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Keeping The Bookies Sweet…

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This week I thought I’d look at a few ways in which we can maintain our accounts with the bookmakers. Follow these three steps and in an age where bookies seem to shut people down left right and centre we can, by following these three steps keep them open for longer.

Rule number one is to open as many accounts as you can and spread your money about as best you can. It’s so much easier these days and you can simply go online and find a massive list of bookies to sign up to.

Rule number 2 is to spread your stake about between these various bookmakers so you look like a small time punter to each one. Even a £100 bet can be seen as a large stake to a lot of bookies and they’ll watch you more closely. Stick to £25 bets and spread them about.

The final rule is a bit more tricky but once mastered can leave you with more accounts open than you would have normally had you not done this. Simply upping your stakes slightly on an over-bet favourite and then laying it off on Betfair. You will lose a small proportion but the idea is that once your over-bet jollies start to lose, the bookie is happy because your account is not in profit with them but you have simply “shifted” money from one account to the other for a minimal fee and you can then pull your profits from Betfair. I know many people that use this technique now and as part of their working day they are constantly moving money between various accounts and then filtering it all through the exchanges.

Of course you need to be successful first and this can take time and practice. It took me long enough and I learned from one of the best in the business!

So move your money about a bit more and you’ll be able to use the bookies for longer than most people.

I’ll be back next week with more ideas and thoughts on the colourful world of betting.

MATR

Preparing For Cheltenham

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I’ve written about preparing for various festivals before so sorry if you’ve read that before but I feel I need to stress the importance of not over betting when there is so much great racing on.

We’re being spoiled this week with Cheltenham over three days and I for one cannot wait. So how will I be preparing for this today ready for kick off tomorrow?

Be selective about what races you bet in. I for example have gone through the cards for the three days and selected between 2 and 4 races per day that I think I can get a handle on. As you know I love my handicaps and that is exactly what I’ve focused on.

So step one when facing any type of festival is to focus only on the races you feel you know your stuff on. Below is the list of the races that I will be playing in –

Friday 14th November –

1:50 Handicap Chase

3.00 Neptune Novices Hurdle

 

Saturday 15th November –

1.50 Handicap Chase

2.30 Paddy Power Gold Cup Chase

3.00 Handicap Hurdle

3.35 Triumph Hurdle Trial

 

Sunday 16th November –

2.10 Arkle Trophy Trial

2.40 Shloer Chase

 

So you can see that I have now just 8 races to focus on instead of the mammoth task of going through 19 races!  So what’s next.

First up then I run through all the results for the last 10 years for every race. I pick out all the key trends that I feel are relevant for each winner for every year. I draw up a list of all the trends that have shown to be consistent with every winner and runner up. This immediately shortens the list of qualifiers and saves me having to go through every single runner.  As long as a horse meets at least 3 of 5 key trends then I know that I have a horse likely to run well.

Having got my short-list of runners I move onto the form book and start to ring round various contacts in order to find the best horse that is likely to give me a good run for my money. Sometimes there could be up to 3 horses that I’ll back in one race to increase my chances, sometimes there could just be the one runner worth backing.

Finally and one of the most important approach is to sort my betting bank out. I use a separate one for festivals that doesn’t effect my day to day bank and divide the sum of money that I have by the number of races that I have chosen to play in. So let’s say that I have £1,000 for Cheltenham. I simply divide this by the 8 races to get around £125 per race.

Another great tip to round things off is to use as many bookmaker accounts as you can. There will be bookmakers left, right and centre trying to get your money and as a consequence will be offering concessions galore. Take advantage of these money back offers and you’ll money will go a LOT further.

So to re-cap. If your not going to use a tipster who knows his stuff then simply narrow down the races that you’ll be playing in. Use every resource you have to find the winner whether it be trends, form reading, software or whatever you can get your hands on. Finally and most importantly set aside a bank that you can afford to lose and divide by the number of races you will be betting in. Oh and of course get on board as many bookies as you can to make your money go further.

