I’ve had the pleasure this week of listening to two great podcasts. I do love me a good podcast. Stick the airpods in, take the mutt out for a walk, and fill the ears with excellent #content.
The first was the SBC’s very own interview with Anthony Kaminskas, successful punter turned bookmaker, and owner/founder of the new (launched just prior to Cheltenham) online bookmaker site, AKBets. Now listening to this Anthony struck me as a workaholic. Seriously, what his average working day must look like right now is something else. But far from being a frazzled wreck that someone with so much on his plate has a right to be, he came across as commercially savvy, well-intentioned, and principled, whilst also as someone who doesn’t suffer gambling fools lightly. And by gambling fools, I mean those who seek to take the proverbial with the way they go about their betting and perhaps not playing as fairly as they might.
Of course, it’s natural that the notion of fair play and bookmakers is a little difficult to get your head around. We’re so conditioned now to the bigger bookmakers doing everything but play fair, that it’s very easy to just tar all with the same brush. But Anthony convinced me that he is determined to be different (and for how long have we been saying that there must be a niche within the bookmaking market for someone who actually looks to lay their customers a good bet at a fair price and not to play funny buggers when it comes to processing withdrawals and the rest?). A lot of what he has to say in the interview brought to mind the “old fashioned” bookmaker principles – no gimmicks, but straight dealing, offering a price and accepting bets at that price, even from a “sharp” customer.
I wish AK the very best of luck. If he’s successful, then I believe punters will benefit as well, and that can only be a good thing.
The second podcast is Tom Brownlee’s Bookie Bashing “Bashcast”. Never has a podcast struck so many chords with me as this one. The first section castigating those that pinch car parking spaces marked out for those with children made me laugh, remembering my own encounters with the selfish gits that follow such an evil course, and the same with those that leave shopping trolleys where they shouldn’t be left. If that’s you, hang your head with shame, I say!
To hear Tom’s enthusiasm for exploiting Bet Fred’s DD/HH concession was good too. This, to date, has been my most lucrative source of betting income this year, and Tom’s dead right in that it’s a fun bet to place. When your guy scores the first goal, the rest of the match makes for compulsive viewing. Mind you, I’ve also placed a bet just before kick off and by the time I’d got back to my car, parked less than a minute away, the bet had gone down. Them’s the breaks, I guess.
