harry_rag

Re point 7 (best price and plenty of accounts) I'd say don't forget about spread betting, though it can be both tiring and painful banging a drum for something and banging your head against the wall at the same time! 
I'm more of a sports punter than racing but I'd say without any doubt that getting into spread betting has been the single most significant thing I've ever done in terms of becoming a better punter. You should have the accounts because sometimes the spreads will offer the best value for what you want to back. Even if you don't open accounts it's worth understanding the mechanics of spread prices as you can use them to identify potential value in fixed odds markets (e.g. the spreads for winning distances at a meeting might flag an under or over bet with a fixed odds firm).

Re point 7 (best price and plenty of accounts) I'd say don't forget about spread betting, though it can be both tiring and painful banging a drum for something and banging your head against the wall at the same time! 
I'm more of a sports punter than racing but I'd say without any doubt that getting into spread betting has been the single most significant thing I've ever done in terms of becoming a better punter. You should have the accounts because sometimes the spreads will offer the best value for what you want to back. Even if you don't open accounts it's worth understanding the mechanics of spread prices as you can use them to identify potential value in fixed odds markets (e.g. the spreads for winning distances at a meeting might flag an under or over bet with a fixed odds firm).

Ten Pointers to better punting 
Having been a punter for the best part of 40 years and finally now become successful at it I thought it would be interesting and hopefully of some use to share some of my thoughts/ideas. So here are ten points that you can digest and then agree or disagree with.
 
1.         Keep a figure of EVERY bet you have. Be it on a spread sheet or in a pocket notebook. It really does make you become more disciplined as to how much you’re actually winning or losing. We’ve all got that friend who has told us or gone to social media to show us their big win which is fantastic, we all love to see these bookie bashing bets but what about the losers? You’ll be surprised how easily it is to whittle away winnings without realising. I actually work on a week to week basis in that I try and win every week and will do a figure at the end of the week to run forward to the yearly one and then start afresh on the next Monday.
 
2.         Watch as much racing as you can. It’s not like the (good?) old days when you needed reels of video tape to record races you can access replays of the day’s races in various ways. There’s nothing like watching the race with your own naked eye and making your opinion rather than someone else’s. I personally subscribe to the Racing Post ultimate monthly service which for £34.95 monthly gives me access to all the race replays as well as access to the digital paper the night before which actually breaks down to just over a pound a day which if you’re serious about making money at the game is nothing.
 
3.         Follow Twitter !! If you don’t already sign up and follow as many trainer, jockeys, punters, journalists etc. that are horse racing related. You’ll be surprised how many gems you actually pick up about a horse’s well being or not. Nowadays many trainers use this medium to break news of injuries and have columns with bookmakers. Absorb as much information as you can, you’ll never know when it may come in handy.
 
4.         Become a weather forecaster! The most important factor in finding winners in my opinion is the ground. I don’t believe the old saying that good horses go on any ground. To me that’s nonsense! Most horses have a preference and if you can find that through the form book, or breeding, or trainer stable files then use it to your advantage. With 48 hour declarations here to stay by the looks of things just remember when placing a bet does this horse handle/like the likely ground conditions? One of my most used website's is the Met Office one !!
 
5.         Stable form can be so important. A bit of an obvious one this but if a trainer is on the cold list then I would seriously be shying away from having a go on one of his or hers. On the flip side if a trainer has hit a streak of form then we can bet with much more confidence. Oh and its not just winners we should be looking at as trainers can be in form without hitting the number one spot all the time. I like to look at the Racing Post trainers last 14 days runners and dismiss any big price runners but look closely at their runners under 8/1 and how they have they run. If a trainer has had 0 winners from his last 20 runners but 14 of those were 20/1 or bigger but the 6 that were prominent in the betting were all placed I think you could safely say that they are in good form. 
 
