Raffles, Bobo and Loopy

Life on the Betfair forum is seldom boring. Friday afternoon saw the return of an infamous poster (we shall call him Raffles), a man who has been much discussed after a betting syndicate he put together went sour with, by all accounts, the not inconsiderable sum of £290k being 'lost'.

The system was simple: lay the promoted teams (football) only against the top teams in their league.

Now sure, this system will generate of lot of winning bets, but there is no reason why the highly efficient football markets should consistently be out of line on these matches, and losing days (think of the recent Arsenal v Hull City game) will be extremely costly, but nevertheless Raffles, along with his brother Bobo and friend Loopy, were able to gather together several investors, and a pool of £480k.

Now according to Raffles, Bobo and Loopy then proceed to lose £130k between them in two months.

Bobo, because he was "learning how Betfair worked"! (No explanation at all of why the keys to the account would be handed over to a learner-driver, but bear with me).

Loopy, because he "placed a lay on the Champions' League match Lyon v Rangers". No explanation again of why someone would be gambling without knowing the rules of the system.

So all very fishy so far, but the sorry saga gets sadder.

The story goes that Bobo and Loopy then plead for Raffles to step in wearing his shining suit of armour, and attempt to save the whole sorry scheme. No explanation of where he was during the two months in question incidentally.

Sadly for everyone concerned, Raffles doesn't have a clue, starts betting wildly on markets he admits he doesn't understand, and loses another £160k.

Reportedly £190k was returned to investors.

Unbelievable stuff, and although the truth may be somewhat different from the story outlined above, (there are two sides to every story, and the truth lies somewhere in the middle), no one here comes out of it looking too clever.

The system is honestly crap. The investors are just driven by greed. The three clowns could have just lost their own money. And to top it all off, Raffles comes back to the forum blaming everyone but himself, and stirs up a hornets' nest.

A fool and his money are soon parted.