Efficient market?

[mrmoron]

Hello, This is my first post on the forum so apologies if this has been mentioned several times already. Is Horse Racing a highly efficient betting market? I have been involved in investing for many year but am relatively new to the sports betting market. My view of financial markets is that they are largely efficient markets with little opportunity to short term trade for profit. The only consistent way to make money long term is buy and hold. There are so many studies that show very very few hedge funds beat the market over the long term. This is because for listed markets all information about a company by law has to be disclosed in full. So many analysts follow the companies that there is little opportunity for short term profit by active trading. Obviously private companies and property are different as these markets are more inefficient. Things like forex is an excellent example of a highly efficient market. The other thing to consider is that there are several factors working against you in financial trading. The huge numbers of analysts following companies, disclosure laws and the emergence of robotic high frequency traders that rig markets. Could Horse racing be different? I don't know the answer, that is why i'm asking here. I suppose my question is are there any punters that can consistently beat the bookies over the long term in the sports betting market? In particular horse racing? I don't mean just outliers, where statistically there is always a handful of people who do well be chance, similar to a lottery. Are there any studies that show skilled punters can beat the market so to speak? I have been reading an interesting book by Dave Nevison about the betting market which got me thinking about sports betting. Perhaps horse racing is different. Smaller races perhaps are less well covered by large number of handicappers. The punter is up against a human bookie who sets the odds, that could be prone to error. Again I must stress I am very new to this. Any advice or studies would be greatly appreciated. Mr Moron.:)

[mrmoron]

Re: Efficient market? Or do bookies make consistent errors, allowing opportunities for profit?;)