Time to Give up the Daily Grind.

[Zilzalian]

Well I have just finished my accounts for 2022-23 (1^st Nov-Nov) and my profit was just over £17,000 which is a good return, one of my best to be honest, fortunately I reached my threshold by December of last year by way of a few good Lucky 15 results each £1000+ so thereafter everything was profit as long as I stayed within my usual staking pattern. I had 3 maximum bets of £200, two of which won, £200 at 9/2 & 7/2, one of which lost (9/1) although I did have accumulative bets of £150 on Corach Rambler in the grand national at rates down from 20/1 to 10/1 which boosted my profits somewhat.

 

Now here is the thing. Although on the surface of things £17,000 is a good few bob for what is in effect a hobby. Once broken down it doesn't look as good as it equates to about £325 per week, again that looks pretty good for a hobby but here is the rub, break that down to hours spent on inputting Information on spread sheets checking every result of every race and calculating the speed figures then checking every racecard against those thousands of results and times daily becomes not only tediously boring but takes a hell of a lot of time so much so that it equates to about a minimum of 40 hours per week and that excludes all the races I watch both on line and TV, Britain, Ireland, France, and Germany then add on Meydan and other UAE meetings and the total hours spent on racing is over 50 hours per week minimum which works out at just over £6.50 an hour, well below the minimum wage. The money isn't the problem, it is the repetitiveness of the daily grind that then can be thwarted by for example by rail re-alignments on the flat and missed out obstacles on the jumps all corrupting the standard times, we have to expect and accept trainer/owner manipulation of the handicap, what is harder to swallow though is blatant cheating using information that is not available to everyone (Barney Curley was a master at this) This smacked me in the face and brought home what we are up against this week with the Greatwood Hurdle, all my research five weeks ago suggested that the winner would probably be Nemean Lion and I advised and backed it accordingly at what I considered a cracking bet at 9/1 (fav) since then it was backed down to 6/1 and still thinking it was value backed it again at that price (anti post) it has now drifted back out to 9/1 due to the Mullins horse, there is/was very little in the form to suggest that the Mullins horse Onlyamatteroftime would end up 4/1 fav or be anything other than mid betting (should we just back it because Mullins has taken over its training and little else?) Okay Nemean Lion might still win and the Mullins horse be midfield but that's not the point.

 

Racing is in a bad way and my observations of the 2yo this year seems to suggest it is going to get worse, this year I hardly backed a 2yo simply because there was never sufficient form to give confidence to a selection, (so why put all that effort in to the daily grind?) Group races with small fields and horses that had not run more than twice is not a good grounding for decent bets. British jump racing is in a terrible state, come Cheltenham why would you back a British trained horse in a handicap let alone a graded race when you know the Irish are going to bring a horse over that no bugger has ever heard of 20lbs well in to win the pot.

 

So given all the above I have decided that I am going to scale right back and just have the odd sporting bet, I am considering a post naming the best/fastest horse at each AW meeting just to keep an interest so people might like to consider/follow over the next few months.

 

Nemean Lion which I tipped up weeks ago at 9/1 will be my last max bet before I lower that max down to £10 or a rare £20.

 

Yes you can make money on Horse racing but you better be prepared to work hard for it because there are very few if any short cuts other than Lady Luck.

Edited November 17, 2023 by Zilzalian
correction

[harry_rag]

24 minutes ago, Zilzalian said:

Well I have just finished my accounts for 2022-23 (1^st Nov-Nov) and my profit was just over £1700 which is a good return

 

24 minutes ago, Zilzalian said:

Now here is the thing. Although on the surface of things £17,000 is a good few bob for what is in effect a hobby. Once broken down it doesn't look as good as it equates to about £325 per week

To be fair a tenfold increase in the space of one paragraph is impressive by anyone’s standards! 

[richard-westwood]

That's a shame .....but I get where your coming from ......I'm a professional chef in my day job and my biggest handicap is finding time to rate .....if I've been in a kitchen 10 hrs the last thing I wanna do is come home and rate so I do miss out sometimes ......

It's nice to win of course and I've had some fab wins but I rate and get involved purely for the enjoyment of "getting involved"....and that's the truth ....I love horses. ...Im in awe when I'm standing near the rails and I see them take off like they are flying  ....and their intelligence never fails to amaze me .....it's like doing a crossword ....I like the challenge of tackling a race and the money really is 2nd rated for me .....I very much get frustrated sometimes when I've spent an hour rating a race only for 3 donkeys to fill the places and my selections rolling in 6th and 9th ..lol ....but that's racing .....it's not personal .....it's just how it works  ....as soon as I've seen the result ..the race is forgotten ....and I move on to the next ....

