No seamless anecdotal lead-in to this week’s piece as I just want to continue with last week’s discussion on staking. I concluded that piece with writing about the importance of having a plan before undertaking a day’s punting but it is equally important to allow some flexibility within this plan.
A punter should know at the start of the day what the worst-case scenario is should everything go to pot but I like to add maybe 15-20% to this figure as it allows me to adapt during the day depending on market movements as the market in the morning and the market at post-time can be two entirely different things; the horse you fancied at 10.30am may now have shortened into a price that makes it unbackable while one that was tight enough in the early exchanges may have drifted to a value option.
All this reminds me of a quote from economist John Maynard Keynes that Kevin Pullein used in one of his Racing Post columns in the past year: ‘I change my mind when the facts change.’ One of the great myths of punting – and one that is reinforced by anecdotal evidence, never a good way to support an argument – is that you shouldn’t change your mind about a selection; not to put too fine a point on it but that’s bollocks.
If you thought a race was between a pair of horses, one priced at 7/4 and the other at 5/1 and you slightly (but only slightly) favoured the former in your analysis, which one would you be backing? If you’re answering the 7/4 shot then it’s unlikely you’re making money in the long-term. Sometimes I will plan to have a bet in a race but won’t decide on which horse it will be until right before the off as I know the Betfair market at that stage can fluctuate wildly and one can get some massive prices about horses.
This brings in the idea of what to do with drifters and I do have a neat anecdote about this. I was at Down Royal on the Saturday of Royal Ascot last year when Maybe won the Chesham impressively; she had been put in around 6/4 or 7/4 in the morning but was sent off 5/2 having been widely available at 3s. A punter in front of me after the race turned around and said ‘Jesus, she was the only horse I fancied today but when I saw her drift, I couldn’t touch her.’ I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
For me, there is only one way to deal with a drifter: back it again. If you fancy a horse at 7s, then you have to fancy it even more at 12s. Of course, you will get lots of these wrong but the ones you get right should more than make up for the wrong calls. Everyone loves to be on a springer, a horse that you have backed at 20s that goes off 7s but it’s worth remembering that all the data that has been compiled on drifters suggests that they win as often as they should relative to market position.
Too many punters oppose drifters as they suspect something sinister is going on but more often than not the drift is for an innocent reason. A horse may have done a bad piece of homework in the lead-up to the race and it has filtered into the public domain; some see this as the ultimate negative but it’s worth remembering that races are won on the track and as a punter I really want to be with horses that save their best for the racecourse and are idle at home.
Other horses being backed is another obvious cause of a drift; on Betfair say where the percentages have to add up to 100 so if a horse is being backed then another must drift. Connections may have backed their horse in the morning and had enough money on so a drift on course is inevitable. Some connections don’t gamble or gamble very lightly. And finally there are times when the market simply gets it wrong as it is far from the unerring behemoth some present it as.
The most marked drifts occur on the exchanges and this is why any right thinking punter must have a Betfair (yes, I know I do some work for them but hear me out!) or Betdaq account; frequently a horse will drift from 7s to 10s on course but will be widely available for decent money at 14s on the machine – in this case it’s a no brainer where to play.
I realise some punters can’t handle using the exchanges as a slot machine mentality kicks in and I suppose knowing that this is your weak-spot is a skill in itself but by denying yourself access to Betfair or whatever exchange you are cutting off what could be an excellent source of profit on drifters and that’s not even to mention their prices on outsiders.
I think punters have to use whatever means necessary to get on at the best prices and exchanges are a vital tool if a punter can remain in control.
Consistency of staking is a good skill to acquire and ideally a punter wants to be in a position where he is having the same on a horse depending on the level of confidence and regardless of other circumstances. This level of confidence is best determined the night or morning before a meeting rather than a post-time when the pull of the action can be strong; I find the best decisions, in gambling and otherwise, take time.
The other circumstances I refer to above would things like whether you are on a good or bad run of form or perhaps the stature of the meeting; we can all play things up a bit at the big fixtures and while acknowledging that we’re human and these things can happen it is important that they don’t get out of hand. Punters need to be aware that good betting opportunities can present themselves anywhere and one pro-punting friend of mine swears by the likes of tracks like Bellewstown and Ballinrobe as the racing there is largely uncompetitive.
I wouldn’t be quite so extreme as that though punters should try to reach a point where we have no problem having a good bet at tracks like these instead of saving our firepower for courses like the Curragh and Cheltenham.
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Betslip.jpg287460TonyKeenanhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTonyKeenan2012-07-18 10:00:532012-07-17 22:08:19The Punting Confessional: Further thoughts on Staking
In this week's Punting Confessional, Tony Keenan tackles an age-old source of disagreement: stakes, staking plans and betting banks. He explains how he apportions his betting bank into daily stakes and how he manages the bank: discipline is vital.
Curragh – June 30th
I was standing on the steps at the Curragh on Irish Derby Day chatting to a pair of punting friends of mind, discussing not the upcoming Group 1 (frankly, we couldn’t care less about Camelot’s stroll around as it made no appeal as a betting race) but rather the thorny issue of staking.
The duo: one a full-time punter and the other a very serious part-timer, agreed that it was not only one of the more important parts of the game but also one of the most difficult and that striking the right balance between aggression and control was hard to achieve and that picking winners was only part of the battle.
I could write a book on the subject and still fail to cover it satisfactorily but here are some of my broad ideas on staking.
First and foremost, I think you need to have a separate betting bank, kitty, call it what you will. This sort of mental accounting – an economic/behavioural term where you separate money into different areas – is vital and whether you do it with a separate bank account, credit card or cash doesn’t really matter, it just needs to be done.
I try to avoid treating gambling money as real money whereby a fiver might be a pint, fifty a meal out or five hundred a new laptop; when you get into that you’re attaching value to the money and it becomes harder to part with it and you’re much better to think of it as chips and have a certain blasé attitude to it. In order to dip into your wallet and have a bet with one hand and pay for petrol with the other, you are either reckless or bombproof; I am neither so prefer to keep my betting money separate.
On a really practical level, it is wise to keep your betting business apart from your main bank account, especially if you have a lot of turnover and transactions; in these straightened times banks are using every excuse not to lend people money and there’s no point in giving them another stick to beat you with.
I like to use a points-based system in terms of staking with my minimum bet being half a point up to a maximum of 6 points and my average bet coming in at around 2 points. As an overall bank, I’m probably working off 200 to 240 points at any one time and if it gets over the 240 points I’m taking the money out for income.
I don’t really like to have a huge differential between a small bet and a large bet – at its worst, a small bet is only one twelfth of a big bet and more than likely it is one sixth – and I was recently very surprised to see an interview with Richard Hoiles in which he talked about his small bet being only 2% of his maximum bet; I can’t have it that one would fancy one horse fifty times more than the next.
My turnover would tend to be quite high and at a given meeting I could easily have a bet (or more than one bet) in every race; I would tend to put about 20 points in play at a meeting where I am playing strong which works out at about 8-10% of my overall bank. I would rarely have my maximum 6 points on a horse – I did it only once in June – but often I would push in 4, 5 or 6 points in a single race where thought there was a bad favourite or favourites and a number of horses were overpriced.
In truth though, I’m probably quite risk-averse and the thought of risking a bank on a single day’s racing or going ‘all in’ makes no appeal; I want to negate the risk of ruin where possible and prefer grinding steady profits over a long period of time than trying to knock it out of ballpark the whole time, getting it right sometimes but going broke as well; the former approach is much better for the head too.