I’ll be back next week with more insights into the betting world but until then good luck with your betting and enjoy the marvelous spectacle that is Cheltenham.

MATR

 

Taking The Bookies For Millions

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Nowadays it’s lot more difficult to pull the wool over Bookies eyes as they are better informed than they ever have been. There are still people who manage to do it but you need to be very clever!

There are many popular ways to deceive the bookies. One method is to strike a bet on the wrong horse so they shorten up and push the price out on other horses. You then get a better price for the one you really want to back. This only works if you’re well known to them and you have large stakes. Another popular one is to ring up and ask for a price. Whatever they offer you, you state that you can get on at a better price elsewhere. As soon as you’re off the phone they shorten up. You then get someone else to ring up and put a larger stake on the one you want!

One of the greatest racing coups of all time though had to be the one that Patrick Veitch organised. The horse was called Exponential and was ruled out on the day of the race as a no hoper. He opened on course at 100/1 and was steadily backed in to 8/1. The horse won comfortably and Veitch reportedly won over half a million pounds in cash. Not bad for a days work!

He’d spent months preparing for the race and everything was kept very quiet before the race. No one had a clue what was coming and the actual betting only happened 10 mins before the race started. A perfect plan well executed.

There are many brilliant coups out there and more recently Barney Curley organised a massive one that hit the bookies for millions. Just google his name and you’ll be able to see all the coup’s he’s managed to pull off. The guy is a genius!

Back next week with more stories from the betting world.

MATR

Backing Odds On Favourites

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I wrote about this subject some time ago and thought I’d touch on it again as it seems to keep coming up in conversation with various people.

It is often a divide in opinion as to whether you should back odds on jollies. I know a few people in the trade and I know a few guys who do very well by concentrating on the shorter prices. I tend to stick to the top end of the market myself! But what of the 1/2 and 1/4 shots that occur at least once a week if not more? Should we be backing them for such little returns? If you think they’re value then hell yes!

My only word of caution would be an odds on jolly in a large runner handicap. They do happen and I would be inclined to avoid them as a 1/2 shot in a 12 runner handicap would probably be worth opposing in terms of finding better value elsewhere in the field. However if it’s small field and you can’t see past the favourite then fill your boots. Just because it’s a short price doesn’t mean it isn’t value it purely means that it has a massive chance of winning.

So what’s the key to success with such short prices? It’s your strike rate you need to be looking at. There’s no point in backing 1/2 shots all the time but only getting half of your bets won. What I mean is to make backing 1/2 shots profitable you would need to be getting 7 out of 10 winners. This would equate to a profit of 5% on turnover. Not amazing but a profit is a profit and I know people that settle for 5% although they have a massive turnover. Heck I know someone that settles for a 3% profit on turnover but their turnover is 1000’s of pounds a week.

So there you have it my argument is that we can absolutely back odds on shots as long as we think it’s value and we know that we can find enough winners to make it pay.

I’ll be back next week with more thoughts on the betting world.

MATR

The Biggest Fail In Betting

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This week I’m going to talk about one of the biggest fails in betting. Staking and money management is quiet simply one of the most important things when it comes to making a profit from racing. People tend to focus all of their energy in finding the winner and can actually be very good at it but at the end of the month they’ve lost their shirt. Could they have made a profit? Could they have at least broken even? Probably if they’ve found a way to find the winners but are failing to stake them properly.

Your average punter will start the month with a few hundred quid to spare and throw £20 at a horse they fancy. It goes onto win and then they’ll have £40 on the next and so on. If there’s a logical approach to finding a winning horse then the same goes to how we bet them as well!

At the end of the day a bookies margin sits anywhere between 8% up to 16% on each book. If we are betting consistently and at the same end of the market we should in a simple world only be losing up to £16 per every £100 bet. I know it doesn’t always work like that BUT here’s another example. If we only ever bet horses that are 4/1 in the market then we will over a long period of time be winning 20% of our bets (4/1 at SP that is) and being very close to break even.

