BRUCE MILLINGTON (Racing Post) Q&A

[yeats]

Dear Bruce,

I purchase the Racing Post paper everyday, why should I have to pay extra for online content? surely if someone is already paying £11.50p a week for the paper they should receive it free.
It is only a minor inconvenience to me and I can get by quite easily without it but would never dream of paying for it having already spent £11.50p a week on the paper.
It has though made me think twice about whether I need to purchase the paper everyday which I have done for many years although I still intend to do so for the immediate future.

Thanks
yeats

Hello Yeats. I am aware that for some people getting the paper and the web subscription package is stretching it, but we do try to make the whole package a worthwhile purchase by making the paper and web services unique to one another. And there is still a large quantity of free content on the site.

[Gingertipster]

Hi Bruce,

Thanks for taking time out to answer questions from us trfers. This is a pet subject for me, hope you can sought it out.

Must start by saying, we are lucky to have such a good racing paper in this country. We get terrific articles about most aspects of racing. However, gamblers deserve to be better informed about TRUE VALUE. Some believe if the racing media doesn’t talk about something, it can’t be an issue / important.

The odds and percentages table is relegated to the greyhounds results section of the Racing Post; with only a brief explanation. This in my opinion, does not do justice to its importance. Even some lifetime Post readers I talk to don’t know about the table, or it’s significance. No doubt the average TRF member is more aware of it than the average punter.

Is there any reason why the Racing Post does not give a more thorough explanation?

May be you could do an article, getting some professional gamblers to say a few words about how they work out percentages / use True Odds in their betting. After all, there is only one way to make a long term profit without luck (one big win), that is to get value. But there is more than one way to achieve value.

To give you some idea of what I’d like to see, something like…

“Every punter knows for each £ he / she stakes on a 3/1 winner, he gets £4 returned (winning £3 plus £1 stake back).
For every 100 bets of level stakes at 3/1 a punter must win 25 to break even (25 X 4 = 100). Staking 100 points and getting 100 back. If he wins more than 25 he will make a profit, less than 25 will result in a loss. Therefore, 25% = true odds of 3/1. So a punter should only back a 3/1 shot if he believes it has a better than 25% chance of winning.

Gamblers want to know “who’s going to win”? But they should not necessarily back the horse with “the best chance of winning”. The important question is “in your opinion, who is “VALUE to win”.

Bookmakers stay in business by betting to an over-round figure. In a four horse race with a competitive market he may offer:
A 11/8 (42.1%), B 2/1 (33.3%), C 100/30 (23.1%), D 11/1 (8.3%). Working to 106.8% for an over-round of 6.8%.

Yet betting is all about opinions, bookmakers prices might not be right. If after studying form of the above race, a punter believes:
A has a 40% 6/4 chance of winning.
B 30% almost 9/4
C 20% 4/1
D 10% 9/1
All four adding up to 100%.

Comparing the punters prices to bookmakers; the only horse at a better price (value) with bookmakers is D at 11/1. D is the only possible bet, despite in the punters own opinion having the worst chance of winning. Quarter of A’s chance, a third of B’s and half of C. With a 10% strike rate at 11/1 showing a profit. Where as a 40% strike rate at 11/8, 30% at 2/1 and 20% at 100/30 all result in a loss.

Even if a punter does not want to work out a race to 100%, knowing the table, seeing each price as a percentage and vice versa helps to find value.

To calculate the percentage each price is worth, add a point and divide by 100.
So 3/1 = 3 + 1 = 4, 100 ‘/, 4 = 25%.
100/30 = 3.33/1 + 1 = 4.33, 100 ‘/, 4.33 = 23.1%
And so on”.

Realise you don’t want to put this in every issue, just an article about value now and again would suffice.

One other thing:
Until recently I used your web site to work out trainers in form. Clicking on each trainers name to get the two week record. However, this is often out of date and have gone over to the Sporting Life website. Any plans for improvements?

As I said; the Racing Post is a very good paper. Only “criticised” parts I don’t like. Connections negatives about their horses are of particular use. Alistair Down is a great writer, Some articles by James Willoughby I agree with some I don’t, always an interesting read though. Talked to one of your Spotlight writers who suggested I should put in a job application. As the way I work out a race is similar anyway. Presumably all novice Spotlight writers start with class 6 races. Don’t normally bother with that grade and it seems different and more difficult to get right. When I did a couple of dry runs it was not as accurate as I’d like, so did not apply. Respect. Will try again soon.

Hope to take the Racing Post team on again in the West Berkshire Racing Club Quiz (January). And stop your hat trick!

Thanks for listening.

