Top Ten Betting Mistakes
The first step to formulating a
solution, is to define the problem.
The following points are areas of betting where many punters often get
it wrong. My views arise from long personal experience and years of
communication with successful and unsuccessful punters alike.
My aim here is to highlight these common areas of failure in the hope
that I can speed up your learning curve towards successful betting.
Read the following thoughts and you may be able to side step many of
the pot holes others have fallen into in the past.
1) Failure to Use Betting Banks
Most gamblers fail to understand that the best method of achieving a
healthy and sustained long term profit from racing is to set aside a
sum of money away from your main finances, solely for the betting of
horses.
Whatever method or system you are using, whoever you are following or
subscribing to or however your own bets are calculated, you are better
off with a "Betting Bank" that has built -in advantages that can help
you. It needs to be independent from your own personal finances and
needs to be protected from factors that can threaten it. This can take
a lot of emotion out of the decision making process. Emotion is a
factor that threatens all punters.
The size of your betting bank will of course be dependant upon your own
individual circumstances and free capital available. An analogy to the
world of shares perhaps may be that no financial advisor worth his salt
would advise you throw all your capital into the stock market alone.
The vast majority of punters fail to use any form of set aside bank.
They bet randomly with what ever money they have in their pocket at the
end of the week or go in too deep with stakes far in excess of their
personal safety levels.
A punter with a professional attitude will set aside what he can
comfortably afford to invest and then determine the best use he can
make of that fixed sum of capital.
With a fixed sum of capital available you now move on to the next
reason for failure.
2) Failure to Stake Correctly
It is vital that you consider your betting bank as capped in amount.
You do not have an endless pool of resources to dip into. Betting by
its nature carries inherent risks. These risks include periods of low
strike rates and long losing runs. Your betting bank and staking should
be adapted for the method you use.
You must in advance, prepare yourself for the possibility of a worse
than average sequence of losers through adoption of a sufficient number
of units in your betting bank.
Correct methodical staking in addition to the mathematical advantage,
can also help overcome the risk of emotional reaction to a sequence of
unusually positive or negative results.
Take the Pricewise column in the racing post as an example. Long term
if you could get on at the advised prices, it would have returned a
decent profit overall. During this time however followers would have to
have endured runs of up to 40 losers in a row!
Despite the overall long term profit I suspect the vast majority of
Pricewise followers would have been terminated either by a failure to
set aside a sufficient amount of points or through failure to cope with
the emotion of the losing run.
We have long since established here a strike rate of about 35% on our
Best Bet selections and at an average S.P. of over 5/2 for each winning
bet. We feel able to protect clients banks as long losing runs haven't
happened and the strike rate and odds have been more than enough to
ensure long steady and safe growth for your betting profits. That is in
essence the key to winning money. Manage your accounts in a way that
protects them as far as possible from the element of risk that the game
presents you.
3) Chasing Losses
Chasing losses at first sight may appear to be an easy way to guarantee
an eventual profit but the true story is it is a game for fools and
statistically will not work unless you generate an overall level stakes
profit.
Chasing losses is a game for the ill informed who do not want to make
the effort to seek value in their bets. Bookmakers have to price
up every race. Punters don't have to play in every race, they can pick
the races they want to bet in ,and that is the main edge that people
fail to understand. If you have had a losing day, by attempting to
chasing your losses you give up that advantage and bet in the races
that you should not be betting in. You are therefore betting the way
bookmakers want you to and not in the way to win.
Many punters will alter their stakes in the last race either to
"chase" losses or "play up" winnings. Its no coincidence that the
bookmakers have ensured that the last race on each day is often a
handicap or one of the hardest races that day . There will be more
racing the next day and the day after that. The secret is waiting for
opportunities and only betting when you know you have circumstances
which favour you and not the bookmakers. You must never change your
approach, or deviate from sensible staking as there is no such things
as "The Last Race".
4) Lack of Value Appreciation
Appreciation of "value" in a bet is core to long term success.
To profit over a long series of bets you must be betting at odds
greater than the true chance of winning your selection have. To do this
however over the long term, you need to concentrate on each race
individually and seek the value bet in that race.
There is value to be had in every race. The key to it is understanding
where that value is. Many times a punter will screw up a losing betting
slip and say "At least I had some value". There is absolutely NO
relationship between value and prices. A 33/1 chance may be diabolical
value yet a very short priced favorite may be supreme value. It does
not follow that the bigger the price you take the better "value" you
have . The value is sometimes clear but more often well hidden and it
takes a trained eye to see that.
Everyone has this "Foresight" on occasions, it is a game
about opinions after all and nobody is always right or wrong. Value can
be the most expensive word in racing if you can't bet winner. The old
cliche is that value is about betting a horse whose true chance is
better than its price reflects. That's only a small part of it. You
also have to make sure that you bet in the right way and in the right
races as that is the only way you can keep strike rates high and
protect a betting bank.
You should continually strive to increase value in your bets. Once you
have a selection you feel is value do not just take the first
acceptable price that comes along. Seek to improve it by shopping
around the various bookmakers or try and top the best bookmakers price
by looking to the betting exchanges.
Marginal improvements on odds on each bet you make can have a dramatic
effect on long term profits.
5) Greed For Instant Wealth
Many punters seek the thrill of a life changing bet that will produce
huge gains of instant wealth for a small outlay. Bookmakers play on
your natural desire and go out of their way to encourage you to bet
exotic multiple selection bets that can in one hit, turn a small stake
into a large sum.
Professionals however rarely bet in multiples. Most professionals bet
singles and steer away from the multiple bets. Bookmakers relentlessly
promote a host of multiple bets with exotic names such as Yankee, Lucky
15, and Goliath. The reason they are heavily touted is the profit
margin in the bookmaker's favour increases the more selections you add
to your multiple bet.