6.         Official Handicap ratings are important. I love analysing each horse’s handicap mark and its fascinating when they find a winning mark that he or she can win off. We may find that they then struggle off of their new marks for a while (or even longer) but when they find themselves slipping back down to their ’winning’ mark and conditions suit then that’s the time to be very interested in them especially if they’ve shown enough in their previous run to give you encouragement.
 
7.         Take the very best price. Again an obvious one but you’ll be surprised how many punters have just the one account who they’re very loyal to. Open as many accounts as possible and when having a bet use an odds comparison site (I personally use Oddschecker although bear in mind that two of the biggies in Ladbrokes and Corals have now left that site). For example constantly taking that extra half a point here and there will make a difference to your overall figure (see pointer 1.) and could make the difference from a winning day or a losing one. Also take advantage of the firms enhanced place terms with many offering these nowadays. I’m a bit torn whether to take 1-4th odds 1-2-3 or 1-5th odds 1-2-3-4 as the difference between 1-4th and 1-5th is surprisingly quite high. If I have the choice I tend to split my bet half and half so covering my stake if the horse does finish in the enhanced extra place spot.
 
8.         Check collateral form. When analysing a race it’s always worth checking how their previous race/s have worked out especially in maidens. You may find a Newmarket maiden for example where five have run since and come nowhere near troubling the judge whilst in contrast at a lesser track say Lingfield may have a maiden where three winners have come out of the race.
 
9.         Become an odds compiler! It’s not for everyone but I’ve been pricing races for 35 years plus now and it gives you a real feel for the race. If you havn’t tried before give it a try (I’ll do a further piece in the future on how to price a race). The benefit of it is that you are basically pitting your expertise against the major bookmaker’s odds compilers who have so many races to price nowadays that if you specialise on a particular race you may just find an edge. As an example If you believe Horse A is a 6/4 chance in your opinion and the bookmakers price him up at 2/1 then if you’re confident in your own ability you’ll be more than happy to take half a point over your price. It’s worth doing if you havn’t done it before.
 
10.       Read as much as you can. Nowadays there’s so many publications that can help punters none more so than the excellent Stable files that can be found in the Racing Post or Weekender. The Attheraces website also has several features on trainer’s thoughts on their horses. Professional punter Mark Holder recently tweeted that he thought that these ‘stable files’ should be dismissed but I totally dis-agree and have backed many a winner on something a trainer has said in such copy about a certain horse’s ability. 
 
As I mentioned at the beginning of this piece, I’ve been a punter for over 40 years (my first ever bet was a £1 win ante-post bet placed by my Mum on my behalf when I was 16 on an unraced Vincent O’Brien 2yo called Try My Best for the 2000 Guineas that I had read about in the Sporting Life at 66/1! And for those of you that don’t know the horse he went unbeaten through his 2yo career and ended up at Newmarket on 2000 Gns day an odds on shot only to trail in last and be retired! I think the anticipation throughout the Winter of him winning is probably the reason why I still love an ante-post bet to this day). 
Everyday I learn something new about this great game and the day I think I know everything is the day I’ll give it all up. 
I hope you enjoyed this feature on better betting and feel free to comment below on anything you agree or disagree about.
The Brigadier
 
 

Fair enough mate, no issue as long as you're enjoying it in the long run and betting money you can afford to lose. Do this long enough and you will see "impossible" runs both winning and losing. In the long run the bottom line tells you how well or badly you've done and luck becomes irrelevant.
Keep looking at your bet history and learning from it. My light bulb moment was switching from being a buyer to a seller on the spreads. The obvious next thing for me is to carry that through to a successful laying strategy but that's something for next year.
It's a sweeping generalisation but with a huge basis in reality; mug money predominantly buys or backs while shrewder money lays or sells.