A level-stakes approach is something I would have little time for; there are degrees to which a punter may fancy a horse with some plays being marginal and others strong. The time to go in strong for me is when you like both the horse and the price and less so when it is one or the other.
Also, price – and by price I mean whether a horse is a big or small price – should not play a part in your staking level and by that I mean you should not be having more on a short-priced horse and a small bet on an outsider. I probably swing the other way on this entirely as I hate backing short price horses and would much prefer have a decent bet on a 16/1 shot than a 5/4 jolly; indeed, I probably won’t even back the 5/4 as I have no head for analysing value at the front end of the market.
One final thing on a points-based approach to staking; be aware that you can and should change the size of your points from time to time. This should not be done arbitrarily and probably not all that frequently but if you feel the need to get the profits up – as I did at the start of the 2012 flat season when I increased my point size by about 25% – it is worth thinking about.
A word of warning with this though is that you need to know your own comfort zone; if increasing stake size will mess with your thinking and make you second guess yourself then it may be counterproductive.
Having a pre-racing plan as to how you are going to play each card is always a good idea; before each meeting starts you should have a clear idea about how much you are going to risk and what is the worst-case scenario if everything goes wrong. Some days are good for punting with lots of overpriced horses, others are not and knowing the difference is a skill; if you ever discover how to do this, please drop me a line.
The time of an individual race is irrelevant and whether your strongest fancy is in the first, third or seventh race shouldn’t matter; you need to plan accordingly and get stuck in early or keep the powder dry depending on circumstances. It never ceases to amaze me when bookmakers comment on the bumper (invariably the last race on the card at national hunt meeting in Ireland) being the most heavily traded race of the day; surely this is the toughest race with least racecourse evidence available and stakes should be kept small but race position on the cards seems to have a major effect.
Needless to say, I am scornful of any sort of progressive or regressive staking approach where you have more or less on the next horse depending on how the previous one went; such beliefs are illogical and fail to treat each race as the independent entities that they are.
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Camelot-Irish-Derby.jpg388620TonyKeenanhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTonyKeenan2012-07-11 08:12:122018-08-09 05:57:56The Punting Confessional: Staking and the Betting Bank
I've been interested in horse racing for over twenty years now and, in that time, I've spent untold hours reading, writing and researching around the subject of betting on horses.
As a consequence, I'd say I've developed from 'clueless newbie' on to 'enthusiastic amateur', then to 'happy to break even', and nowadays to 'small time winning punter'. [Note, I've never been enamoured with the idea of making fortunes from betting. Frankly, I'm probably not mentally cut out for it].
During my two decades of development, I've learned a lot. A hell of a lot.
When I started out, I'd look at the numbers (representing finishing positions) to the left of a horse's name, and this would be my most important indicator of likely performance. How naive I was.
These days, I have a group of micro-systems which I use on a daily basis, as well as a good eye for what's important when reading form. You may remember a recent video post I made on the subject. You can watch that form reading video here. [Warning: it's quite long]
The reason that video is long is because it takes time to analyse horse races: to consider the context of the race (its conditions); the likely profile of the winner based on similar races; the specific current and historical performance of the runners; and the likely interaction between horses (class ceilings and pace scenarios, for instance).
Yes, a horse race is a complex conundrum indeed.
One of the purposes of geegeez is to try to help less experienced bettors understand something of what's needed to become more experienced (and more successful) bettors.
The above is not intended to 'turn people off' or to overwhelm, but rather to illustrate the complexity of the puzzle.
Of course, betting on horses should also be fun. And here at geegeez, we insist that you're entertained during your visits here. At least, that's what we try to do. 🙂
So how can you win at betting? Well, there are a number of ways, all of which have merit in my opinion.
1. Study, study, study
If you enjoy the learning experience, then this is the best one for you, especially if you have time. The best, most satisfying and empowering way of winning at betting is to work it out for yourself.
Understanding how horse races work is a key part of that, and will undoubtedly help you to find more winners.
But more winners won't necessarily lead to more profit. What?!
What I mean is that if you currently have a strike rate of 25%, I can tell you an immediate way to get a strike rate of 31%. (Bet unnamed favourites).
Alas, my short cut to more winners will not make you money. As the jolly fellow in the Nationwide ads used to be fond of saying, "It doesn't work like that".
No, we need to understand the relationship between a horse's chance of winning in academic terms, and the market view on its chance.
The old coin toss example is instructive here.
Clearly, there is a 50% chance of a coin landing on either heads or tails, assuming the coin has not been tampered with. With that knowledge of the actual (or academic) chance of the coin landing on a nominated side (heads or tails), a bookmaker would always offer you a price slightly shy of even money for either outcome.
But what if the bookie offered you 11/10 on heads?
Even though there is still a 50% chance of the coin landing on tails, 11/10 about it coming up heads is a great bet. Why? Because it offers VALUE.
Value is simply any situation where the odds available are greater than the true chance of an outcome happening.
You might well lose that 11/10 coin toss (in fact, you'd have a 50% chance of losing!). But, if you could consistently get 11/10 about heads, you'd make 5% over time.
The problem is that horse racing is not a coin toss. It is infinitely more complex than that.
And even those charged with the job of odds compiling get things badly wrong. How could they not? This is not a criticism, it is simply a fact.
The market at off time (i.e. the starting prices) looks very different from the first morning show of prices, although it will be topologically similar. Topo-who-what?
Topologically. Meaning that whilst the odds on many of the horses will have changed - some of them markedly - the overall shape of the book will be similar, in terms of bookie profit margin.
Right. Let's pause for breath. Where are we with all this bookie-bashing bluster?
In summary, if you have time to study, you need first to understand the dynamics of a race, and then you need to overlay your view of the respective chances of the participants with the market view.
When you have a runner that you rate with a good chance, but the market has dismissed as an outsider, then you have a good bet (assuming you've made a reasonable job of understanding the race dynamics).
This will happen more often than you think. In fact, as an example, Stat of the Day picks a horse which is sent off a shorter price more often than not. The reason for this is that we look at factors which the market often overlooks in its initial position, but which become accounted for - by weight of money wagered, generally - before the race goes off.
The market of a race at 'off' time is a VERY STRONG indicator of likely chances. In fact, it's by far the best indicator.
So if you can consistently get a better price than the starting price, you have a very good chance of making a profit. Again, Stat of the Day illustrates that well enough, with circa 83 points profit and 40% return on investment since it started in November last year.
2. Become a trader
If you can understand the 'shape' of a race, in terms of who is likely to lead, which side of the track is favoured, and which horses look lazy and disinterested during a race, you could trade horses in running.
This isn't as difficult as it sounds.
Most horses have a run style which is either determined by them, or by their trainer/jockey. Some are habitual front'runners; others like to be held up; still others will be the first ones under pressure but often find more late run than smoother travelling rivals.
Whatever. If you can see how a horse is likely to run, you have the chance to trade it.
This is definitely not something I'm especially interested in myself, though I know professional traders, who nip into and out of the market in very quick succession, having secured a profit by 'greening up' (buying low and selling high to lock in a profit on a horse's price).
The reason I don't much like it is because it's quite boring. Scalping. Sniping. No interest in the final outcome of the race, only in its interim opportunities. Fair enough. But not for me.
3. Arb-o-rama
Arbers are the scourge of bookies up and down the land. An 'arb', short for arbitrage opportunity, is a situation where you can back all possible outcomes and guarantee a profit.
Two outcome events are the easiest for this. For instance, in a tennis match, only Player 1 or Player 2 can win.