Mark

readers aware of how betting percentages are calculated and how they give
punters a clue as to the value they are getting. I agree. We run the
table in the greyhound section every so often (aptly given the Bags
percentages are so appalling these days that readers should realise what
they are letting themselves in for when they bet on Bags racing), but it
would do no harm to do a piece on it and carry an updated version of the
table on a more regular basis. I’ll add it to my to-do list. Glad you
like the paper and thanks for your comments.

Value Is Everything

[Anonymous]

Having read all the questions posed so far, there’s a good chance Bruce will refute any accusations of the Racing Post being in thrall to the bookmaking (such as they do…) industry.

In anticipation of that, how can he issue such a denial when he’s happy to stand over an Alistair Down article extolling the virtues of FOBTs? Those machines were, quite rightly, referred to as the “crack cocaine” of gambling by Greg Wood recently, and the primary reason why racing’s share of betting turnover is plummeting. How in God’s name can a man whose livelihood depends on the popularity of racing publish a 2 page advertisement for racing’s arch enemy???

Blimey, that piece keeps getting held up as a symbol of my supposed slavish devotion to the bookmaking industry. You’re reading too much into it, mate. Here’s what happened. It was a quiet week and I rang Alastair up and said "Why don’t you go to a betting shop and bet on ten things none of which is a horse race". Given Alastair wouldn’t have known you could bet on anything other than horses and dogs I thought it might make quite a fun piece, the idea being that he captured the unique atmosphere of the betting shop. Anyway, in the course of carrying out the brief, he managed to win a few quid on the FOBT so he wrote about it. It’s no big deal.

[stilvi]

I buy the Racing Post every day of the week. I believe that should be more than enough to gain free access to the website. Discuss.

Please see my answer to Yeats’s question above.

[wit]

Does the RP measure its international web readership ?

If so, has that grown materially in recent years ?

Due to 48 hour declarations or something else ?

What impact do you expect the "paid-for" model to have on the international audience ?

Do you see a time when relative position of the BHA to the RP as regards information dissemination, may come to resemble that of say the Hong Kong Jockey Club to the South China Morning Post ?

(in terms of dissemination in English anyway – the more widely read Chinese language papers (several of them free) just seem to reproduce wholesale from the HKJC site, position photos and all).

Is keeping of the official form book the RP / Raceform’s most significant strategic asset ?

Can you fix the RP database entry for the dam of Sea The Stars ? Urban Sea ran two races in North America at the end of 1992 – the EP Taylor and the Yellow Ribbon Invitational. The latter isn’t mentioned at all, and the former is hopelessly conflated with the Rothmans International.

thanks again

wit

I confess I don’t know what trends exist as regards international readership. The introduction of subscription services has not affected overall traffic so I wouldn’t expect it to do so taking the international userbase. I’ll get the database team to look into the Urban Sea situation.

[cormack15]

The thread is now locked. Questions will be sent to Bruce Millington over the weekend and we’ll post responses as soon as we get them.

Great set of questions.

[cormack15]

Message from Bruce Millington –

I’d like to thank Bruce on behalf of TRF for taking the time to look at and answer our questions, very much appreciated.

[Cav]

Bruce, I understand the RP is a commercial organisation that exists on revenue and putting up with flashing bookmaker adverts in exchange for free content is acceptable. I dont agree that paid subscribers who are already providing revenue should also have to endure them as well. Maybe its something to reconsider going forward.

Overall a very well answered and interesting set of replies, thanks very much.

[Grasshopper]

Straightforward and informative answers from Bruce. I might even buy the paper on Sunday, to see what the craic is (something I haven’t done for a couple of years now).

[Drone]

Due plaudits

Thanks

[Gingertipster]

Excellant stuff by Bruce. Shows he’s listening to concerns, but fighting his corner when he disagees.

Hope to see a feature on true odds soon.

Thumbs Up

Thanks Bruce.

Value Is Everything

[% MAN]

Interesting answers to the questions.

Needless to say I do not agree with his response to the third point I raised – however it is the answer I expected

[davidjohnson]

Good stuff from Bruce and Timeform. If I was Michael Bell, I’d be embarassed that my answers are on the same forum.

[thedarkknight]

Interesting answers to the questions.

Needless to say I do not agree with his response to the third point I raised – however it is the answer I expected

Thought he answered the point pretty decisively, Paul. Possible you are just plain wrong on this one?

[gumshield]

Full marks for a thoughtful and sincere response to a testing set of questions.

[% MAN]

Interesting answers to the questions.

Needless to say I do not agree with his response to the third point I raised – however it is the answer I expected

Thought he answered the point pretty decisively, Paul. Possible you are just plain wrong on this one?

I am not wrong James – why do you think I raised the question in the first place?

[thedarkknight]

No idea – sounds like nothing more than you taking a bit of hearsay as gospel to me. Unless you could substantiate your claims in anyway, of course….

[Author]

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