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I must say I’m fascinated by this.
I’ll give the guesstimate game a go – and hopefully some people with real numbers will add to the mix.
Let’s take Ian and Alan’s guesses and compromise.
Let’s say there are 100 ‘full-time’ professional gamblers.<br>But let’s also guess there are 500 bona fide professional gamblers who wisely supplement their incomes for any number of reasons (to get out of the house strikes me as one of the best).
In actuarial terms let’s use the factor of five to guess there are another 2500 out there who consistently make a decent ‘semi-pro’ return from gambling of, say £10000 plus per annum.
Extending that factor would lead us to another 12500 people who can claim to consistently, if modestly, beat the bookies.
15510 in total.
Guesstimating from the other end I’ve tried to think about how many ‘regular’ gamblers there may be. <br>The number I set upon was 1.5 million. (There must be bookmakers out there who know what this number really is).
That would mean that 1% of gamblers are successful. And considerably less than that – ‘professionally’ successful.
Any thoughts?<br>
Ian,
so are you suggesting there are 100 full-time bona fide professional gamblers in the UK?
Does that include those who supplement their incomes via journalism etc a la apracing??
Or would should it be based on income per annum? In other words, what makes one officially a professional gambler?
If you were to believe the betfair forum you’d swear the number was in the 1000s!
Nope, I’m with Alan on this one –
not for me at all.
It may have something to do with my placepot foundering on this damned curio for the last 6 years straight…
Actually I think this meeting is diminished by being over three days – and I sincerely hope Cheltenham don’t go for a 4 day festival – particularly one with a stock car tally ho round the middle of the course. <br>
Hi The Guvnor – I agree with you re Ros The Bos.
As I understand it the idea behind the Community Notebook is absolutely about sharing information and pointers such as this. However, it’s going to get very messy if all the nuggets are hidden away in various threads.
Can I suggest you start a new topic titled ‘Ros The Boss’ and keep us updated from time to time.
Cheers,
I see Richard Guest says Red Striker definitely runs in the Hennessey.
He’s still in the Thomas Pink as well.
The Hennessey may make more sense, if you believe he’ll stay. Soft ground, flat track – and they saw him as a Gold Cup horse at one stage.
Wallace,
interesting.
For me, my profits have definitely increased by adopting a personal b*****d
isation of the kelly criterion. If I get time I’ll try and assess how I would have done to level stakes on a variety of bets, and let you know.Wallace,
sorry must have been posting at the same time.
Re LSP – I can’t do this accurately for you I’m afraid.
However, looking at my single win bets – which make up over half my bets:
247 bets. 36 wins (14%)
Out £30355 In £38485 (126% – an interesting coincidence)
247 bets would give an average stake of £122. Which I make a LSP of 68 points – well below your own.
On April 6th this year I decided to make a key change the way I bet, for both the flat season, and then this jumps season. <br> <br>Prior to April I was just interested in building up my betting bank. However, I felt I had reached the point where I ought to take it all more seriously. (I was 40 on April 6th!).
It seemed to me I could go ‘semi pro’, and actually earn money from my gambling, as opposed to just building up a bank. A subtle difference maybe, but one that altered my strategy a fair bit. The key difference was the intention to pay myself a monthly dividend, from my fund.
I hoped to be able to do this, and at least keep the fund level, and hopefully still building.
My first step was to decide on the return I was hoping for/expecting. The previous jumps season my returns had been 130% on turnover.
That was a good year obviously – so I worked on the basis of a challenging 120% – with 112% keeping the fund level after dividends had been paid.
This would give me a modest income of £1000 per month. Any extra I would use to build the bank. So, to keep it simple I aimed for a profit of £20000 over the year.
That means I had to turnover on average roughly £2000 per week.
I’d never even considered having to turn over money before – I was just trying to build up capital, so this was a challenge. Past records showed that I’d either have to double my average stake, or double the number of bets I was making. I decided on a compromise, increasing both stakes and the number of bets.
I also realised I had to take other opportunities more seriously, in particular laying opportunities on betfair.
I passed the 6 months mark a couple of weeks ago – ie what I used to call a ‘season’.
For that season my turnover was £55760, returns £70355 (126%).
This included (as some will know) a losing streak of 46 bets, my longest ever. So at the moment (fingers-crossed, touch wood, please God), I’m well on target.
Incidentally, my approach is very similar to the one Ian describes his mate as using – (except I rarely go racing and find horses fairly frightening!)
<br>
If not in the archive, there’s loads in the multiple pages for this part of the forum.
I’m not sure how much of this is helping Alexander – (Welcome to the forum)!!
I’d suggest maybe rummaging through the archive section where there’s bound to be threads on exchanges –
In the first instance I’d ignore the fascinating but impenetrable badinage between Ian and redman, and look for something more practical with larry layers, non vintage, tony25, or rory’s name prominent (among others)!!
Good luck.
Brilliant stuff marko – thanks.
It’s interesting to compare the stats with my own lists of jockeys to follow and avoid. I’d love to say they back my lists up – but actually they seem to suggest I’m full of blind prejudice!
Mind you, Carl Llewellyn’s been on my ‘numpty’ list for years now – ever since he jumped off Young Hustler in the National in fact.
Not that I have a long and unforgiving memory!
bowser,
Mine take me half an hour a week, but then my way of doing speed ratings would be far too simplistic and idiosyncratic for those who take them seriously.
I’m sure there was a thread on how to compile speed ratings not too long back – try the archive section. Otherwise Nick Mordin’s books explain the subject well.
At the very least you could try tracking the Racing Post speed ratings in the Weekender. Most punters just look at the highest ratings printed on the racecard – if you kept records of all ratings, I’d imagine you could gain an edge.
bowser,
Have you tried compiling your own speed ratings – they’re ideally suited to the winter all weather.
‘Weight makes a difference, but people over-emphasise it.’ (prince regent)
Maybe that’s the key point here. There’s been a lot of emphasis on draw bias over the last few seasons. This year we’ve had that excellent Raceform book, and the new feature in the Racing Post at each meeting.
Lately, Pricewise seems to have become obsessed with trying to downplay the effect of the draw. Presumably he believes it’s become over-emphasised.
Looking at the figures presented I’m with rory – that looks a mighty draw bias to me, albeit possibly temporary, but one it should be able to profit from.
Personally, the factor I think is the most over-emphasised is the Going!!
Rich – if your game is as good as Premier League Manager put me down for one!
When I first played it my wife went away on Friday morning as I was booting up, and came back on Sunday night to find me asleep in front of it – empty bottles of red wine, takeaway cartons – 65 hours without sleep, all so that I could take Woking to the Champions League final, in front of 1300 delirious fans!
And don’t even get me started on SimCity – you wouldn’t believe the Integrated Transport Policy my FreeTooting boasts.
In fact cancel that order – I already spend 8 hours a day on racing as it is – without spending 8 hours a night. When would I ever get to play Age of Empires II?
Yours
Eddie Stobart spotter.
