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I have been punting for years and I have also been a track bookmaker as well and the hardest thing to do is price up a race. I would imagine that those that do make their own prices are probably wrong 90% of the time. If your prices were correct does that mean that you would never have a bet because you dont think that there is any value to be had.
I understand and appreciate what your saying dl, but if your book does not take into account every factor that you used when reading the race sure’ly your percentage on your horse would be out in the first place, so it would be missleading to begin with. Can you understand what i’m trying to say or does it seem i’m way of track? I’m not trying to poke holes into anyone’s system, i’m just trying to get a grasp on this.
Can anyone see where i’m comming from with this? ÂÂÂ
Hi Ali,
I can see where you’re coming from but I think you’ve missed the point as if you want an accurate book, just look at tissue prices. The aim is to quote a book to your system to highlight value of your selection which will give you a fair idea of what price you think it should be (not what the bookmakers think). We all know the bookmaker’s books are very accurate but we are just trying to find (using OUR system) what price we would describe as "value".
I hope this helps, as it is tricky to explain and this is my reason for doing a book, although I’m sure others have different reasons and techniques.
Escorial ………
The more I read your comments the more I am squirming !!
I watch countless horses win that I would have backed had they been at bigger prices, but I am playing to very healthy stakes and NEED to take what I would consider to be a VALUE PRICE every time I have a bet.
I have absolutely no doubt in your abilities, and assuming that when you look back at your betting records you are showing a healthy profit, then I am UTTERLY CONVINCED that you are taking value when you place a bet, whether you are actually concious of it or not !!
All the best, fellow profitable punter !!<br>(and please don’t make me write that over-used cliche again !!!!!!!)   :cool:
I don’t see why you need to make a book to find a price you consider value.
Can you not just look at a race, see that there’s a horse that, on form, is too bigger price and then back it?
I think it is possible to go through life as a punter without making a single book on a race.
DL – surely if you bet e/w, bet those 6/4 shots and bet those 16/1 shots you’ll have fewer losing runs.
Why? because you are more varied in your price range instead of backing soley short priced or big priced horses.
Each-way betting can be very good value as Escorial proved in his example of the novice hurdle race.
Raz, your Michael Johnson example has shown that it can be value to back e/w or at odds-on. That was a good example of both being decent value at different times.
To all of you now: Is value not just somebody’s opinion?
Hi Escorial…..<br>You make your points with great passion and if they work for you I won’t knock them.
With regards to the analogy I gave, this is very simple business sense and believe me that certainly applies to racing.
I think any serious punter who disregards this does so at his peril, however we will have to agree to differ on that one. In answer to your question "why baulk at prices offered?" Many years ago I thought all that was necessary to win at racing was simply a matter of backing winners. Although this was naive at least I had the sense to record my bets including the prices I took and the returned s.p’s. Some years I made a little but generally lost over a year. As a result of being in the fortunate position of having some advice from a very good judge, I poured over my books, one of the things I did was list all the horses I had backed at better than s.p. I also listed the horses backed at worse than s.p. and guess what! a nugget of gold appeared. Those horses I backed at better than s.p. showed a good profit, the others ate up any profits. Backing winners of course is very important but so is avoiding losers. I am quite happy to pass over a winner that I believe is the wrong price as I know from experience that a number of such bets will most certainly produce losses.
Please disregard this advice as I also lay horses on Betfair.
All the very best<br>ron b
Escorial …..
At last we are seemingly in agreement :smiley:
In my opinion if you are making money without going to the track then you are getting value when you bet, and you must be a very good judge as well as a selective punter !!  There is little more I can say on the matter.
All the best
Nick
Escorial……My strategy is quite simple but very diciplined. I don’t work out a tissue and then back horses simply because they are priced up bigger, although many do. I prefer to back the horse I think will win provided I get the price I want. I set an absolute minimum if I can only achieve that price the horse carries my normal stake. The bigger the price over my minimum the more I will stake right up to my maximum. When unable to achieve my minimum price I walk, there is always another race or another day.
It seems to me though you are doing the next best thing by getting early prices or shows when possible. If you have enough accounts and take early morning prices it is possible to get better prices than on the course, but the bookies hate it.
I wish you well<br>ron b  <br>
many of these points have already been made but here is what i think:
many people think that the only way to make a profit from gambling is to be very selective, and have a high % of winning bets.
the way to make it really pay is to consistently get a bigger price than the true winning chance. Simple.
the difficult part is to recognise when these opportunities arise.<br>this is VALUE.
to make the most profit, ALL betting opportunities should be taken. if you only bet when the chance of a winner is high this may keep the srike rate up, and losing runs short, but it will inhibit profitability by refusing the more speculative (often lucrative) bets.
i believe that those that worry about losing runs and strike rates are usually LOSING GAMBLERS, or at best make a miniscule profit not worth the effort.<br>it is a SHORT SIGHTED APPROACH !
a question for escorial<br>a toss of a coin<br>true odds=50%heads+50%tails or evens the both<br>if you thought that heads was a good bet would you back it at 1/3<br>personally i would only back it at 11/10 or higher<br> if it came up and 1/3 was being offered although it was a winner i wouldnt kick myself because over the long run i know i would lose money although i would still miss lots of winners<br>nick hatton<br>i think using speed figures on the all weather is a major assett to finding winners and i know where your coming from when you say the prices shorten on your fancies<br>
sirspread …..
Totally agree, I would go as far as to say that good speed figures are essential on the a/w especially mid-season when the form would otherwise take a hell of a lot of unravelling. Exactly how to calculate them is the key, and I’m not really sure I could handle opening that particular can of worms on the forum !!!!!!
All the best
Nick :cool:
nick<br>personally i bring every race to a certain distance and take it from there….you know what every class of race should produce roughly so you can eliminate any flukes<br>of course there is more to it than that but this is just a rough outline on how i work and of course the speed figures arent the be all and end all but it gives you a pretty damn good base from which to work
anybody got any thoughts on spread betting and making books value etc etc
Esc – all-weather racing is not just bad horses running in bad races.
There are some decent horses too but generally the racing is average. You must know that there are bad races on turf too. There are loads of them but, as there are more tracks, the poorer races are spread around – there are only three tracks on the all-weather so the poorer races can’t be spread about between lots of gaff tracks.
I think if you watch some of the better all-weather racing you’ll see it isn’t jsut bad horses – for example, Border Arrow was well beaten in a listed race at Lingfield because 1) he couldn’t handle the surface and 2) he didn’t handle the track. That’s a group performer being beaten by sand horses.
Some sand horses are very useful but just dislike turf – that doesn’t make them bad horses.
But yep, there is average racing on sand its just i enjoy it as i like the concept.
Would you feel different to the way you do now if there was group racing on sand?
I’ve had a few private messages now asking for more information on how to created a book so I’ve decided to write a program that works out a book automaticially from the ratings put in.
Would this be of intrest to anybody?
:cheesy: meeeeee :biggrin:
Definately want to see how this making a book business works in practice – i’m willing to try it out if it helps make loads of cash :biggrin:
What I’ll do is a demo version that will work for a few months, anyone can download to see if it helps them and then I’ll sell it in the TRF shop for something silly like £5, if you find it a help and you want the fully working version.
It looks as though it will take about 2-3 days to write so I should get the demo version done by then I hope.
Does that sound fair as the forum needs to start supporting itself finacially and to start recovering some costs, by buying it you will be paying for software as you would elsewhere whilst supporting the forum finacially.
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