Part time horse racing better-improvements/next steps?

[ABerryman]

Hi All,

Around 2 months ago I started spending more time betting on horse racing alongside my job. I use the Geegeez site for the majority of my race research alongside replays if I feel the picture is unclear from the in race comments. I also try to watch back all the races I've bet in to build up a "bank" of knowledge around horses to make the research stage quicker.

My strategy is as follows (very similar for flat or jumps):

• Assess the likely pace (&Draw) set up of the race and compare that to the course set up to see which horses may have the race run to suit.
• Quickly review the data around how a horse has performed under these conditions before (this is a specific tab on the Geegeez website). To do this I adjust the going based on the weather forecast.
• Once I have these factors I go down each horse individually and build a picture of its profile (which conditions it runs well in, handicap mark, any reasons to mark up recent performances) and then try to assign a price to this. I also add a comment to summarise its profile (this comment is visible for future races)
• Whilst going down the list of horses I try to compare horses chances against each other to get them in the right "order" of the betting.
• I currently try to price all races to either 0% of at most 0.5% per runner. E.g. for a 10 runner race I won't price up to more than 105%, sometimes I have to adjust my prices after my first attempt for get within this margin.
• When the prices come out, I compare mine to the market. My view is because I bet to a lower % than the book will, if I make something a bigger price, there is a fair chance it is worth betting. However, I only bet it if I can see an argument for it winning, e.g. if I've made a horse 8/1 and the books go 12/1, but I don't fancy it, I may not bet it. (this suggests to me I have got my prices wrong).
• If my price is bigger and I can see an argument for it winning then I will bet it. My bets tend to be 8/1 + but sometimes I bet favs if I think they should be shorter.
• Staking- my stake is mostly dependent on how far out the bookies are compared to me, e.g. Last night I made a horse 4/1 and it was put in at 10's so this was a max bet, however there was also a horse at 10s that I had as a 7's chance so this was a smaller bet. The only other factor for staking is if I really fancy a horse to win I may bet bigger even if the margin isn't as big.

Results- In September I made 5% ROI, so far in October I'm at 88% ROI. I'm also fairly consistently beating SP, although hard to say how good that is given the low margin I bet to.

Any thoughts or improvements on the above would be appreciated, I also had the following questions:

• Should I be betting to such a low margin?
• How long is long enough to show that I'm profitable and it's not just variance? My stakes are lower than they could be but don't want to up them too early.
• Do others use multiples? If so, whats the best way of using these?
• Im getting a few accounts closed, is there anyway way around this apart from friends/family accounts?

Thanks in advance for any help/advice.

[MCLARKE]

Welcome to the forum @ABerryman

You are certainly putting the work in and this often leads to success. Results so far certainly seem positive. Long term you will have winning runs and losing runs, I have had 7 profitable months in a row but also 5 loosing months in a row, the trick is not to get too excited by winning runs and not too disillusioned by losing runs.

Personally I always look for the value horse rather than the one that is likely to win and I tend to go against the crowd, for instance I go for horses that are badly drawn and those that haven't won over the course and distance as these tend to be under bet.

Long term I make about 4% return on my betting, this doesn't seem a lot but has to be looked at in the context that the vast majority of punters loose money.

It is difficult to know when you are truly profitable, conditions change all the time and you have to be adaptable. I tend to want at least a years data before I would be confident.

I never met multiples but do gradually up my stakes over time. I started with £2 stakes but I'm now up to £100 although it's taken many years to get there.

Closed accounts is a fact of life and there doesn't seem to be a lot of logic in it. I have a couple of open accounts that I've made thousands with but others that have been closed even thoughh I've lost money. The big advantage these days is that you can bet on the exchanges.

Good luck and hopefully you'll share a few selections with us.