So with the two examples above this means that if we were to alter the size of our stakes then we would be nowhere near to keeping up with the percentages if that makes sense. My point being is that we have a much better chance of at least breaking even or losing less if the approach we are using is consistent and we KEEP our stake sizes the same.

So whatever your betting or whatever tipster your following the answer is quiet simple really – bet no more than 2% to 5% of your betting bank and keep the stake sizes exactly the same and you stand a chance of making a profit.

I’ll be back next week but until then good luck and enjoy the racing.

MATR

 

 

Massive Odds But Long Losing Runs – Could You Cope?

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One of my betting friends only concentrates on backing horses that have had a long lay off and get over-looked by the market. He does extremely well and I’ve seen him pull in some massive wins at juicy odds. He does however go through very long losing runs which is of course is one of the reasons a lot of people are put off by this method.

Arguably though it is probably easier to make a long term profit from the bottom end of the market as you are opposing the masses. What I mean is that it’s difficult to find long term value at the top end as these horses can be massively over-bet. Conversely though when betting longer odds we need to have a strong constitution with the inevitable long losing runs. Did you know that if you were to concentrate on horses that where priced up at 25/1 or above you could expect (brace yourselves!) up to 135 consecutive losses in a row. So imagine trying to make a living out of that! You would at £100 stakes be potentially £13,500 worse off before you were likely to pick up a winner. Balls of steel needed for that one!!

At the top end of the market then backing odds of between 7/4 and 2/1 you’d more than likely only see a losing run of up to 12 in a row at the most. That’s a lot more like it and would appeal to most people and bank sizes.

So a more popular method is to combine several methods in your portfolio. Some that cover the top end of the market and others that focus on the bottom end. That way you’re getting plenty of winners and covering the losses at the bottom end of the market but when the bottom end hits you’re making a nice overall profit.

When getting involved with betting you need to be aware of these losing runs dependent on the odds and work out what will work for you. If you don’t like lots of losers then avoid anything at 10/1 or above. However if you like big priced winners then you’ll need a big bank to cope with the losing runs. If you stick to the top end of the market then expect plenty of winners and a smaller bank but keep an eye on your strike rate as if you don’t hit enough winners you’ll fail to profit!

MATR

Betting Over The Jumps

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Last week I spoke about betting at the Cambridgeshire Festival at Newmarket and how it pays to concentrate only on specific races that we feel we can get an angle in. Then we split our bank accordingly. I wanted to carry that concept on and look at how to implement that into the jumps racing as the new season is upon us.

Let’s assume that we will only be researching and betting in handicap races. That gives us quiet a lot of work everyday as more than half of races run in the UK are handicaps. However if we concentrate on lets say class 3 – 4 races then we’ll be limiting ourselves to less bets. We decide to concentrate on the top three in the betting so we’re getting a higher strike rate and then pick out what we feel to be the horse with the best chance.

As an example that would give us 8 races today that are either a class 4 or class 5 race and a handicap. Going through the top three in the betting and looking for the ones with the best form has given me three horses that I like the look of. On that basis let’s assume that we’re going to be betting around three horses a day. We need a bank that can withstand around 21 bets per week. I would make this around 80 units. That way were I to have a losing streak then I have a bank big enough to cope with that.

Have a look at what you feel are the best races and only focus on those races. Become a specialist in those races and always paper trade anything that looks good. Once you’ve built up a picture of how many bets you’ll be striking and how many winners you get then you’ll be able to build a betting bank that should see you betting throughout the whole season.

That’s it from me this week.

MATR

Preparing For The New Season

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It’s that time of year where we need to be considering how we’re going to be playing up the jumps season which kicks off around the middle of next month. As the evenings draw shorter we also start to see the floodlit evening racing from the all weather courses. I know some people that start to pack up at this time of the year now that we’ve seen the last of the classics over the flat. Others are just starting to warm up now we head into the jumps.

A lot of people view the start of the jumps as a lowly crappy affair and it is sensible to approach betting with a little caution as we wait for the form lines to settle a little and the ground changes along with the seasons in this country. For me personally it pays to concentrate on the all weather but keep your eyes closely on the jumps action as it unfolds. This way we can keep the betting bank turning over and look to move in and profit from the jumps once we’ve seen some more action.