Largeblokes might have Player 1 at 4/5 and Player 2 at 11/10. On the same match, Bert563 might bet 11/10 Player 1 and 4/5 Player 2.
Thus, backing Player 2 with Largeblokes and Player 1 with Bert563, both at 11/10, means you are guaranteed to make a profit of 5% on the match.
(Example: £10 win Player 1 at 11/10; £10 win Player 2 at 11/10; guaranteed return £21. Stake £20, Return £21. Profit £1 or 5%)
Again, this is far from the sexy side of betting. Indeed, it's hardly gambling at all. But it can be profitable, IF you can get both parts of the wager struck before the prices change.
Obviously, with the advent of odds comparison sites, these opportunities are quickly shut down, but they do happen every day, many times a day.
4. Follow a tipster or service
This is the favourite short cut to option 1 above, and that's entirely reasonable.
There are all sorts of situations where it's not possible, or sensible, to study, study, study. For instance, you might have a job and a family (I know, unlikely, but possible ;), which means your free time for such things is seriously compromised.
Or you might just not trust yourself to be good enough. I would hope that over time, using excellent resources like geegeez (!), you will place more trust in yourself. But for beginners, or those who have only recently committed to learn more, then following a tipster or service is a good option. Sometimes.
The problem, of course, is that not all tipsters and services are the same. In fact, they are as varied as the species of flora and fauna under the sun.
So how to find a good tipster? Well, that will depend on you, at least to some degree, though there are of course some universal factors.
First, you should be looking for a service with a track record of success and demonstrable credibility. In other words, there should be some means of corroborating what 'Honest Joe' has said his results are.
Secondly, when it comes to tipsters, a trial period is something that you should insist on. This might be a money back guarantee period, or a free trial, but either way, you at least have a chance to paper trade (i.e. follow the picks without risking money)... and you should PAPER TRADE.
[Sidenote: it REALLY gets my goat when people pile in straight away with something which might be completely wrong for them, lose money, and then complain about it. Free periods are for paper trading. Refund periods are for paper trading. If you want to bet, then fine, but you do it at your own risk. Full accountability is yours. Soap box moment over!]
The purpose of paper trading is not just about bottom line profitability (or not) of a service. It's also about seeing if that service is for you.
For example, do you like one bet a day, or five? Do you have a bank, or do you just say you have a bank? Could you retain confidence if you lost half your bank before the profits came? Do you bet £2, £20 or £200 per selection? Are you a backer or a layer or a trader or an arber or a dutcher? Can you cope with higher volatility, or do you need a winner most days 'to keep you in the game'?
As you can see, one size most definitely does not fit all.
Finally on this one, and this is a personal preference of mine, I like to have at least an understanding of how a tipster or service arrives at his selections. For example, I'm never interested in 'stable whispers' services personally (though some can be quite good). Rather, I'm interested in form students whose judgement and knowledge of the form book I can grow to trust.
So, if you want to follow a tipster or service, do ask yourself what it is you're looking for from that service. This MUST be more than 'a profit'. It needs to cover your betting style, your appetite for risk, your availability to get bets on, and so on. This is your responsibility before you hand cash over to a stranger. (I know you know that, but the reminder can't hurt!)
And later this week - tomorrow in all likelihood - I want to introduce you to the very first 'tipster' I've ever been impressed enough to publish. His approach is similar to my own, his commitment is phenomenal, his number-crunching exceptional... and his results... well, more on those in due course. Suffice it to say that they're bloody good! 😀
Until next time.
Matt
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.png00Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2012-07-02 14:20:162012-07-05 10:09:01Winning at Betting: The (Untold) Truth
It’s been a grinding sort of week since I last wrote with a few reasonable winners like Prince Jock on this card and Elusive In Paris the previous evening at Dundalk peppered with plenty of losers like Catch Light, Ondeafears and Harry Trotter; I think the technical term for this is chiselling out a profit but I’ll take it whatever way it comes.
Also, despite the turf season being nearly two months old, it was the first week of really slogging form study with seven back-to-back flat meetings from Killarney on the 15th to Roscommon on the 21st. Thus far, I’ve been enjoying it and getting a winner or two has helped, though I’ll be glad of a little breather this week to catch up with some reviews ahead of the Guineas meeting at the Curragh this weekend.
When the racing starts to come thick-and-fast like this time management is important; during the summer it’s not so bad for me as I have more time on my hands but at this stage of the year I have other work commitments and how I distribute my time matters. When I come home from work in the evenings, I know I only have a narrow window in which I can work, probably a period of two or three hours. One could pull all-nighters and simply devour the formbook but such moves are unsustainable and I know, having already put in a day’s work, that I only have a short time in which my attention is at the quality level required to go through a card properly.
This means that I have to choose my battles wisely and I’m looking at doing four or maybe five races in real detail while scanning the others for obvious plays. Inevitably, I am drawn to handicaps; I wrote last week about my love for them and I know from past records that I do best in them; in 2011 for instance, I made 92% of my profits from handicaps.
When I get the declarations in the morning I will plan how I will distribute my time and select the races I want to study and in what order; I will often avoid maidens as I find they are a drain on time and rarely offer good betting opportunities. Some would say that this is because stable insiders have the edge here with the merits of unraced and lightly-raced horses but I wouldn’t overestimate this as so-called informed punters often get it wrong and the market is not always the accurate guide some pundits would have you believe.
Often, it is more a case that few have chances and the layers prices up very accurately to big margins. All that said, handicaps are my thing and I prefer to start with handicaps for older horses where the form is well established. Once I have ‘got my eye in’ I will move onto the trickier three-year-old races or nurseries where the horses are less exposed.
One of the main features of handicaps, and for me it is an appealing feature, is the transience of it all; things change very quickly with handicappers and loyalties have to be switched quickly. Over the past 3 weeks I’ve been compiling horses to follow lists for my Betfair blog and the challenge in selecting group horses and handicappers to note is completely different; with the former, you need to play the long game and project the whole season while with the latter everything is recent.
Handicappers run more frequently and a punter needs to stay on top of the form but with classier horses there is more time to digest things. Good handicap punters tend not to be too loyal and can oppose a horse one day and then back them a fortnight later; when the facts change, we change our opinions with them.
Indeed, excessive loyalty can be a flaw in a punter. I never cease to be amazed that when I give a tip to casual punter who asks me about a race and the horse wins (infrequently, I’ll grant you) that person will still be following the same horse 18 months later when its brief period of being well-handicapped and/or in-form has long since passed and they have done their best to give back the profit they made on the original bet. With winning punters, most loyalties are quickly cast to the wind and I only want to know about a winner I backed in the future if it shaped better than the result on its recent starts.
It is often said that the most important factor in the outcome of a race is the ground but I don’t agree; what matters most is the talent of the horse, or in handicaps, the talent of the horse relative to its mark. I have two main means of determining whether a horse is well-in: form and video. The former is an old-fashioned approach where one is simply looking for races that are working out or horses that have been running against tough competition while with the latter one is looking for those that were better than the bare result, be as a result of pace, draw, trouble or whatever.
When you find a well-handicapped sort you are onto to something and, by-and-large, a well-handicapped horse has to go close granted normal luck; considerations of ground and distance, provided they are not totally unsuitable (a fast ground sprinter stretching out to 10f on soft, say), are secondary. The toughest races are those in which there are no well-treated entries as other factors – ground, distance, how the race will be run – come into play and there have been a few such races in Ireland of late, for example the handicaps won by Whipless and Jazz Girl on consecutive Sundays; I tend to keep my stakes small in such races.