Racing enlightens my life ....challenges me .....some people might find the tackling of a huge handicap daunting or really hard work but I find it soothing 😁....it helps me unwind and there's the social aspect too ...either going to races with friends or coming on the forum it's nice to connect and share thoughts and listen to people's points of views which never fails to fascinate me .....

I hope you find your mojo and stick with us 👍

[Zilzalian]

26 minutes ago, richard-westwood said:

That's a shame .....but I get where your coming from ......I'm a professional chef in my day job and my biggest handicap is finding time to rate .....if I've been in a kitchen 10 hrs the last thing I wanna do is come home and rate so I do miss out sometimes ......

It's nice to win of course and I've had some fab wins but I rate and get involved purely for the enjoyment of "getting involved"....and that's the truth ....I love horses. ...Im in awe when I'm standing near the rails and I see them take off like they are flying  ....and their intelligence never fails to amaze me .....it's like doing a crossword ....I like the challenge of tackling a race and the money really is 2nd rated for me .....I very much get frustrated sometimes when I've spent an hour rating a race only for 3 donkeys to fill the places and my selections rolling in 6th and 9th ..lol ....but that's racing .....it's not personal .....it's just how it works  ....as soon as I've seen the result ..the race is forgotten ....and I move on to the next ....

Racing enlightens my life ....challenges me .....some people might find the tackling of a huge handicap daunting or really hard work but I find it soothing 😁....it helps me unwind and there's the social aspect too ...either going to races with friends or coming on the forum it's nice to connect and share thoughts and listen to people's points of views which never fails to fascinate me .....

I hope you find your mojo and stick with us 👍

Oh i will be sticking around here, i really like this forum it is full of grammar police wanna be farmers and pro chefs 🤭 🤣🤣 I know where you are coming from with your comments i felt and feel the same but rating has now become a grind and stopping the enjoyment so i am just dropping the spread sheets and with it the stakes and just going to have the occasional bet, i can't say for fun because it was always about a bit of fun with excitement chucked in.

[LEE-GRAYS]

9 hours ago, Zilzalian said:

Oh i will be sticking around here, i really like this forum it is full of grammar police wanna be farmers and pro chefs 🤭 🤣🤣 I know where you are coming from with your comments i felt and feel the same but rating has now become a grind and stopping the enjoyment so i am just dropping the spread sheets and with it the stakes and just going to have the occasional bet, i can't say for fun because it was always about a bit of fun with excitement chucked in.

And if you cashed out on a few you would have made double 😂👍👍

[tonythepaint]

I hope whatever you decide to do works out really well for you. It most probably will as you obviously know what you're talking about.

I hope you don't mind but I've been jumping on the back of some of your ante post tips.

I did Corach Rambler,Ace Impact plus I've done Nemean Lion for tomorrow.

I simply don't have enough time to study.

Anyway good luck with whatever you do and thanks for all your help.

Tony

[Zilzalian]

11 minutes ago, LEE-GRAYS said:

And if you cashed out on a few you would have made double 😂👍👍

I did check that angle Lee and i would have been £1,400 down on my total. food for thought?

[Zilzalian]

11 minutes ago, tonythepaint said:

I hope whatever you decide to do works out really well for you. It most probably will as you obviously know what you're talking about.

I hope you don't mind but I've been jumping on the back of some of your ante post tips.

I did Corach Rambler,Ace Impact plus I've done Nemean Lion for tomorrow.

I simply don't have enough time to study.

Anyway good luck with whatever you do and thanks for all your help.

Tony

Thanks Tony It pleases me that you took the advice and made a few quid it is the reason i post them, i don't do many Antepost bets but i seem to get most of them that run right which is good, i didn't make as much as i could have on Ace Impact, i sort of lost my bottle due to the extraordinary (unbelievable?) race times it ran, i should have just stuck with my data and gone in harder as first suggested.

[harry_rag]

What was your ROI out of interest? It’s a better return than I usually manage but I’m not having any bets as big as your £200 max (though can lose that on a spread bet when I get my preferred stake on). I’m probably not putting in as many hours as you have been but am getting less “wages” per hour!

Despite things (bookies wise) generally going to sh*t I’m not feeling inclined to Jack it in at present but I do feel like I’m not maximising the returns for the time and effort I put in. Might be a case for betting bigger on the exchange and accepting slightly shorter odds. There’s room to manoeuvre on bets that have a double digit ROI.

