- This topic has 136 replies, 52 voices, and was last updated 18 years, 1 month ago by
.
- Posts
Flatseasonlover
If you are going to concentrate on 2 yera olds, get Steve Taplins book from timeform. a good starting point
I think a great area is backing 2 year olds on course. One area where trainer trends are significant of course, but also paddock tells you a lot. And how amny of the countries punters will be at the paddock that day too?
Im no paddock expert of course, but its a significant edge
I think Drone’s rules are interesting.
Particularly:
"Frequently betting two or more runners in a race, particularly against a weak fav who ‘makes the market’ <br>Specialisation – knowing what type of race you’re good/bad at interpreting <br>Eyes open ears closed"
Which are all rules that I used.
I’ve never compiled a tissue, but I have enormous respect for punters who have the skills and discipline to do this profitably.
My own sense of "getting value" was best expressed by AP in "The Inside Track":
"finding an edge should automatically guarantee value, simply because it views the race differently".
Still, I think the "tissue" approach is superior and takes greater skill (and perhaps skills I don’t have/or have never developed).
DB
Are we talking about
1. Finding the optimum conditions for, say, 20 horses and only backing them when everything should be going their way on a particular day, or
2. Concentrate on Group 1 and Group 2 races for all age groups (or maybe limit it to those involving older horses for example), or
3. Pick a distance (a specialisation one like 7f for example) and only bet in these races
I did a combination of all 3.
On the flat, I focused on the non-juvenile group races, particularly by opposing the hype.
In day-to-day racing, I focused on non-juvenile hcaps, claimers and conditions races 7-10f, particularly on courses which had a strong bias.
My results had shown me I was not much cop at analysing sprints so I just ignored them.
And I could never get my head around those low grade staying races that had a mix of flat horses and hurdlers in them.
So, I stuck with the middle ground and that gave me a small number of races to work out each day.
I also had a "Notebook" of horses that I had an opinion on and tracked their entries.
Many of these horses were LTO winners of races where I was sure the form had little value. And I would lay them in their next race.
A number of them were horses that I had seen in the flesh and had an opinion on how their physique related to their optimum conditions.
Some others were horses that I had seen in the paddock and they had been overweight or unfit but had run well before fading. These horses were obviously better than recent form indicated.
And there were a few other categories.
I think a great area is backing 2 year olds on course. One area where trainer trends are significant of course, but also paddock tells you a lot.
That’s true.
And you’ll find that, at the beginning of the season there will be a number of 2yos running that will need a lot further than 5 or 6f to run well.
About 3 years ago, I went to 3 or 4 early season meetings and wrote down a number next to every 2yo I saw.
The number was the distance I thought each horse’s physique suggested it needed.
In their future runs in the following couple of months, the 7f+ horses, they only managed one win between them at 5 or 6f (and backing them all at short distances would have returned a big loss).
Steve
FSL
IMHO you should ignore the advice about not betting odds-on. Get the "odds-on’ thing out of your mind, they’re just odds representing a view of a horse’s chance – whether they are above or below a mythical line (randomly set at Evens) is neither here nor there. Imagine a match over 3 miles on yielding ground- War Of Attrition versus Astonville and the first layer chalks up 10/11 and Evens respectively…never bet odds-on? Same odds for Chelsea v Doncaster Rovers, Australia v Zimbabwe etc etc
Exaggerated examples of course but it’s just to make a point. Good value can be good value at 1/4, poor value can be poor value at 100/1. The sole qualifier for any bet should be "Do I think the the chance of this horse winning is better than the odds available." Simple. The tricky bit is finding such horses but they will occur over the full spectrum of prices. To me, saying ‘never bet odds-on’ makes as much sense as ‘never bet between 3-1 and 9-2’ or any other random selection of odds.
Mike<br>
stevedg,
I assumed you were talking about the average punter as a person who might bet using any medium: shop, telephone, internet, exchange or course. I agree that you will limit your average losses by exclusively using exchanges and avoiding the betting shop, but even betting exchanges only, I believe you will have to work very hard to beat the relentless percentages working against you.
Good thread.
There’s an American book "The Six Secrets of Successful Bettors". The book isn’t great but it’s hard to find fault with the ‘six secrets’.
1. They’re not really gamblers; they’re entrepreneurs whose business is betting.
2. They make the best use of available resources, and process information in an elegant way.
3. They only bet when they have an edge.
4. They manage their money to maximize their advantage.
5. They know how to handicap themselves (ie they know their own strengths and weaknesses).
6. They know how to handle their emotions as well as their money.
Those who are successful punting part-time or as a hobby are probably already pretty competent at the middle four factors.
I’d say (1) and (6) are the two key factors for those looking to make the next step into full-time gambling.
I’m coming to the end of my first year full-time. The last factor – handling emotions (ie losing) has been the biggest challenge by far.
