MCLARKE

Good pick, hope you got BOG.

You knew I would have to investigate !
My database has 5 winners from 148 runners with a very poor AE of 0.59.
Nothing in the statistics to recommend her I'm afraid, even her 14 runners on heavy going have all lost.

Another nice treble for the tips today.

You knew I would have to investigate !
My database has 5 winners from 148 runners with a very poor AE of 0.59.
Nothing in the statistics to recommend her I'm afraid, even her 14 runners on heavy going have all lost.

I'll stick with Nicky Henderson, he did have a 15/2 winner today despite another 2 losing favourites.
In the 1.50 at Cheltenham he has 2 runners, both best priced at 9/2. I'll go with MISTER FISHER, being the younger horse.
He also has 2 in the 2.17 at Doncaster. I'll skip his odds on favourite and go for the less fancied CLARENDON STREET at 9/1.

You knew I would have to investigate !
My database has 5 winners from 148 runners with a very poor AE of 0.59.
Nothing in the statistics to recommend her I'm afraid, even her 14 runners on heavy going have all lost.

It's a sensible man who admits something isnt working rather than flog a dead horse .....sometimes a change can bring about good things and we learn all the time ....I wish you good luck 

"Slow 1st and reminder,never going that well and more slow jumps,mistake 11th,well behind 14,th,
Pulled up after.".         Blimey!
Bank £396

I'll stick with Nicky Henderson despite his rubbish day on Saturday (6 losers, including 4 favourites).
2 runners at Warwick today that match my criteria.
12.52 PATROCLUS 11/10
3.32 BLAIRGOWIE 3/1

I'll stick with Nicky Henderson despite his rubbish day on Saturday (6 losers, including 4 favourites).
2 runners at Warwick today that match my criteria.
12.52 PATROCLUS 11/10
3.32 BLAIRGOWIE 3/1

1/4 shots have an implied probability of 80% therefore should  lose approx 20% of the time
In 1000 bets there will be approx 200 losers not 4
Its the 200 losers that have an Implied probability losing sequence ratio of 4 (4.29) in 1000 bets
 
I believe that's the same advice advocated by Dave Nevison (Failed Gambler,failed tipster) in one of his books who now sells his wares on Racing TV as some sort of expert mustn't be paying him that much as he looks like a tramp whose just slept in a skip when Ive seen him on tv.
Mind you John McCririck made a decent living out of talking crap and he was a failed bookie as well so couldn't do it as a pundit a poacher or a gamekeeper.

 

I think one thing you have to think about is - Why are you betting ?
I can't really speak for people who are in it to make money ..... that's never been my focus
My enjoyment has always been in solving the puzzle. Assessing form, factors, coming  to a conclusion and hopefully being proved right. What I've found is that I get just as much satisfaction from being proved right whether I have 2 quid or 20 quid on. In fact with the various racing competitions on PL I rarely bet on horses at all ....... I get the same buzz from posting a winner with no money on it
I got it right, it feels good, have a little skip around the room !
I do bet on football, very small stakes...... but I suspect if we had an equivalent Nap of the Day on football I might even give that up and just get my buzz from the competition
So .......... I only bet with very small stakes and don't worry about losing
So this would be my advice ........ if you're not in it to make money just play with small stakes and get your enjoyment from 'solving the puzzle'
 
 
 

One thing I’ve never understood with gambling is greed. If I’m up I’m up regardless of how much it is. An old friend of mine won 8k on the online slots a few years back. That wasn’t enough for him though and within two weeks he’d put the whole lot back in because in his head and these are his words, he thought he could get more out of it. I’ve chased losses before, and it’s horrible, but discipline is key to gambling. If I’m £50 up I’m happy as a pig in muck where as the friend in question wouldn’t be satisfied with that and would go after more, where he’d either succeed but more often than not lose his £50. 

A great topic and many thanks to all contributors for their sound helpful advice.

I would now like to add my £500 quids worth (you’ll see why I have said that later)

It is an old adage that one should never bet more than one can comfortably afford to lose.

I would like to take this one step further and say that anyone involved in betting of any kind should save up or set aside a sum of money to use for their betting purposes.  Just as millions of people around the country save up for months on end for their annual holiday I feel that there is nothing wrong in saving up a pot of cash to use for betting purposes.  Also, especially in these difficult times, one has to accept should one hit hard times then one may well have to spend the betting bank money on domestic needs such as food and/or keeping a roof over one’s head.  Never in any circumstances think that you can use your betting bank to overcome a domestic crisis!

In normal times (when all household bills etc are being paid) then one should operate their betting bank in a business-like manner.  However, betting does not necessarily go according to plan and you won’t be the first person to have got your strategy wrong and perhaps lose all the money that you have set aside.  If this happens, then, just as the millions of people have to save up for their next annual holiday you should do the same with acquiring a new betting bank and, hopefully, you will be better prepared for your next venture.

So, once you have saved the money and acquired a betting bank what should you do with it?