So it’s time to wipe the dust off those all weather betting systems, contacts that only come out to play at this time of the year and start to concentrate on horses that have a proven good track record on the all weather. Many trainers will be gearing up for the season now and it also pays to concentrate on those that perform well on the all weather tracks.

Have a look through the many websites that offer such information on the upcoming season and prepare yourself in advance. Having prior knowledge before the season starts will make it all less stressful and you can start betting with confidence. You’ll also gain an idea of how many bets you’ll be likely to be placing and this can help when deciding on the size of your bank. I always start afresh when it comes to a new season and set aside 2% of the bank for each bet. This will allow you plenty of leeway when it comes to those dreaded losing runs.

So in summary, start reading up on the many previews and information that is out there about both the all weather and the jumps season. Get an idea of how many bets you’ll be likely to place and set aside a bank that will cover this. Start to do it now and come three weeks time you’ll be focused and ready to go with confidence.

That’s it from me this week and I’ll be back next week with more ideas and views on the world of horse racing.

MATR

The Bookmaker Is Not Our Enemy!

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This week I wanted to talk about how bookies are always seen as the enemy. I think that people forget that without them we’d not have a source to enable us to bet with! We need the bookie as much as he needs us it’s as simple as that. The difference is that the bookie needs a whole load of people whereas we only need one bookie.

A bookie makes his money by making his book and then relying on 100′s if not 1000′s of people expressing their opinions about the outcome of a race through the medium of betting. The purpose of this activity is the same for both parties and that is to win money. However as an individual punter we only need one bookie to strike our wager. Well in reality nowadays we do need a portfolio of bookies such is the nature of competitiveness that we can get better prices by shopping around.

Anyway my point on all of the above is we need to change our mindset when it comes to bookies. I hear people moaning about them being fleecing bast***’s and the like all the time but this really isn’t the case. Admittedly things have changed over the years and they now perform more of a trading operation and don’t lay bets like they used to but they’ve adapted to a more educated customer base and this in turn means we need to do the same.

It is possible now via the internet to get all manner of concessions and price boosts etc from the bookie and as they fight over each other for our business we need to see them as friends and carefully and skillfully fleece them! Take advantage of their price boosts and free bets. If you know how to you can lay these bets off and trade out of various positions. The industry has evolved and we need to evolve with it.

So it’s time to change our opinions on the bookie and start treating them like our friends whilst quietly going about extracting as much cash as we can from them.

Back next week with more thoughts on the whole punting scene.

MATR

Running About

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It is often said that taking exercise is good for you. Running is a prime example of this. It gets the heart pumping and allows the blood to flow around your veins. This is a tipping site I know so what the hell am I talking about?

I remember when I first started punting on the horses. I was, like most people a failure and lost more money than I won. Familiar story I’m sure you’ll agree. So when I told my parents when I was in my early 20’s that I’d taken up running they of course thought I’d taken it upon myself to get fit. They were actually partly right, I would be getting fit but not from the usual form of running!

When running, the idea is that if you were to place a large sum of money down in one go in a shop the traders would shorten it up presuming that the person who placed the bet knew something they didn’t. The idea is that you have to literally run around as many shops as you can with small bets in order for the traders not to notice. Imagine a horse at 5/2 in the morning markets. It would only take a total of a £1000 for the traders to cut it into 9/4, a bit more and then 2/1 etc. until the price has gone. It’s obviously important to get as much money down at the bigger price as to increase your long term profit. This is why some of the large punters employ runners to get their money down. Believe me though, they do employ some very clever tactics to try and not let the bookie know there is a gamble going down but at the same time they employ some idiots who totally cock the whole thing up!!

Of course this all makes up the colourful world of betting on the horses. Which is why we all love it so much! That’s it from me this week and I’ll be back next week with more tales from the punting world. Until then good luck and have a great week.

MATR