Geoff Banks’s satchel was £3,375 lighter than it should have been when he left York racecourse on Saturday, he said in a post on social media, and the high-profile racecourse bookie was understandably hacked off. “Unsavoury end to York with one of my team confusing a payout of £375 with £3,750,” he wrote on X. “And the ‘punter/thief’ took the money. We informed the police and gave a description. There’s no excuse for this.”
A subsequent report in the Racing Post suggests that the punter who made off with the cash may have been aware that Banks had laid a £1,000 bet at 11-4 on Tropical Storm, the winning favourite in the Roses Stakes, in addition to their own bet of £100 at 11-4. That implies in turn that Banks may have fallen victim to a hastily conceived – but still potentially criminal – act of fraud, rather than a failure by the punter to point out a mistake.