Hi mate, unlucky with the recent run, sometimes happens. As I’ve been known to lament about my own form, a blind monkey throwing darts from a unicycle could reasonably expect to pick more winners!
That said, I think you need to consider the possibility, for the time being at least, that you are a losing punter. No shame in that, most are. Nothing wrong with viewing betting as a hobby where the money you lose is the cost of admission, while aiming to improve by reducing how much you lose and eventually edging into profit.
One thing I’d ask you is what do you perceive to be your edge over the bookies, across all the sports you're betting on? Do you just look at an event and back what you fancy as long as the odds don’t strike you as too short or are you pricing things up in advance and looking for prices that are bigger than your assessment?
Your approach still seems a little too scattergun to succeed. Based on my own long and sometimes costly experience I’d say you need to specialise and find a way of setting your own odds in advance for your chosen markets.
Value is a complex and controversial topic but I don’t think that many would disagree that you need to improve your understanding and assessment of it, based on your posting to date, if you want to start reducing your losses and eventually get into the black.
Good luck with your future bets, hopefully you hit a hot streak that makes it look like I don’t know what I’m talking about! 
 

Harry, I agree with everything you say.
Over the last 10 years, I haven't been a loser, but it's true that I've played less. 
In this thread, I am a loser. I've lost about 40% of my bank, that's really huge. I've never had so much loss for so few bets. 
But it's not over yet ! My goal is to reach 2k$ in December 2021. It will be necessary to succeed in winning the bets and to advance in this project. 
I still believe in it. I haven't lost everything ! 
It's going to take a long time to get back up but I'm going to make it. I will better select my bets and win as I already did. 
My strongest sports are Tennis / Football / Cricket / Snooker . So I'm going to keep playing like this. But I realize that I have lost a lot due to snooker handicaps, so I'm not going to forget that. 
I will change my bets, because I lost.
Max bet : 30$. 
I hope I'll be able to come back up slowly. That's the goal now.
I hope I could say I was really unlucky but I've reached the goal.
I think it's really possible, because every bet I play is analyzed and the ones I lost could have been won.
For example, Bet 4,9,10,13,18,19,21,22.  
It's still unbelievable.

 

Hi mate
I'll answer you in the evening
Because I'm French and it's complicated to reply
??

Hi mate, unlucky with the recent run, sometimes happens. As I’ve been known to lament about my own form, a blind monkey throwing darts from a unicycle could reasonably expect to pick more winners!
That said, I think you need to consider the possibility, for the time being at least, that you are a losing punter. No shame in that, most are. Nothing wrong with viewing betting as a hobby where the money you lose is the cost of admission, while aiming to improve by reducing how much you lose and eventually edging into profit.
One thing I’d ask you is what do you perceive to be your edge over the bookies, across all the sports you're betting on? Do you just look at an event and back what you fancy as long as the odds don’t strike you as too short or are you pricing things up in advance and looking for prices that are bigger than your assessment?
Your approach still seems a little too scattergun to succeed. Based on my own long and sometimes costly experience I’d say you need to specialise and find a way of setting your own odds in advance for your chosen markets.
Value is a complex and controversial topic but I don’t think that many would disagree that you need to improve your understanding and assessment of it, based on your posting to date, if you want to start reducing your losses and eventually get into the black.
Good luck with your future bets, hopefully you hit a hot streak that makes it look like I don’t know what I’m talking about! 
 

Ignoring the "big 2" of Son and Bale for Spurs I think it's worth backing their next couple of scorers in the betting. 9/2 for Lo Celso and 3.55 or so for Moura seem worth playing given that they often take their chance when they get a start in the "minor" competitions.

Zorya v Leicester  17:55
Marc Albrighton to be booked @ 11/4
Already has 2 cards so 1 more means a suspension next game rather than when the important games come afterwards.
Ref again likes a card or 2.

Lille v Sparta Prague  17:55
Both teams over 1 card in the match  @  1/1 
Bet Builder 365
 
Lille average 2.5 cards per game & Sparta average 3.25 per game . Plenty to play for tonight and ref looks a positive.
 