I can remember one man who had saved something in the region of  £60,000 and said that all he wanted to do was to go to Las Vegas and put it all on Red.  Win or lose that’s what he wanted to do.  What happened was that he won.  I don’t know what became of him but with such a reckless attitude I would be very surprised if he didn’t lose it all at some point.  I can also remember a man who took about £30,000 cash in bags into a William Hill betting shop and asked to put it all on a horse named White Muzzle at 9/4.  He said that if it won he wanted to be paid in cash.  The horse on this occasion lost the race.

These are mad extremes of people risking all to gain a big win.  It is pretty obvious that if one saved up, for example, £1,000 and kept putting on large sums of money on an event then their fun would be short-lived and so they would have to wait and wait to save up for another go.

On order to make use of a betting bank so that at least one can hopefully have an extended period of fun which may well outlast the time spent on a one or two week holiday, I have compiled a table of staking associated with allowing for an average maximum losing run based upon 1,000 bets with various probabilities and stakes adjusted as to whether one wishes to cover the expected maximum losing runs 3, 4 or 5 times over.  I have pulled the maximum expected losing runs off the internet and have not checked the formulae that support it. Perhaps @MCLARKEcould possibly verify this if anyone else other than me wants to use it. One thing that should be pointed out is that if one needs to cover a maximum number of expected losing sequences over a figure of much more than 1,000 bets for example 10,000 bets then the expected maximum number of losing occurrences increases.  An excellent example of this is that in the US in 1943 a record number of reds that came up in a row was 32! Also, it is reported that 39 Reds came up in a row in at the Casino Monte Carlo, Monaco.  All this is after tens of thousands of spins on a roulette wheel.  Contrast this with my figure of 10 for even money selections in the table.


 
Without further ado I herewith print the table:

 


 
I have used a £500 betting bank for my purposes but any amount could be used.  I will use the tidied-up stakes for the maximum of expected fives times losing runs. Being cautious if a price is in between the fractions or decimals above I will use the smallest stake.  For example, if a price is 10/1 to 19/1 I would stake just 70p.  Strictly speaking, one should have a £500 pot for each category of pricing but this is just not practical.  Finally, I will not bet on anything under 4/6 so £12.50 is my maximum stake.

 
All this seems to be very well but what none of us knows is what are the true odds of a horse winning when we strike a bet.  We are told that the final market prices reflect almost the true odds. I do have doubts about this.  And, even if this is true then I’m sure that we have all experienced events such as scrambling around to get 2/1 about a selection only to find that it drifts out to something like 9/2 at post time and runs no sort of race. In this instance of course although the market adjusted for the horse’s lesser chance we have not allowed for it.
Further, you will see that a horse called Highland Avenue got beat by a neck at 1 to 4 in the 4.55 Kempton yesterday (previous price 13/18 PL). It was expected to run well and win however I don’t think it was a true 1 to 4 shot.  Looking at the table you will see that 1 to 4 shots are supposed to only lose 4 times in a 1,000 bets.  I am pretty sure that I have seen much more of these short-priced favourites turned over in the last 1,000 results. In my opinion, the bookies have deliberately shortened the price to mitigate their liabilities. This is the main reason why I don’t trust any odds offered at shorter than 4/6 ( I don’t even like these that much).


 
Hence, when one is considering a bet one should always be asking oneself whether the best offer price exceeds the estimated true chance of a selection’s success.

 
Finally, @The Brigadiersaid something like that if he fancies a long shot he has found it best to put the same amount of money on that he would do so on a horse at a skinny price.  I know from experience that it is very annoying for me to put say £4 on an even-money shot that comes nowhere and then find I put only £1.20 on a 5/1 shot that romps home.  Because I seek to protect my bank account I feel that it would be safer to use a more modest approach such as if I fancied a 20/1 shot then I would place two or three times my usual stake on the selection.  For example instead of 70p (in the table) I would put either £1.40 or a max of £2.10.  What I am trying to avoid here for example is that if one usually puts £10 on their selections not to go overboard on long priced selections.

 
I hope that some of this advice helps or at least creates some interest.

 

 

 

@adamross extends his lead at the top with a 9/2 winner after @BARNSLEYCHOP's selection is headed close home to lose by a head at 11/1.
Bet of the day goes to @UBET10 with a 66/1 placed effort.
@jcw joins @Astleavista with 7 out of 9 winners.




 

