moscow, that's exactly why I've pointed out Great Odds price, it's decent compared to most other SA bookies. However i must say that some bookies, UK and SA, tend to go skinny on F1 prices, mainly because they probably don't have a dedicated market person for non mainstream sports like F1, so aren't perhaps as confident to price up bigger.

R Tommy - I did see the Ladbrokes price, but this is an SA based forum where nearly all the guys punt in rands with SA bookies, so don't see the point in highlighting UK exclusive prices most times?, especially if it's only available wih 1 bookie, which that 5/4 was. I bet with UK bookies, Betfair and SA bookies, i tend to keep a cap on number of accounts I have to a managable amount - but if I see a bet i like @ 10/11, and there's 5/4 with a bookie I don't have an account with - i'm probably not going to open a new account with that bookie just for 1 bet. If they were to constantly show up as offering value, then yes, but I personally couldn't say that about Ladbrokes.

Multiple accounts are essential if you take this game seriously as opposed to just being a twice a year punter or if you bet purely for enjoyment (although for me maximising my returns is the enjoyment)

I hold somewhere in the region of 10 accounts although from a fixed odds point of view I find that the selection of bookmakers we use for the previews on GFTG more often than not gives you very close to a best possible book. Whether you fancy our tip or not we have done the price research for you and we believe this is one of the strengths of the site.

There are times where I simply do not have the luxury of being able to surf around and in these cases I go to just a couple of the bookmakers for a comparison, my experience of knowing how the guys price usually means I am getting pretty close to the best deal anyway.

Southpaw is spot on with his comment about Ladbrokes and a high percentage of readers of this forum are not allowed to open up off shore accounts for exchange control reasons (at least thats what I understand)so if punters can be pointed in the direction of a local bookmaker thats first prize and obviously of more value to the majority of the forum.

Some guys are based overseas and make a valuable contribution however they need to post these value finds with the knowledge that people are generally not going to be able to follow and it will be on an interest only basis and they likely won't have the satisfaction some us occassionaly get by shifting the market   

Back to Moscow's original post - yes I would split the R5000 between 5 bookmakers but only if I was a R200-R300 punter. In that way you would have a decent bankroll in each site. If you are a R1000 punter with only a R5000 budget you would probably be better off picking just a couple of bookmakers, otherwise you could be reloading more often than you would like and you may find 2 good deals with 1 bookmaker but not have the funds to play it. Good point on the signup bonuses as well Moscow!

My best example of shopping around comes in the spreads. We don't have a great variety of spreads firms in this country but even so you often get a scenario where total points with bookmaker A for example is 47-50 whereas it is 49-52 with bookmaker B.

Clearly you would want to go high with bookmaker A but sellers would go with bookmaker B.

Assuming a R100 a point bet the difference in backing with either bookmaker is R200.

In the Super 14 for example there are 94 games.

If there is a 2 point differential per game (not unrealistic) your best case scenario would be 188 units or R18800 at R100 a point than your worst case scenario (backing with the wrong bookmaker each time)

Of course you would have to have 1 account anyway (say bookmaker A)and a more likely scenario is that you would already be getting the best deal 50% of the time so by opening an account with bookmaker B you could be maximising your nett position by 1 unit or R100 a game on average.

Over a 94 game Super 14 that is a R9400 swing (not always a profit but minimising losses just as important) and well worth keeping accounts of both A and B stocked up.