Bayern v RB Salzburg: I'm going to stick to taking the Bulls by the horns, or the corners to be more precise. They consistently cover the spread in corner matches in European competitions.
Main bets on the spreads: buy cross corners at 23 and Salzburg corners squared at 16, both with SPIN. (Cross corners being home corners taken multiplied by away corners taken and corners squared being... well you do the maths, literally!) 
Fixed odds lines worth adding into the mix are >3.5 away corners at 6/4 Sky Bet and >4.5 at 3/1 with them or PP. Also 5+ corners each team at 9/2 Sky Bet. Could be the night when RBS don't make it out of their own half but it's a standing dish for me to back them along these lines so no regrets, win or lose.

Well, only just but it’s hot chocolate all round (every one’s a winner)!
5 corners each means profit of 2 x stake on cross corners and 9 x stake on Salzburg corners squared. All the fixed odds bets land though two of them needed the last gasp final corner for the visitors. Doesn’t happen often but welcome does.

I have a vague half formed notion of a thread to demistify spread betting, where I take a selection from on here and post a spread bet alternative, track the P&L and see which way loses least or wins most! I flatter myself I could outperform the fixed odds selections and it would be fun to find out! 

Thanks for that explanation, Rachel! 
It's markets like this that make me wonder who actually sat down and first conjured them up! This is why we love you around though, Harry. Bringing stuff like this to the table. Every day is a school day!

Lol, cross corners = H x A corners so 5 each = 25 and edges into profit, 10 x 3 = 30 (result in their last meeting), 9 x 9 = 81 so crack open the bubbly. Corners squared is literally Salzburg's corners squared so if they get 4 I break even (4 x 4 = 16!). 5+ for profit, the more the merrier. 3 or less is a loss, worst case scenario is none and I lose 16 x my stake which is why I limit these bets to £1000 per point. Only joking, spread betting is as volatile as you make it so only stake that bet at an amount you're happy to lose 16 of!

Nice picks, Harry. So touching on the cross and square corners, what is the relevance of the 23 and 16 numbers? Are they the number of corners in total or the odds on the bets you've placed? Sorry, it's been a long day and I'm easily confused at the moment! 

Bayern v RB Salzburg: I'm going to stick to taking the Bulls by the horns, or the corners to be more precise. They consistently cover the spread in corner matches in European competitions.
Main bets on the spreads: buy cross corners at 23 and Salzburg corners squared at 16, both with SPIN. (Cross corners being home corners taken multiplied by away corners taken and corners squared being... well you do the maths, literally!) 
Fixed odds lines worth adding into the mix are >3.5 away corners at 6/4 Sky Bet and >4.5 at 3/1 with them or PP. Also 5+ corners each team at 9/2 Sky Bet. Could be the night when RBS don't make it out of their own half but it's a standing dish for me to back them along these lines so no regrets, win or lose.

2 winners, incl Tilaawah at 10.0. Also had one trade into 1.06 and another to 1.23 but fail to close out. Clean sweep for the places.
Win Bank +€5,916
Place Bank +€855

Todays selections


MUSSELBURGH 12:40 Celtic Flames 8/1 e/w 4 Places

MUSSELBURGH 13:15 Tontos Spirit 11/1 e/w 2 Places

MUSSELBURGH 13:50 Raymond 9/4 win

plus e/w trixie

1673 result: 3rd. Lost £80
Profit to date £987.17
Another disgraceful reaction from BrandNew once again. This guy has spread his vitriol under various names and is against everything that this site stands for.
I need these childish reactions like a hole in the head. 

your on fire harry

All of the last 3 bets were winners, including 8/1 Kane assist. One of those bets that makes you wish you used level stakes! 
There are four 4-6 cards shown bets today, all 25 points at 21/20.
It's the 3 remaining Spanish games (at Cadiz, Granada and Alaves) and the Serie A game between Napoli and AC Milan.

It’s difficult to determinate who has the highest odds. I think.
 
Take 10 match , 10 bets and compare to give you an idea.

Aston Villa cheers