I've evolved constantly over the past 10 11 years ......when I first came onto this site about 10 years ago I was doing speed ratings and I think my first post was speed ratings for the 1000 guineas where I tipped blue bunting at 66/1 top rated and he duly won ...winning me 670 in the process.which was pretty special ...I probably spent the next couple years having a fair bit of success with the speed ratings but I realised after a while that there are many factors involved with what makes a horse win on the day .....weight ...distance....conditions ....jockey ...course ..class ..I was watching a documentary on the weather one day and they said they improved the computers weather accuracy from 18% to over 60 % by running 30 or 40 slightly differing scenarios and going with the most likely outcome that the computer predicted overall ....I remember thinking what if I applied that to racing ....so every single day I picked races and for about 12 monthes I taught myself why certain horses won and why horses lost when they were meant to win .....I learnt how to hcap horses ....how to rate class .....I could already speed rate ....so I came up with a spreadsheet that could rate it all ......it worked really  well so then I made another that would give preference to class in one rating.....would give weight preference in another.....speed in another and so on .....eventually after about 20 diff spreadsheets or programs and I'm talking hundreds of hours of programming i taught it to basically look at the big picture and take it's best guess at what the horse could should do today based on everything  ....and that's just what it does ....its as accurate now as it's ever been so I dont mess with it much but I do sometimes alter variables or maths and run the new thing alongside the old to see if it improves profit etc ........I have to constantly watch things though ....I started getting a run of bad results about 12 months ago and after investigating I realised that an error had occurred in the complicated maths .....was literally a bug that the program had created which inserted a single division sign in the 30 line code and then auto saved it so I have to periodically check the code now and even reload an original copy to make sure these bugs dont occur .....I bet solely for fun ....but the ratings have paid for a couple of holidays over the years and given me so much fun and excitement  so I feel all the hard work has been paid off  in full and I just trust them now blindly .....I wait to see what the ratings are then just look for the best value .....but I'm always open to new ideas or posibiltys ...sometimes ill see something or an idea will pop into my head and ill try it to see if it works .....in the last 12 monthes I altered the class rating and it seems to have made the ratings more accurate so I left it in ....constantly evolving lol 
I had this book years ago which had a formula you could do on a calculator ....it was about 7 or 9 stage formula .....I lost the book and couldn't remember the title .....if I could see it again I might try that because it was pretty good at picking winners ....if anyone knows what it is I'd love to know lol

1st 3rd 3rd ...14pts profit on the day 

backed in too 17/2 
+£300
p/l +£160

Thanks for the 10 pointers, very useful. As I used to say when I worked, you can't beat experience. Having said that apparently the brain begins to deteriorate from age 30 so it's swings and roundabouts.
I agree with all of your 10 points but I don't follow them as well as perhaps I should.
1. Record keeping. This is essential and is the reason I became profitable when I realised what worked and what didn't. I think I quoted once that I thought FRANKIE DETTORI was useless in sprints but when I actually looked at his records he is very profitable at short distances.
2. Watch racing. I'm pretty useless at this I'm afraid. I'm much more a statistics man.
3. Twitter. I must admit I struggle to separate the wheat from the chaff when I read trainer's comments.
4. Weather. Some of my best bets have been on horses that are proven on heavy ground.
5. Trainer statistics. When looking at these (and indeed other statistics) I use AE as a measure as ROI can be heavily influenced by the occasional long priced winner.
6. Handicap ratings. I think this has to be combined with actual weight carried, I find weight carried a very important factor in my systems.
7. Take the very best price. This is key. On average I make about 5% return. This is the equivalent of getting 15/8 instead of 7/4 on your selections. It is important to get early prices and BOG and take advantage of any offers that are available. 3 of the best at the moment are the BET365 Feature 4/1 races, UNIBET UNIBOOST and BOYLESPORTS Free Bet If 2nd To SP Favourite.
8. Collateral Form. This can be very informative as it uses information that shows the true worth of a run rather than information that can be open to interpretation such as speed figures.
9. Odds compilation. Again I'm useless at this, I probably need more practice.
10. Reading. I have a small library of racing and statistics books that I refer to and still request them on my birthday lists. My particular favourites are by ALAN POTTS, MARK COTON, NICK MORDIN and PETER MAY.
One further point I would add is to be a contrarian. You are unlikely to make a profit by following the crowd, you need to find an edge by doing something most punters don't do.
My handicap system is a case in point, it selects horses that are not fit, are relatively unknown and not short priced.

HEXHAM 12.55
ASKING FOR ANSWERS 11/4
BET365

Tuesday 08/12/2020
Wolverhampton 05:30 BAD ATTITUDE
f/c. 7/4
Stake =  10 pts. WIN

Had this too you copying my systems lol ?

There is 1 horse that fits my young handicappers criteria in the 2.08 at FONTWELL tomorrow.
EARTH MOOR - available at 6/1 with BET365
 

My best bet today is taking advantage of BOYLESPORTS Free Bet If 2nd To SP Favourite offer.
In the 7.10 at Wolverhampton there are only 5 runners and the favourite and 2nd favourite are well clear of the rest at 8/11, 11/8 and 16/1 bar.
I calculate that there is a 37% chance of the 2nd favourite winning and a 39% chance of the favourite winning and the 2nd favourite being 2nd.
This gives a massive expected return of 19% for TOMOUH and is a cracking bet.

My best bet today is taking advantage of BOYLESPORTS Free Bet If 2nd To SP Favourite offer.
In the 7.10 at Wolverhampton there are only 5 runners and the favourite and 2nd favourite are well clear of the rest at 8/11, 11/8 and 16/1 bar.
I calculate that there is a 37% chance of the 2nd favourite winning and a 39% chance of the favourite winning and the 2nd favourite being 2nd.
This gives a massive expected return of 19% for TOMOUH and is a cracking bet.