Another important consideration when playing in handicaps is class. In Britain, there is a straightforward framework of classifying races from one down to seven and it works well; we have no such system in Ireland, relying instead on ratings bands such as 47 to 75, and we could certainly do with a more transparent method.
Punters should keep an eye on ratings of horses (usually updated on a Monday in Ireland) to see what band they qualify for and whether they can sneak into a grade that they have previously been ineligible for. This sort of class drop, though it may appear imperceptible, makes a huge difference as a horse is now competing against animals of a totally different league; to take an extreme example, a horse rated that has run sixth in a good 0-85 may now be dropping in to compete in a 0-65 and he may have a significant class edge against the bottom feeders.
A good recent case was Moonbi Creek at Dundalk on May 4th; he had run fourth in a decent 0-80 against fair horses like Barrow Island and Knockgraffon Lad on his first run off a break but dropped into a 0-70 next time to take on limited sorts like Tsar Paul who may have been in-form but it was form from a lesser grade. Moonbi Creek won at 7/2 and while I didn’t get enough on (I missed the price), his sort are always work looking out for; he carried top-weight in the race but I never consider such things, class being the key factor.
Finally, a word on very low-class handicaps. I play in them quite a bit and would know plenty about the horses involved but I would have a preference for slightly better class races; horses that run in 0-65 races in Ireland (the lowest grade available) invariably have some sort of hole in them, being ungenuine, injury-prone, slow or simply unreliable.
It wouldn’t put me off having a good bet on one if I thought it was overpriced but I have a preference for the better handicapper or at least the middle-of-the-road ones that are just that bit more reliable. Premier handicaps, races like the Scurry or Galway Mile, are my favourite medium of all with their competitive big fields and are made for exchange betting where prices on my favourite type of horse, outsiders, tend to be inflated and offer the opportunity to knock it out of the ballpark.
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Wexford.jpg13912100TonyKeenanhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTonyKeenan2012-05-23 08:01:342020-04-30 09:03:15Playing The Handicaps
I managed to the get the flat season – or at least the punting part of it – up and running at the Curragh on Bank Holiday Monday with a pair of decent winners in Ondeafears and Wrekin Rock; that the pair came in 50-80 handicaps should come as no surprise to anyone who knows my punting methods.
I realise there is something perverse in making your biggest plays in the worst races on the card – that was certainly the case here with the winners returning the worst and second-worst form ratings of the meeting – but I’m a contrarian by nature and handicaps are very much my bread-and-butter.
Group races just don’t do it for me and while some will argue that the perils of punting in such events were brought into sharp relief later on the card with the St Nicholas Abbey debacle in the Mooresbridge Stakes, I don’t agree. That race saw what was palpably the best horse getting turned over but such results are the exception, the problem with playing in pattern races from a personal punting perspective being quite the opposite, i.e. that the best horse wins all too often.
For me, this isn’t a good thing because such horses are all too obvious and invariably sent off at short prices; what I really want in a race is complexity – whether it be provided by pace, handicap marks, track or draw biases or any number of other variables – as this provides the possibility of a big score. Handicaps, by their very nature, are complex in that their stated aim to give each horse an equal chance and the fastest horse does not always win.
One of the best things about handicaps is the predictability of pace. Exposed handicappers have a running style and by-and-large they stick to it; to change it could compromise their chances. This means one can a have very good idea how a race will be run beforehand which is helpful as one can see how the likely pace scenario will favour one type of runner over another; there may be a front-runner that is going to be left alone in the lead or there may be loads of pace on which will suit closers.
Not only is such pace analysis a useful tool pre-race, it comes in handy afterwards when reviewing a meeting as one can come up with a sensible idea of which horses were advantaged or disadvantaged by the run of things; knowing how the race was expected to be run makes this sort of work far easier.
Analysing pace in other races is much more problematic. In maidens, a punter has little or no evidence to go on with running styles and oftentimes pace becomes an irrelevance as there is such a differential between the ability levels of runners. Group races are even worse, especially in Ireland, and Ballydoyle have to shoulder much of the blame for this. Such is their strength of numbers they can choreograph Irish group races which is not something that can be achieved in England and further afield where the competition is much stiffer.
The best example of this was last year’s Irish 2,000 Guineas where the Aidan O’Brien-trained Roderic O’Connor defeated the best horse in the race Dubawi Gold by dint of tactics, something Dubawi Gold’s jockey Richard Hughes was well aware of in his Racing Post column on the morning of the race; the winner finished the season pace-making in the Irish Champion Stakes while Dubawi Gold was in the frame of Group 1s with Excelebration and Frankel.
Pacemakers are another complicating factor in Irish Group races as one never knows what Ballydoyle are going to do with a race; sometimes they want a breakneck gallop, other times they want to slow it down for a suspect stayer and there are even occasions when they hardly know what they want. Getting stallion prospects is the raison d’être of the yard and it seems that any horse can be sacrificed at the altar of bloodstock, or at least a sire you can charge at least €50,000 a nomination for.
With the Ballydoyle horses, their run styles change markedly from race to race; what a horse did when a short-priced favourite for a Group 3 bears no resemblance to what it is likely to do in a Group 1 next time at 50/1 when the yard has a fancied horse they perceive needs a certain pace. I suspect this sort of chopping and changing is not good for individual horses are they are not allowed to get into habits on the track and stunts their development and I am sure it is bad for punters who simply don’t have a clue how each horse well be ridden.
Another factor that keys in with pace is track configuration; some tracks favour certain run styles and horse types. The problem with Irish group races from a punting point-of-view is that the vast majority of them are run at the Curragh or Leopardstown, a pair of tracks that are in the main very fair. This is important when one is trying to further the breed and simply find out which is the quickest horse but it reduces the complexity of races and thus makes them less interesting betting mediums.
Personally, I would find pattern races much more interesting if they were run on the Naas sprint track on soft ground (high numbers all the way), at Tipperary (a front-runner’s paradise) or even around the up-and-down Western gaffs like Galway and Ballinrobe (chaos rules).
With the top group horses, punters often need to ask themselves how much more they can know than the market; here are a coterie of talented horses who make up about 10% or less of the equine population yet take up about 90% of the column inches on horse racing (rough figures I know, but you get my meaning).
You may hold a low opinion of the standard of the racing media (I know I certainly do) but the more information they have the more they are likely to spot value and point it out to the public and the few good analysts there are among the media soon spot pricing errors in the top races. With handicappers, it’s a different story.
The proclivities of exposed handicappers may be clear to someone going through their form in detail but they are not covered in media in any great detail and this is where a shrewd punter can get an edge on the market. It seems no coincidence that a number of the punters and analysts I respect – Hugh Taylor, Tom Segal and Dave Nevison in his prime – do a lot of their backing/tipping in fields of older handicappers. Personally, I would have every confidence in playing my knowledge of Irish handicappers against most punters and certainly against the odds compilers.
I suppose an awful lot of this boils down to an old chestnut of punting: specialisation. A punter simply cannot know everything and one has to find races that suit your style. I don’t want to rule out group races entirely as I’m sure some punters swear by them and one should never be dogmatic about rules in racing as one never knows when a good betting opportunity will arrive. It may well be in a Group 1 but somehow I doubt as handicaps have provided most of the best bets of my life.
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Curragh-Racecourse.jpg204285TonyKeenanhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTonyKeenan2012-05-15 09:30:502012-05-15 09:36:09The Punting Confessional: Beating the handicapper.
There was some downtime early this week with no flat racing in Ireland so I used it to set about planning my betting for upcoming flat season; ideally this should have been completed before the first day of the turf season but I had been drawn by the action of Cheltenham and had spent much of my time in early March preparing for the Festival and either way it would be a while before the turf really got up-and-running.
