The explosion in betting has spawned an explosion in the last decade in the number of betting books.

Here are the best hints of the last decade.

1. “I never go looking for a sucker – I look for a champion and make a sucker of him.” (Amarillo Slim In A World Full Of Fat People).

2. “If a cheat wanted to devise an instrument for the express purpose of robbing people under the guise of a friendly get-together, he could have done no better than invent the playing card. A deck of cards in the hands of a cheat is a weapon of unsurpassed criminal possibilities.” (Phantoms Of The Card Table)

3. “Odds about the draw in a cricket match are on average the worst possible of the three options and yet however short the bookies go the evidence suggests that the madding throng of punters will follow them in. It’s as if punters believe cricket market-makers have some special insight into the weather.” (Betting To Win)

4. “A losing gambler is an albatross to everyone around him. he doesn’t get those warm glowing smiles rom his family. In a crap game he leaves the dice so damp with defeat that the stick man pushes them clinically to one side as though they were infected.” (Christmas In Las Vegas)

5. “There is a golden rule in betting on reality TV shows – avoid backing people from ethnic minorities. For whatever reason – perhaps Britain is more a racially intolerant nation than it lets on – non-white contestants rarely prosper.” (The Definitive Guide To Betting On Sport).