[Bang on]

@Zilzalian An excellent year for you, but I do see where you are coming from. @harry_rag I also feel like I am not maximising the returns for the time put in.

I think it is what gets you down, not so much the ROI, but more the returns for time/hours spent trying to make a decent profit. It is not something that can be done in a spare ten minutes. 

 

[MCLARKE]

15 minutes ago, Bang on said:

An excellent year for you, but I do see where you are coming from. @harry_rag I also feel like I am not maximising the returns for the time put in.

I think it is what gets you down, not so much the ROI, but more the returns for time/hours spent trying to make a decent profit. It is not something that can be done in a spare ten minutes. 

 

I was on for my best year ever at the end of June but October and November have been a bit of a disaster. October has been my worst month ever and November is not far behind. I have always said that if I have a 12 month period where I lose money then I will probably call it a day.

It is proving more difficult now that all my bets have to be placed on Betfair. Although the commission is less than the bookies overround I suspect I am up against the professionals, those with inside knowledge and the algorithms / bots.

I am surprised that with the amount of profits  @Zilzalianhas made that he is still allowed to bet with the trad bookies. The max profit I've made with any individual bookie is £6, it would be interesting to know the maximum that members have managed to make before being closed.

To be fair I don't expect to make a meaningful profit from betting, I enjoy trawling through my stats and watching the races, any profit is a bit of a bonus. The last 2 months I have been concentrating on my share investments with very little time spent on my stats. Perhaps it's no coincidence that  my returns have plummeted.

[BBBC]

@Zilzalian sounds like you are making a decision which is right for you. I for one applaud it and wish you all the best.

I hope you still grace the forum on a regular basis to deliver in equal quantities your sage advice and piss taking. If not you will leave a “grumpy old git” sized hole. 😜

[Trotter]

I gave up the daily grind a few years ago after maybe 7 or 8 years when I was spending every evening on the following days races

I used to spend a lot of time particularly on all weather races, speed ratings, group races ........ but at some point It just dawned on me that it had become a chore not an enjoyable hobby. It had become work !

To be honest I was never a big bettor, just small stakes stuff for fun and doing all the competitions on PL. I think my biggest ever bet on a horse was £10 (and it probably lost!)

I keep meaning to get back into it but never get round to it. 

I still follow the racing news, watch the big races, still pick things for the competitions but only spend a couple of minutes on a selection rather than half an hour !

I can tell you one thing for sure ...... there are no short cuts. If you want to be successful you have to put the time in. My winner picking ratio has fallen off a cliff since I stopped spending hours on it.

good luck @Zilzalian - hope you enjoy a break. Hope you can still follow and enjoy the racing without betting and without devoting all your spare time to it

👍

 

 

[harry_rag]

3 hours ago, MCLARKE said:

The max profit I've made with any individual bookie is £6

Should that be £6K as in the most you’ve ever made or do you mean £6 is the most this year as so much of you’re betting is on the exchanges?

[MCLARKE]

38 minutes ago, harry_rag said:

Should that be £6K as in the most you’ve ever made or do you mean £6 is the most this year as so much of you’re betting is on the exchanges?

It is the most I have made in total before all benefits such as BOG have been removed. So with Sky I've made £6k, BET365 £5k, Ladbrokes £5k etc.

[MCLARKE]

1 hour ago, Trotter said:

I can tell you one thing for sure ...... there are no short cuts. If you want to be successful you have to put the time in. My winner picking ratio has fallen off a cliff since I stopped spending hours on it.

It is probably no coincidence that my results have deteriorated in the last 2 months when I haven't been putting much effort in.

[Trotter]

Just now, MCLARKE said:

It is probably no coincidence that my results have deteriorated in the last 2 months when I haven't been putting much effort in.

Someone used to say 'the harder I work at it, the luckier I get'  .,.......... 😉

[Zilzalian]

10 hours ago, harry_rag said:

What was your ROI out of interest? It’s a better return than I usually manage but I’m not having any bets as big as your £200 max (though can lose that on a spread bet when I get my preferred stake on). I’m probably not putting in as many hours as you have been but am getting less “wages” per hour!

Despite things (bookies wise) generally going to sh*t I’m not feeling inclined to Jack it in at present but I do feel like I’m not maximising the returns for the time and effort I put in. Might be a case for betting bigger on the exchange and accepting slightly shorter odds. There’s room to manoeuvre on bets that have a double digit ROI.

by my calculation if i got it right - roi about 346% but what is time worth? 

[harry_rag]

8 hours ago, Zilzalian said:

by my calculation if i got it right - roi about 346% but what is time worth? 