I don’t particularly like this sort of strategic planning which probably makes me like most other punters; I would much prefer to be cracking through races and betting away. It is however a necessary, if boring, part of improving your game and requires not a little soul searching and research but hopefully it will pay off by season’s end. In terms of planning ahead I looked at four important areas of my punting – profit targets, staking, routine and getting on – though I’m sure there are other angles that could be explored.
I began by deciding what sort of profits I wished to achieve over the coming months and to do this I looked at my figures for the past 6 years. Rather than simply pull a figure out of thin air – there is no point in taking a ‘this time next year Rodney, we’ll be millionaires’ approach – I took an average of my profits over the past four years as a guide and decided I wanted to achieve that figure plus 20%.
There were a couple of reasons for this; firstly, I think I’m a better punter now than over those years as I have changed my methods slightly and secondly, during one of those years I was working on a book about the Galway Races that took up a lot of time and meant that my punting suffered. External factors like this can of course affect your betting but it is important not to use them as excuses; in this case however I feel justified in putting some of the blame on another project.
Staking is always an interesting issue and broadly speaking I work off a points-based system that runs from one to six; this means that on horses or races I have a strong view on I will play six times heavier than on one where my opinion is weakest. At any stage, I am unlikely to work on a bank of less than 200 points so my staking is always small relative to my overall bank; I tend to play a lot of races and am more about turnover than selectivity while I also tend to oppose the front end of the market so this gives me the security I feel I need to work best.
I never go all in on a race in terms of my overall betting bank, it’s just not my style and I’m all for punters finding their own individual approach. This method has been a constant for me in recent years but this season I plan to make a change by increasing the size of the point staked by 20%; I have punted to that sort of stake in the past back in 2008 but that was when I was only really playing at weekends whereas now I am punting most days during the flat season. I have a slight concern, as should every punter, about raising the stakes as it can put you out of your comfort zone but I have been there before and I feel it is necessary if I want to achieve my profit targets.
Nor do I want to up the stakes immediately as I often find this period of the season a hard one to make money on; I will probably wait until the beginning of May by which time the form will have settled down.
Broadly speaking, I have good routine going for studying racing that includes two main areas: video reviews of past meetings and form analysis of a specific meeting the day before. I had a tendency last year to let the reviews build up on me and do four or five in a single day but I felt that this was too draining; it takes about ninety minutes to review a meeting and I invariably write about a thousand words on each and it requires quality of attention.
This season I want to do them within 3 days of the meeting itself; I have always been better at working gradually through things rather than cramming at the last minute (again, finding your own punting style is vital here) and I feel that things about that meeting such as the likely pace of each race will be fresh in your mind at this point rather than trying to recall these things two weeks after the event.
Another point I want to include in my betting routine this year is a regular look at the Turf Club excuses (published weekly on their website) and rating updates (on the HRI website, posted on Monday) as they can be an important tool; too often in the past I have taken a piecemeal approach to these areas and need to be more systematic. Given that I tend to do my writing for this site and Betfair on Mondays and Tuesdays, Wednesday seems the best day for this.
For any remotely winning punter, getting on is the most frustrating aspect of the modern game; we have more information than we have ever had before (this is not to say we wouldn’t like even more!) but we also have more hassle in getting our bets on. I don’t want to turn this into an anti-bookmaker rant – we all know that they don’t really want to support the opinions of their odds compilers and much less so to anyone who has any clue – as we simply are where we are with this and have to find ways around it.
During the past years, I have played a lot at early prices and used all sorts of chicanery to get on but there is a point where it begins to wear on you and the legwork and otherwise becomes more than a minor irritation. So over this winter, I put some time (ok, a lot of time) into comparing the early prices I took last year with Betfair Starting Price (BSP) and I was surprised to see that the difference between the two, despite all the hassle of getting at early price, was minimal.
I would classify myself as fairly good at reading a market yet much of my trouble was for nought and it is worth remembering that BSP is only one reflection of the market and there can be a lot of fluctuation in these prices in the minutes before the off so in most cases one will be able to get the money one wants on at the right prices. So this season, I intend, where possible, to push my business towards the exchanges to negate much of the hassle of getting on.
This brings up two further issues that I need to be aware of. Firstly, patience will be vital as the real money on Irish racing only comes into the exchange markets in the 15 minutes before the off and it is very hard to watch the price of a horse you fancy collapse in the early markets as you wait for the exchanges; there will however be times when your selection drifts. Secondly, there is the risk of becoming a slave to the machine as it becomes harder to maintain discipline and a slot machine mentality could possibly kick in.
In this regard, it is important to stick to your broad staking plan for the day while still allowing room for flexibility, a pair of issues I hope to return to in the future.
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.png00TonyKeenanhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTonyKeenan2012-04-11 09:37:012020-04-30 08:59:20Planning Your Betting
In this important post, I outline ten points that will make you win more money more often with your betting. Even if you think you know all of this, it may pay to review this as a refresher. Smart punters are always learning and re-learning.
So, without any more ado, here are my top ten tips for becoming a better bettor.
10. Keep Records
How to Bet: Keep Records
Yes, I know it's boring. But seriously, these days, it is very easy to keep records, especially if you have online accounts (because they keep the record for you).
But keeping records is simply an exercise in administration if you don't regularly review those records. Look specifically at where you're winning money. Is there a pattern there? Perhaps you have a stronger handle in sprint races, or novice hurdles. Whatever. Pay attention to where your strengths lie, and focus more on that.
Obviously, the converse is true. If you can't help but bet on the biggest races (Group races and huge field handicaps), and you discover you haven't backed a winner in these race types for six months, stop!
Or, and this is my preferred approach, keep a small 'action bets' pot, which is separate from your main punting pot. That way, you can still get involved in the races where you probably shouldn't (from a financial perspective), but want to from an entertainment perspective.
Let's always remember the value of small stakes betting for FUN. I know it has become somewhat 'shouted out' by the make money mob and the materialism of our current social malaise (don't get me started!), but readers of geegeez remain predominantly recreational bettors and the content here is designed to fully support that.
Nevertheless, that doesn't excuse you from keeping - and inspecting - your records! 😉
9. Never Chase Losses
How to Bet: Never Chase Losses
Yes, yes. I know you know. But you still do it, don't you?! Me too, from time to time.
There is a fundamental flaw in the human psyche that needs us to be right. That, on a subconscious level at least, is one of the main reasons we bet. And it can be expensive.
Have you ever spent a period of time studying for a race, before placing your bet on the horse you've determined looks 'nailed on', only to see it unluckily fall at the last, get beaten on the run-in, never quite make it under a lambastable jockey, etc.?
It happens often, right? And the way we deal with such reversals of fortune will ultimately define the success or failure we have in the long term.
Because the problem with chasing is it's irrational, and it happens when you're in a bad place mentally. You spent an hour going through that race where the gods mocked you, and you lost twenty quid when you should have won two hundred. So what happens next?
The scenario that I remember from my ugly past - which still gets replayed roughly once every four months - is that I see a race going off in about five minutes time, I rush to the paper on the wall (or the internet race card), and I inspect the race conditions and the form of the favourite.
If the favourite looks good, I bet it. With more money than I backed the selection I took much more time over, which finished unluckily. That selection where I'd looked at all the other horses in the race, and made a clear case for my pick, and against his opposition.
Here I am saying, 'the favourite looks like he has a favourite's chance, so I will throw money at him and hope he bails me out'.