The room for self-doubt is enormous. There’s this constant low-level stress factor humming away in the background in a way I’ve never experienced in any other job – I think it’s called fear!
<br>The book likes to quote Amarillo Slim:<br>"It’s a tough way to make an easy living."
<br>That said, I wouldn’t want to do anything else.
Okay after reading all of these I’m going to think up a strategy for playing small stakes for a month that will hopefully work for me. If it works I’ll continue with it and slowly increase my stakes. If it doesn’t… well back to the drawing board. Thanks for everybody’s input.
Quote: from EC on 11:15 pm on Mar. 23, 2006[br]around 80% of winners are in the first five of betting forecast;
that depends on how many runners there are
in 5 runners races = 100% in first 5<br>in 15 runner races = 70%<br>in 18 runner races = 64%
I never understand why people get impressed by this 80% stuff..it’s generalised and a little misleading and doesn’t really help us.
For example..in greyhound racing..100% of the winners come from the first 6 in the betting ..does it make it any easier knowing that though?
(Edited by EC at 11:19 pm on Mar. 23, 2006)<br>
EC,
Well spotted. <br>The more subtle point you may have missed is that if you have an average race of say 10-11 runners then do not spend 50% of your time looking for a horse ranked above 5 in the BF to beat any horse ranked 5 or below.<br>Spend 80% of your time looking at the first 5 and seeing which ones to back and which to lay. That is where the business side comes in making best use of time resources for maximum payback. And this is just one of a range of inputs that do help, not the only one.
robert
Thre was just a really interesting discussion on the morning line (no, seriously).
Dave Nevison is on and he was explaining his approach to making a living from backing horses.
I’m glad I woke up early today.
Steve
Great to see Dave Nevison on the morning line. Pity that absolute prat wouldn’t shut up next to him. Who wants to hear how miserable he is??
Dave Nevison’s weekly column’s in the RFO are fantastic reading, always guaranteed to make you laugh.
What were his ‘rules’ Steve?
Got a lot of time for Dave N, if I’d known he was on it would have been darjeeling and toast at 8 not 9
Drone
He spent what seemed like a good 5 minutes outlining the various approaches he uses and the thinking behind them.
To write it all up would take ages and it would be worth trying to get a hold of a recording (or pleading with Daylight to have Dave do a celeb Q&A).
There were 2 main thrusts:
(1) multiple jackpot/scoop 6 bets when the pool offers value<br>(2) high volume, fast turnover betting day-to-day.
It was very different to what’s believed to be "the professional approach" and I think his attitude that an hour without a bet is an hour wasted, would surprise many (including me).
Steve
I’m very much in line with Dave’s approach.
Waiting around for value bets to appear is fine, but life is short and continuous action stimulates the senses. Betting for profit doesn’t have to be so rigorously disciplined that all of the adventure and excitement is squeezed out of it. If you have an edge, high turnover is a logical strategy. I think you would maximise your edge by being a bit more selective, but would probably sacrifice more in enjoyment than you gain in profit. The objective of betting is to make profits to make life more enjoyable, is it not?
Interesting that the subject of high volume betting has arisen. I’ve been trying this on Betfair place markets recently; basically 3 in each race at odds above evens to small stakes. Too early to draw any real conclusions yet, but losing days tend to be small and winning days are occasionally quite high. I also have difficulty keeping track of which horses I have backed, so I can’t tell whether particular race types etc are more profitable.
Incidentally someone earlier mentioned Stewart Simpsons book "Always Back Winners" I do have a copy & I was wondering if it was worth putting it on Ebay?
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I've walked and I crawled on six crooked highways<br>Dave’s approach simply confirms that there are as many different ways of making the game pay as there are profitable punters.
His principle objective is to avoid long confidence damaging losing runs, hence his choice to back more than one per race and to bet a high percentage of races, so that totally blank days are very rare.
AP
This approach( high turnover, multiple bets per race) has worked very well for me at the big festivals.<br>My argument would be that after I’ve spent 100 hours or so working out the races at Cheltenham it would be a poor show if I couldn’t find at least one horse under or overpriced in nearly every race. The only races I didn’t play in this year were the Champion Hurdle and the Fred Winter. In most of the rest I was backing 2-4 horses and possibly laying one. With the choice now between early and live prices, betting exchanges and Tote pools, if you have a real or instinctive tissue in your head(mine is the latter) the bets seem to happen automatically and the scoreboard ticks over nicely.
I ahven’t read through all the replies on so I apologise if my thoughts echo anyone else’s:
If you want to make a living out of backing horses you have to decide how much you ‘need’ to clear in a year.
Let’s say £50,000.
Most profesionals admit to working to single-figure percentage profits per year. Let’s be positive and round it up to 10%. To realise your £50k you’re going to have o punt half a million per year.
Or a monthly average of nearly £42,000, or a weekly average of over £10,000, or – averageing just five days’ betting per week, some £2000 per day.
Are you prepared to do that?
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.