ROI is profit divided by total amount staked expressed as a percentage so that figure would imply you staked around £5k in total on all your bets. It’s a remarkable return if correct but then I’m probably not going to get the meaningful comparison I’m after given your returns will be skewed by any big returns from low stakes bets e.g. L15s while most of my bets are singles at much shorter odds.

I think what it comes down to is I’m probably under staking on the anytime goalscorer bets relative to the apparent edge I’ve got. I started out at a tenner to see how it went and have only upped it to £12 since. It would make sense to put more on though that might be tricky with some firms, hence the exchange angle.

There are two considerations really, only spending the amount of time on it all that you want to but also maximising the return you get from the time you do spend. Year end would probably be a good time to review both.

[Zilzalian]

45 minutes ago, harry_rag said:

ROI is profit divided by total amount staked expressed as a percentage so that figure would imply you staked around £5k in total on all your bets. It’s a remarkable return if correct but then I’m probably not going to get the meaningful comparison I’m after given your returns will be skewed by any big returns from low stakes bets e.g. L15s while most of my bets are singles at much shorter odds.

I think what it comes down to is I’m probably under staking on the anytime goalscorer bets relative to the apparent edge I’ve got. I started out at a tenner to see how it went and have only upped it to £12 since. It would make sense to put more on though that might be tricky with some firms, hence the exchange angle.

There are two considerations really, only spending the amount of time on it all that you want to but also maximising the return you get from the time you do spend. Year end would probably be a good time to review both.

 

46 minutes ago, harry_rag said:

ROI is profit divided by total amount staked expressed as a percentage so that figure would imply you staked around £5k in total on all your bets. It’s a remarkable return if correct but then I’m probably not going to get the meaningful comparison I’m after given your returns will be skewed by any big returns from low stakes bets e.g. L15s while most of my bets are singles at much shorter odds.

I think what it comes down to is I’m probably under staking on the anytime goalscorer bets relative to the apparent edge I’ve got. I started out at a tenner to see how it went and have only upped it to £12 since. It would make sense to put more on though that might be tricky with some firms, hence the exchange angle.

There are two considerations really, only spending the amount of time on it all that you want to but also maximising the return you get from the time you do spend. Year end would probably be a good time to review both.

Staked £4,932. My biggest returns over year was from L15'/31/63s, £2,190 staked £11,283 returned. singles 113 bets, RFC 173 bets, 203 small stakes RTC which lost me money. Scepticism? Well if people looked through my naps and the few L15's i have posted  you will notice the average price is around 16/1 (best priced single was 66/1 won £20ew). I do back most of my naps the only ones i don't back are the last ditch efforts in the last few days to try steal the naps table where i try pick best whopper i can find which i always fail with. 😂

[MCLARKE]

2 hours ago, Zilzalian said:

Staked £4,932. My biggest returns over year was from L15'/31/63s, £2,190 staked £11,283 returned. singles 113 bets, RFC 173 bets, 203 small stakes RTC which lost me money. Scepticism? Well if people looked through my naps and the few L15's i have posted  you will notice the average price is around 16/1 (best priced single was 66/1 won £20ew). I do back most of my naps the only ones i don't back are the last ditch efforts in the last few days to try steal the naps table where i try pick best whopper i can find which i always fail with. 😂

That is a remarkable return, I am happy if I can make a 5% return. With a ROI like yours I would be staking much higher amounts. I'd certainly be using the £17k profit you have made this year as stake next year, this would result in you multiplying your stake by roughly 4 times and if your returns continue as they are you would make £68,000 profit this year, that would probably be worth the effort.

[Zilzalian]

9 hours ago, MCLARKE said:

That is a remarkable return, I am happy if I can make a 5% return. With a ROI like yours I would be staking much higher amounts. I'd certainly be using the £17k profit you have made this year as stake next year, this would result in you multiplying your stake by roughly 4 times and if your returns continue as they are you would make £68,000 profit this year, that would probably be worth the effort.

All very well Micheal and i do not dispute what you are saying but you or someone said how come i can still get a bet on with mainstream bookies? How long do you think i would last doing what you suggested? Add to that this has been my best year in ten, i got lucky with half a dozen Lucky15's  over or around £1000 and another half a dozen that returned around £400-£800 as you have realised that is quite rare and you need good ammunition to achieve that. Remember once i said that my worse year i lost a small amount and the reason for that was i got lazy through losing my enthusiasm? (resurrected when i joined this site to a good degree) The last few months i have just been going through the motions and that is a big problem. I am 65 now and have other interests like fishing, painting and writing and i am also building a trainset in my loft, i also have a workshop in my garage which i like to potter about in not to mention two more new Grandkids. I enjoy this site and will continue to participate in the comps and the occasional piss take of the unsensitive sorts and i am quite happy to answer any questions from anyone if they need an opinion or advice.

