delve into the inner universe to find the winner of a horse race. They think that everything is a sign and that coincidences happen all the time. All that matters to this person is the name of the horse because it relates to them in some way. These people are in other words described as “psychopaths”.
Summary: If you see one of these people at the racecourse, find your nearest exit.
This punter is a fan of backing the jockey and not the horse, no matter the race, no matter the price. These people think their jockey could get Ruby Walsh to ride Kauto Star to victory in a five furlong sprint. Everything else is irrelevant, as long as their favourite jockey is aboard they are happy to part with their money.
Summary: These people have a look of bewilderment about them when their favourite jockey loses a race, despite the fact the horse went off 200/1.
This is the punter that can usually be found tearing up betting slips, shouting obscenities and having a mini epileptic fit in front of the SIS screens on a daily basis in the betting office. Everything that they bet on sends them into an uncontrollable rage. These people are probably best served being in a straight jacket.
Summary: These people need professional help.
No matter what horse they back, if it loses it is never their fault for backing it. They would have won that last race if the jockey didn’t make a complete hash of it, even if clearly the jockey made no error at all. These people expect a steward’s enquiry even if their horse finishes last. They deflect the blame elsewhere all the time.
Summary: Give you a detailed conclusion of why they lost and why it wasn’t their fault.
This person is a non-stop talker and will constantly try to tell you how much they won and that they always win, and never lose. Even though their horse never seems to win when you are with them in person but they somehow always manage to be “in profit” at the end of every day. These people are compulsive liars.
Summary: These people will tell you they are millionaires even if they live in a caravan.