Racing Chat - Thursday 26th August.

[Zilzalian]

Started this thread early because i have been following "the debate" about tipsters, timeform, RP ratings and other observations etc.

Here are my thoughts and how i make money from "investing in horse betting"

So basically you want to make money from Betting, firstly there needs to be a distinction between betting and gambling and yes we all gamble in one way or another but

it is better to separate the two, i watched people gambling for years in the Bookies, some would gamble on everything, dogs, horses, fruit machines and Fixed odds terminals and every so often someone got a win and all talked about it and you always heard the same responses "i remember once" and there is the problem with gambling wins happened so infrequently so much so that it was news for a day or two. The common thread with gamblers is that most followed something or other even if that "other" was a hunch or instinct. when i first started gambling (yes i include myself as once a gambler) i was intrigued by all the different betting slips there were, i didn't have much money to waste at that time so after a short while i took one of all the betting slips home and tried to fully understand them, once i did, one by one i threw them in the bin but i knew that it was quite pointless putting 50pew on a horse, it just didn't suit my head, i wanted a chance of a decent payout so i ended up with the slips for Lucky 15/31/63's and the blank standard white betting slip. I have a passion for numbers so the Lucky 15/31/63 suited my head i dropped the Lucky 63 because it was too expensive and generally stuck to Lucky 15's because i liked the idea of 1 winner double (then later treble) the odds and reasoned that because i backed at the bigger prices i would only need 1 winner to either get my money back or make a bit of profit, I will put in here, at this point i wasn't doing anything with the sole purpose of making money, it it had an entertainment value so a 10p Lucky 15 was £1.50 maybe less than the price of a pint at the time the only difference being the occasional return from a pint or two was either a bad head or a spew ring, whereas a return on a bet was quite useful, the drink never added to my wallet but the bet occasionally did. now lets be honest you are very unlikely to make a living out of a Lucky 15 that is why the bookies love them and promote them so much and one should never do what the bookies want you to do. I read lots of books on betting and the then sportinglife weekender Now the RP weekender) was the only medium i bought. At that time Nick Mordin did a systems column and it was very interesting, i also was intrigued by Dave Edwards column on his speed ratings, once i understood most of these things i decided that Edwards speed rating were somewhat over complicated so i devised my own and had pretty good success with them to give some idea of timeline it was around about the time Dr Devious won the Derby Rodrigo de Triano won the 2000 guineas and Marling got robbed in the 1000 Guineas so was 1992. To make a long story even longer i soon realised the only way you could win long term was the single win bet although i never lost my liking for the Lucky 15 as a way of having a bet in 4 races, basically having something to watch on TV when racing was on. (my best return from one of these bets was about £6,000 from a lucky 31 when as an impulse i bet all Andre Fabre's horses in a 25p lucky 31 (and a few daft add on bets) and they all won 10/1 10/1 2/1 2/1 and 1/1)

The biggest change to horse race  betting came with CIS as they started to stream pretty much every race into every betting shop and that is where the punters (the smart ones) gained a big advantage because seeing is believing. Now every race can be streamed into you home which is even better.

So there you have it all you need to be a successful punter is to watch races and have a pad and pencil in your hand and check your observations against the time of the race if they correlate then you have a bet the next time they run. You wont always be right and they wont always run to the level you first thought but enough of them will to make you a profit.

[MCLARKE]

1 hour ago, Zilzalian said:

all you need to be a successful punter is to watch races and have a pad and pencil in your hand and check your observations against the time of the race

I must admit it I never watch previous races and (as yet) do not use speed ratings but I've made a profit for many years. My success is based on statistics.