'Hope betting'. That is expensive. When that 'jolly' gets beaten, perhaps in a close finish (30% of favourites win, but 62% place), you may feel doubly hard done to.
Obviously now the spiral is gaining downward momentum, and control is lost. The wallet opens and the next favourite is backed on little more than a whim. Soon enough, the last tenner in the purse is being lobbed at a greyhound - a bloody greyhound! - to nick back a few more punting chips with which to attempt to steal parity.
You walk out of the betting shop a hundred and fifty quid down. Or five hundred. Or a tenner. It doesn't matter really. That's a question of the scale of your betting. But the point is universal.
You feel terrible. Forget the money. If you're lucky enough to be able to afford to lose that amount (which we all should be, but this is not a time of rational thinking generally), you will still be kicking yourself at the stupidity of it.
So here's the deal: although I titled this one as 'never chase losses', I fully appreciate that this sort of monastic discipline is beyond most people - certainly beyond me - and I want to make these pointers actionable.
When you next encounter the ugliness of the above, 'wipe your mouth'. Accept it. Commit to not doing it again, at least not in the near future. Do NOT repeat the scenario on the next payday, Saturday, whenever is your punting day.
If a reversal like this keeps you straight for three to four months, as it generally does for me, then it is simply a self-levied 'stupid tax' on our entertainment, and our longer term quest to win a few quid.
Shit happens. But it shouldn't happen every week!
8. Don't Pay Too Much Attention to 'Stable Whispers'
How to Bet: Forget Inside Information
We'd all love to believe that there exists a mythical shortcut to betting fortunes - and what more attractive fortune is there than one accrued from gambling - as a consequence of insider dealing. Stable whispers. Job horses. Plots.
First up, let's be clear. They do happen.
Second, let's be realistic. With all due respect, unless you're paying serious money, why the hell would anyone tell you?!
But we're weak. And we're fundamentally lazy. We want to believe that the bloke in the pub knows something. Or that the 'tipster with connections' is letting us in on a coup. Who wouldn't like a few friends like that?
Alas, nine times out of ten (stat made up on the spot to illustrate the point) the horse is beaten, or wins at far too short a price to offer a profit in the long term.
The problem with stable whispers is that they, like my out of control 'alter ego' in #9 above, only focus on the form credentials of one animal in a race. Dobbin may well have been 'lined up' for this event. He might even be 'catching pigeons' on the gallops. Plus myriad other banal cliches to exhort the virtues of one amongst a number of beasts facing the starter.
Yes, the problem is that this solipsistic (there, I've said it!) contention is akin to walking around with your hands over your eyes like a three year old and believing that because you can't see anyone else, there's nobody else there.
It. Is. Not. That. Simple.
Nor should it be. Where's the fun in that? Win and you want more. A dirty addiction; a filthy affliction, wedded to someone else's knowledge of one animal in a race. Lose, and you need a scapegoat. (Clearly, it should be you. But if your blind faith in others is such, then you're hardly likely to see your own reflection when it comes to the mirror of the post mortem...)
OK, too much sermonising there. The point is simple. If you already did your research and came up with a horse in a race, and then someone said it was fancied by the stable, great. Even if they fancy something against your selection, you might review the merit of that horse based on the form in the book (or however you choose your horses).
But taking one person's word for a single horse in a race about which you have no other opinion is irresponsible, and you ought not to do it. Next!
7. Watch More Racing.
How to Bet: watch more racing, back less camels
All right, if listening to whispers is irresponsible, then how can we seize the ownership of our punting ways. Firstly, watch more racing. And watch it with your peripheral vision set to 'widescreen'.
What I mean by that is that betting is inevitably a pursuit of self-interest. We want to be right. We want to win money. As a consequence, why on earth would we watch any other nag but the one that could gloriously validate our pre-race assertions during the contest?
Er, because we probably will want to have another bet in the future... Again, flippancy aside, only one horse wins a race (apart from dead heats of course), and only one in six last time out winners follow up in their next race (stat not made up, but based on all UK winning horses in the last eight years).
So if you want to know about a horse's winning chance, in five out of six instances you'll need to look beyond the most obvious.
There are lots of ways to watch racing these days. The bookie, for sure. Some pubs show ATR and RUK, the industry channels. And ATR is free to many people with a digital telly. Subscription to RacingPost.com will give you a lot of races as well. And sportinglife.com will give you access to some races.
attheraces.com will also allow you to review past races for free.
There is then no excuse for not watching more racing. Aside from finding the time to do it. If time is precious, then you'll likely have to accept that there is limited utility in this entire post, because pretty much all of the points here require a time for knowledge transaction.
[Incidentally, time is a curious construct, which seems to expand or contract in direct and inverse proportion to our needs for it! But it can be tamed, and previously lost hours reclaimed, with a bit of desire and a clear action plan.]
When time is of the essence, your records inspection will support you in identifying where best to focus your attention in the limited window available to you. If you have an 'eye' for sprints, watch sprints. Look for troubled runs, or poor piloting. Look for potentially unfit horses who ran well and then may have 'blown up' due to lack of match fitness.
Some of these pointers you will find in the form book. But you'll see much more if you watch races, even if you're relatively inexperienced.
And, trust me on this if you don't already know, the satisfaction of finding an unheralded winner in this way smashes the living daylights out of receiving a 'hot tip'.
6. Don't Bet Outsiders.
How to Bet: don't bet outsiders
Again, I know this may be draining all the fun out of betting on horses, but here is a sobering fact:
In UK racing since the start of 2009, just 1.75% of all races have been won by a horse starting at 20/1 or bigger. And those horses account for a bigger amount of lost betting points than all lower priced horses put together (roughly 35,000 compared with roughly 31,500).
That's a quite staggering stat to my eye.
Generally speaking, big priced horses are big prices for a reason. Lack of talent, maybe. Lack of form. Or unsuitability of conditions are three obvious reasons.
Trying to be clever is the best thing you can possibly do when betting. But we have to acknowledge the time and the place for contrarian thinking.
This is the logical slot for my 'wisdom of the crowds' reference... this has been discussed in great detail by far, far more erudite and intelligent bods than me, but in essence what we're saying here is that if three people have to guess the number of sweeties in a jar, they could be miles away from the actual number, when their guesses are averaged out.
But if three thousand people estimate the number of sweeties in that jar, and their guesses are averaged, there's a pretty strong probability that the mean average will be very close to the actual number. [You can read more about the wisdom of the crowds here.]
In betting terms, this means that a bookmaker may open his book with a horse at say 8/1, but it will take very little time for the crowd to 'assist' the bookie in moving the horse's odds far closer to the true price. This might mean it shortens or lengthens, but generally it will move. By off time, the market will have a very solid idea of who should win, and the likelihood thereupon.
And we can see the effectiveness of this collective betting wisdom by looking at the patterns of market rank (i.e. favourite, second favourite, third favourite, etc) and market odds.
This table, taken from horseracebase.com, shows the direct correlation between odds and win strike rate (and, actually, also losses).