[MCLARKE]

I agree, once it becomes a chore or distracts from more important uses of your time then it is time for it to take a bit of a backseat.

In my case I need to spend more time on my share investments as this is my main source of income. I also now have grandkids.

Also, without being morbid, as we get older the potential benefit of our "work" becomes less. I'd be a bit cheesed off to discover the ultimate system when I am 90 and then drop dead the day later.

[Zilzalian]

3 hours ago, MCLARKE said:

I agree, once it becomes a chore or distracts from more important uses of your time then it is time for it to take a bit of a backseat.

In my case I need to spend more time on my share investments as this is my main source of income. I also now have grandkids.

Also, without being morbid, as we get older the potential benefit of our "work" becomes less. I'd be a bit cheesed off to discover the ultimate system when I am 90 and then drop dead the day later.

We are reading the same script there Micheal. 🙂

[Gary66]

On 11/18/2023 at 4:58 PM, MCLARKE said:

I was on for my best year ever at the end of June but October and November have been a bit of a disaster. October has been my worst month ever and November is not far behind. I have always said that if I have a 12 month period where I lose money then I will probably call it a day.

It is proving more difficult now that all my bets have to be placed on Betfair. Although the commission is less than the bookies overround I suspect I am up against the professionals, those with inside knowledge and the algorithms / bots.

I am surprised that with the amount of profits  @Zilzalianhas made that he is still allowed to bet with the trad bookies. The max profit I've made with any individual bookie is £6, it would be interesting to know the maximum that members have managed to make before being closed.

To be fair I don't expect to make a meaningful profit from betting, I enjoy trawling through my stats and watching the races, any profit is a bit of a bonus. The last 2 months I have been concentrating on my share investments with very little time spent on my stats. Perhaps it's no coincidence that  my returns have plummeted.

This current year I have lost 365 twice used daughters lol  both times with 365 I’d profited around a thousand pounds and was closed ,sky closed me because I used to target there extra place races and do ew accas landed two or three this year in small stakes the last was up to a seven timer that all placed no winners but good prices that paid around 1200  also lost a Ladbrokes making around 600 and bet Fred were the worst by far ,Took me out after two bets on dogs 25 win one gambled from 7/2 to 10/11 , Betfair have just taken my bog away altogether so won’t be using them again I like others work hard but find it increasingly hard going through poor cards , the biggest problem I find is working out when they will try to win. I’m now running out of family and friends to get accounts after years of suffering restrictions maybe soon il have to back to the old way of going in the shop if there’s still one there,many years ago I got barred from my local as stupid youth attacking them with there money  , though they are never all winning days , I’d like to think I’m a bit cleverer now , I hope . I certainly don’t do 17000 though this year is about 4/5 I’d say and last year was about the same my stakes are normally 10/20 pounds rarely do accas but if they put 6/7 places up il have a pop good luck all 

[MCLARKE]

21 minutes ago, Gary66 said:

This current year I have lost 365 twice used daughters lol  both times with 365 I’d profited around a thousand pounds and was closed ,sky closed me because I used to target there extra place races and do ew accas landed two or three this year in small stakes the last was up to a seven timer that all placed no winners but good prices that paid around 1200  also lost a Ladbrokes making around 600 and bet Fred were the worst by far ,Took me out after two bets on dogs 25 win one gambled from 7/2 to 10/11 , Betfair have just taken my bog away altogether so won’t be using them again I like others work hard but find it increasingly hard going through poor cards , the biggest problem I find is working out when they will try to win. I’m now running out of family and friends to get accounts after years of suffering restrictions maybe soon il have to back to the old way of going in the shop if there’s still one there,many years ago I got barred from my local as stupid youth attacking them with there money  , though they are never all winning days , I’d like to think I’m a bit cleverer now , I hope . I certainly don’t do 17000 though this year is about 4/5 I’d say and last year was about the same my stakes are normally 10/20 pounds rarely do accas but if they put 6/7 places up il have a pop good luck all 

Indeed it's difficult to win with the trad bookies. Do you bet on the exchanges ?

[Gary66]

Rarely it might be something I have to look into

[MCLARKE]

11 hours ago, Gary66 said:

Rarely it might be something I have to look into

The odds are usually much better than SP, especially the longer odds selections