Odds
Bets
Wins
WinStrike
SP_PL
A) Less than 1/2
1042
766
74%
-30.71
B) Btw 1/2 & 10/11
3291
1757
53%
-265.05
C) Btw Evens & 6/4
5017
2096
42%
-282.66
D) Btw 13/8 & 9/4
10883
3377
31%
-890.79
E) Btw 5/2 & 4/1
32822
7006
21%
-3144.8
F) Btw 9/2 & 6/1
31966
4509
14%
-4170
G) Btw 13/2 & 8/1
34509
3559
10%
-4799
H) Btw 17/2 & 12/1
41145
2964
7%
-7356.5
I) Btw 14/1 & 20/1
47408
2116
4%
-10788
J) Btw 22/1 & 40/1
41723
842
2%
-16591
K) 50-1 or above
30667
181
1%
-18633
And this one illustrates the market rank principle in the same way:
Market Rank
Bets
Wins
WinStrike
SP_PL
1
31851
10156
32%
-2365.2
2
29822
5673
19%
-3865
3
29633
3982
13%
-3899.1
4
29396
2806
10%
-5421.2
5
28257
2200
8%
-4480.5
6
26632
1438
5%
-7052
7
23855
1017
4%
-7485
8
20472
655
3%
-7937.5
9
16752
468
3%
-5826
10
13318
293
2%
-5205
11
10191
190
2%
-4173
12
7298
125
2%
-3172
13
4870
74
2%
-1936
14
3042
38
1%
-1461
15
1869
26
1%
-936
16
1085
15
1%
-375
17
679
6
1%
-395
18
411
5
1%
-184
19
296
2
1%
-211
20
168
1
1%
-139
Again, we can see the direct relationship between market rank and win strike rate.
This is why I, and many others who are generally shrewder than me, look for a 'sweet spot' in the market. This is somewhere between the 'blindingly obvious' of short priced favourites, and the 'blind pin-sticking' of backing 20/1 and longer shots habitually.
A couple of important caveats to this are as follows:
1. If you identify a horse in the morning that you genuinely believe has been wrongly priced, then that's fair game. You will know by race time whether you were right to do this. If the horse has contracted into the 'money zone' (18/1 or shorter), well done, and good luck. If the horses are the same price or longer pretty much as often as you bet them, you may need to re-evaluate your technique.
2. If you identify a horse in an ante-post market that you genuinely believe has been wrongly priced, then that too is fair game. Again, you'll know by race time whether you made a smart call or not. And again, too many bad calls means it's time to get the metaphorical drains up and review the proverbial plumbing of your picking processes.
Either way, if your horse starts at 20/1+, you now know your chances of collecting!
5. Systemites Need Logic and Discipline!
How to Bet: Logic and Discipline
Few things polarise thinking in betting circles as much as the use of betting systems. Here, I'm not talking about staking plans but rather mechanical rules-based selection techniques.
For instance, 'bet grey horses on a Wednesday when there's an 'E' in the month'. (I have deliberately used the most preposterous example I could think of).
When systems fail to be profitable, it is generally to do with one or both of the two main components involved in their operation: the system, and the user!
Let's look at that in more detail.
Firstly, the system. If you've been around racing for any length of time, you will probably have a pretty good 'bullshit detector', both when it comes to sales materials and system rules.
I've left the 'how to spot a scam artist' element for another day, because this is about you and me and how we can bet better.
So, the system. Use this as a rough framework through which to run a possible system, either devised by you, or bought by you.
1. Does the system have a vast number of rules?
Most of the best systems I've used are based on simplicity and strong (but often contrarian) logic. Every rule a system employs takes it a step further away from the most logical premise of all: a horse, in a race.
I'm extremely loathe to put a precise number for the rules threshold as that will be arbitrary, and in some cases fewer would be better, while other will demand deeper drilling and more rules.
Generally speaking though, more than five or six rules is probably whittling down to a statistically unrepresentative sample size. (However, to further complicate matters, experienced judges can still create micro-systems in very small pools of data, when they use a portfolio approach).
2. Are the system rules based on logic?
I saw a system recently that said, 'bet in all months except December'. When I asked why not December, I was told matter-of-factly that the system wasn't profitable in December.
In case you didn't know this already, the fact that a part of a variable (e.g. a month in a year, a going type, a race course) is not profitable is no reason in or of itself to exclude it. Equally, the fact that a part of a variable is profitable is no reason to include it.
It is the logic that underpins the rule that determines whether or not it should be included. Let's use a couple of examples to illustrate what I mean:
- Firstly, suppose I'm looking at a turf flat system which relies on the fitness of horses as its rationale. In this case, I might well be justified in excluding the month of April (the first full month of the flat turf season). Further, I might be justified in excluding a horse's first run of the season. Both of these exclusions would generally support the underlying rationale of my system, which is to bet fit horses, defined as those who were not having their first run of the season and in any case were running later than April.
- Secondly, let's say I was looking at the performance of highly weighted handicap chasers, based on the going conditions. Suppose I had a nice correlation of profit to loss based on going, from firm through to heavy. But suppose within that, the 'good to firm' category showed a loss whilst the 'firm' and 'good' categories (the neighbouring descriptions) were profitable.
There could be no conceivable logical reason to exclude races on 'good to firm' from my calculations. And, if the profile was sound enough, I'd proceed despite what looks to me like an anomaly. In other words, I can't explain why I'd exclude it, so I'll assume that in the future races run on that going description will conform to the general trend of races run of quicker surfaces.
These examples aren't brilliant in truth, but I hope you catch the general drift of what to look out for, and how to stop yourself from 'convenience fitting' (which I much prefer to the much misused 'back-fitting', a valid technique used by the likes of weather forecasters, insurance underwriters, and, gulp, system developers. Here's a Wiki definition of back-fitting).
Now let's look at the system operator, i.e. you or me!
Ask yourself some questions here. When a system says, 'I advise a bank of x points', do you start with a bank of x points? When a system advocates paper trading (as I always do) through all or part of the refund period, do you do that? If you are creating a system, and it suffers a losing run, are you likely to go back and 'tinker' with the rules?
If you don't use the recommended bank, or paper trade, or stick to your rules, fair enough. But you need to know that it may not be the system that is at fault... especially if it is grounded on the principles of sound logic espoused in the first part of this point.
As a user of one or more systems, we have a responsibility to be clinical in our trialing and / or betting approach. Like stable whispers, systems can be a bit too sterile for some tastes, and it can be argued that they take the magic out of the selection process.
However, for others, the narrowing of the selection process to a (hopefully) proven set of parameters is a joy, and the identification of those picks a happy moment in the daily routine.
Either way, a system user must either 'buy into' the logic of the system, or not. These days, when I see a system I can generally tell if it has merit or not by cursory inspection. After that, if I'm not sure, I'll use a database to interrogate certain rules to see if they make some sort of sense.
If I decide to incorporate a system into my portfolio, then I stick by it for a reasonable period. A reasonable period is three months at least (although it varies, depending on the number and price of selections).
Too many people lurch from one system to the next after a few losers, whining that the product doesn't work. If you're one of these, then forgive me, but how do you know if it works or not?!
In point of fact, there are stacks of betting system review sites out there these days, many of them reputable. Of course, we still do some reviewing here on geegeez. But most of the betting system reviews are now carried out on www.onlinebettingexposed.com or www.onlineracingreview.com, both of which are within the geegeez portfolio.
These are reliable sites, where products are trialed for sixty days, and a view offered not just on their profitability but also their ease of use, volatility and various other factors that influence the usability of a system.
So, no excuses, the evidence is there, and one needs to take personal responsibility for how and when systems are used. 🙂
4. Good Runs and Bad Runs.
How to Bet: good runs and bad runs
I can't remember where I first read this, but it has always stuck with me, and I want you to try to remember it. I'll explain why in a minute.
"After a good run, expect a bad run. After a bad run, expect a good run"
Everything is cyclical: good times, bad times; night, day; yin, yang; blah, blah.
So here's your problem: you receive yet another email declaring that System A or Tipster B has been on the most rip-roaring tsunami of winners that you surely must be a mug not to pay up and join up.
Well, er, no actually. What should you expect to happen? "After a good run, expect a bad run."
I don't need to tell you that nobody is infallible, and alchemy was proven to be bunk in the middle ages when they were not very good at science.
If someone is telling you they've found a stack of winners... heck, even if you actually believe them!... the inevitability of a losing run in the near future is set in stone.
Let me put this another way: "After a bad run, expect a good run"
It is the most contrarian logic, maybe, but if one of the systems in my backing portfolio (note, I wouldn't do this with a laying system) has a losing run, I often increase my stakes.
Why? Because I know that if a system has made it into the portfolio, then I have confidence in the underlying logic. I also know something of the likely length of losing runs, based on the average odds and such like. So I know when to turn the taps on a little, and by how much.
This is the case with my own Winning Trainers (aka Dirty Two Dozen) as I write (22nd December). It's on a losing run of 43. FORTY-THREE.
But that was after a period when it had four winning months and is still over 110 points up since going live at the start of August. And, as these runs are wont to do, I - and other Winning Trainers users - have suffered second places at 8/1, 11/1, 17/2, 11/1, and 16/1 in those 43 losers. Bummer. But that's life.
I've increased my stakes for the second time in this run, and am looking forward to the inevitability that 'after a bad run, expect a good run'.
May I suggest that the next time an email or mailing piece tells you of a phenomenal run, you consider what I've written here.
Tipsters. The very word sends shudders down my spine. I know a fair bit about racing, and I write a fair few pieces on here (and elsewhere) which conclude with a selection. But I am not a tipster. I'm much more of a systemite, I'd say.
The problem with tipsters in the main - though there are exceptions, some of them notably good - is that you don't actually know if they're any better at picking horses than you!
Another problem with tipsters is that many followers of tipsters want winners not profit. As long as the follower in question recognises that, there's no problem at all.
What I mean is that 'Honest 'Arry' could give five winning tips from seven in a week, but still lose money if they were all odds on, some of them heavily.
Now if 'Honest 'Arry' has a track record that is both in the public domain and has shown 'imself to be profitable, then all well and good. Slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and all that; good runs and bad runs.
But if 'Arry's trick is to make people think they're winning because of the number of winning selections, then we have a problem. This happens more than you might imagine.
We need value in our winners. What is value? Well, aside from being another article entirely, it is this: a sufficient return to both justify and pay for all of the losers and leave a little bit besides.
This, I'm afraid, will often require the user of tipsters to keep records (gasp, again). But the bookie accounts will show the tale of the tape (recorded messages).
Now, don't get me wrong. Whilst I'm personally not a fan of tipsters (I prefer to back my own judgment, for better or worse), there are some good ones. Tom Segal (Pricewise in the Racing Post) is the most everyman affordable and effective tipster I know.
For a couple of quid a day, you can get real insights. I remember recently on the amazing 'Champions Day' card at Ascot, he put up two horses in the closing 30 runner apprentice handicap (amazing Champions Day, bar that), and they finished first and third. The winner, Edinburgh Knight, was 18/1 and the third was 12's, having been heavily backed.
Top tipping.
Gavin's brother Gary is a notable tipster of sprint handicappers at huge prices. They don't win often, but when they do, they pay for the losers and leave a lit bit extra besides. That's value. And he's been doing it for the twenty years I've known him. He's just a judge of these things.
So yes, you can find the occasional top tipster. But look for clearly documented evidence that they are who they say they are, and they have tipped who they say they've tipped. Again, OBE and ORR have tipster reviews which you can trust as coming from the geegeez stable of reviews.
Me? Like I said, I prefer to pick 'em myself, though I will often look to see what Tom Segal or Gary have put up (and they'll generally make my placepot perms at least!)
2. Be Selective!
How to Bet: Selectivity
It is impossible to win every race. Duh! But if you're the type who sits in a shop backing from race to race, or sits at home doing the same, here are some interesting pointers.
The top tipster in the Newspaper Challenge this year is Rob Wright of The Times, with an excellent 26% strike rate and a loss of 6.22% of all stakes invested. Across 8673 picks, that's pretty good going.
But blindly backing favourites this year would have yielded a 35% strike rate (more winning favourites this year than usual), and a loss of 7.01%
'Favourites' sits second in the newspaper challenge behind Rob Wright, with all other 'paper tipsters lower down.
However, if we look at the national newspaper 'nap' selections, we get a very different story.
There are fully seventeen newspaper tipsters in profit with their naps. The pick of the pickers is currently Blackpool Gazette's Steve Simpson, who is over 31 points in front.
My point here is that selectivity is much more likely to lead to profit than trying to bet every race.
If you must bet every day, no problem. Have that 'action bet' sub-bank ready. It makes sense that if you're following a system you trust, or you fancy one, you should be having a bigger bet than if you just want to have a wager.
There's nothing at all wrong with 'just wanting to have a wager'. I do most days. But I might have a tenner (or a fiver) on a 6/1 shot. Or I might even have two quid on a longer priced thing, for an interest. This is different from when I fancy something, and the stakes reflect that.
The numbers in the stakes above are unimportant. Some bet more, some less. The material point is that when betting for fun, use smaller stakes.
When betting based on a view, bet your normal stake. And be selective.
1. Commit to Learning
How to Bet: learn more about racing
What a boring number one point, eh? Well, yes and no. It depends how you think about it really. For me, watching racing presented by intelligent people (I'm afraid you'll need a satellite dish or digibox for that, in the UK at least), is instructive.
Reading blogs - maybe even this blog - can be helpful. Reading books too.
It doesn't really matter how you learn best, whether it's the spoken or written word, TV, internet or a book or newspaper. What matters is that you understand that if you keep doing what you've been doing, you'll keep getting what you've been getting.
As cheesy and hackneyed as that maxim is, it is also true. So commit to learn more about horse racing and betting. Understand how the betting market works, and the different routes into it (ante post, morning prices, best odds guaranteed, exchanges, arbitrage, laying, tote, indices).
Learn more about trainers to follow. Look at how class affects performance. And pace. And fitness. And speed. And jockeyship. And trip. And so on and so on.
It is as impossible to know everything as it is not to learn anything when you commit to the subject matter. For me, this is a lifelong journey, irrespective of whether I get to continue writing here or not. I'll never lose my love for racing, and betting, and my thirst for knowledge remains as unslaked now as it was the first time I ever watched a race.
I have more books to read on the subject than there is time available (currently on Michael Pizzola's 'Handicapping Magic', a rare out of print US text written about ten years ago; and Racing Post's 500 Greatest Gambles, a bit of light entertainment with some interesting historical snippets that I'll drop into the blog from time to time), but that's ok. I'll get to them... probably. 😉
The other side of the coin, for more experienced racing bettors, is research. Who says you can only consume the work of others? The internet has both made huge quantities of data readily available, and made everybody a potential publisher.
This is how I got to jack in the day job and indulge my passion. And it's how I've ended up writing 5000 words here, when I only planned for about 1500...!
But this is not about me. It's about you: about you being a better bettor.
If just one or two of the points above resonate with you, and you vow to work on those elements, you'll have more fun, win more money, and feel more in control of your racing and wagering experiences. Surely, that can't be a bad thing!
Please re-tweet, like/share, or otherwise spread the love in this post if you think it worthy of such actions. Thanks in advance. 🙂
Matt
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.png00Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2011-12-22 13:09:582021-01-30 11:15:59How to Bet: 10 Steps to Betting Better
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Punting Confessional – July 18th 2012