Say you select any random 5/1 selection. If you bet this as a single
the bookmaker may have a theoretical edge in his favor of 15%. Taking
two such selections however and betting them in a win double, the
bookmakers profit margin rises to about 30% !
Yes your win double can produce a much bigger win from the same stake
however over the long term the bookmaker is eating away at your capital
at a much faster rate.
It is a waste of time debating which type of multiple bet is 'best'.
Unless your prediction skills are supernatural or you are incredibly
lucky, then betting in singles is more often the best option.
You may say that many "Pros," do bet in multiples in bets like The
Scoop 6 or the Jackpot, but that's only because they know there is
plenty of "Dead" money in any given Pool and they are betting against
people who don't understand the dynamics of those types of bet. There
are times you should bet in multiples but in truth they are few and far
between.
You can't approach this as a "Get Rich Quick " scheme. It is a long
slow process of serious and sustained profit and not a game for Get
Rich Quick schemers. If you go Into any Betting shop, have a look at
all the posters on the wall offering "special offers", "enhanced terms
" and "bonus offers". You will see they are all multiple bets.
Bookmakers want you betting in multiples and it is easy to see why .
They carve most profit from them. You never see a Bookmakers promotion
offering extra's on a win or each way single. Ask
yourself why .
6) Lack of Discipline
Lack of Discipline is the big hurdle for punters trying to turn a losing
hobby into a winning one. Bookmakers know that. That's why in every
betting office you can bet on numbers, lotteries, ball games, racing
from all over the globe with horses nobody has heard of before and even
now computer animated, or as they call it, virtual racing.
Bookmakers just believe that its a case of punters sitting all day
betting on what ever is put in front of them and sadly they are right
in many cases .They are simply thrill seeking and don't care what they
bet on, as long as they can bet. There is no methodology at all and
many betting office regulars are simply a bunch of headless chickens
prepared to pay long term for the warming buzz of the occasional win.
Even more experienced regular gamblers who are savvy enough to turn
down bets that they know are stupid always let themselves
down by continually bleeding their profits with a fun tenner here and a
fun tenner there.
It takes great discipline to NOT bet at times. It takes discipline to
walk away from a horse when the price isn't right. It takes discipline
to say no to that small fun bet. It takes discipline to keep your money
in your pocket and deny yourself the emotional buzz of watching your
runner.
Punters come in all shapes and sizes. Even the shrewder punters who
could win at the game, fall into the trap of lack of discipline
of study. After a winning period they forget that what made them
winners in the first place, was the effort they put in. They fall
victim to
over confidence, laziness and indiscipline.
Being a long term successful punter is like swimming against the tide.
It takes an effort to stay still, even greater effort to move ahead and
as soon as you relax or slack off you start to go backwards.
7) Emotion
Betting is a lonely game. Its also a highly skilled game. Emotion
undermines success in many ways . There is comfort in knowing that as a
sheep when you are wrong it is not your fault as you were simply doing
what everyone else was doing. With betting, the laws of market supply
and demand, dictate that long term, the sheep will get fleeced. Emotion
neutralises discipline and long proven successful practices. The result
of any isolated race has little or no relation to races just before
that or just after that . Races should be viewed in isolation from each
other. We are all emotional in betting but the players at the top of
the tree have this down to a fine art and can control those emotions.
Other punters have long since been conditioned by bookmakers to EXPECT
to lose rather than win.
They have an in built psychological factor that makes them feel like
losers and they have been conditioned to losing by years of doing so.
Over 95% of punters are flawed emotionally. Examples of emotive
gambling include punters following a horse ,trainer or a jockey blind .
The "Hype" horses are cannon fodder for emotional punters. They may
also follow tipsters blind as they "hate" the thought of missing out on
a winner.
They pay no attention to the changing conditions of a race that may
follow non runners or the ground changing. They misunderstand
confidence and can't cope with a lack of confidence. Emotion also
prevents people from advanced betting subjects such laying , hedging
and arbitrages. Emotion forces some punters to bet horses with certain
names that remind them of loved ones. Names such as "Long Tall Sally "
and "Susan's Pride " attract many to them just for a name that's
relevant to them .
Most punters have a grudge against their own money and winning and
being successful is alien to them. Emotional punters lose their heads
in barren times and fail to capitalise on winning runs. They mess about
with systems and staking plans that make no sense. The more emotion you
can rule out of your betting , the more successful you will become .
You have to view everyone in the game as your enemy and as people
trying to take your hard earned money away from you in the same way as
you would a pickpocket . Once you can master your emotions you have
made the first big step to betting profitably .
8) The Grass is Greener
The grass is rarely Greener on the Other Side. The truth is that the
grass that isn't working for you has not been grown, cultivated or
looked after properly. Many punters change approaches and methods so
quickly that they don't give any method a true test . If they find a
system that works they don't continue after a few bad results . It is
the same as gamblers who write down every bet they have . Once they
have a few losers they often lose the heart to do this and stop doing
so and move on to another area .
They are like children with new toys at Christmas . They never stay
with any method long enough to prosper . They always feel the" Grass is
Greener" , when in truth the "Grass" they are using has been abused and
left to deteriorate.
They want the next Big "new idea " or "method " and that doesn't work
either as the fault lies not in the Grass, but the Gardener .
They have no long term consistency in their betting and are constantly
tinkering with what wasn't broke or moving on in search of the holy
grail before a full evaluation of what they are currently examining has
been completed.
A competition to win best garden will be won by the person who
can spend most time in the garden and master its challenges, the
gardener who is prepared to care about his garden and invest in the
tools that will help his garden grow and keep the weeds at bay.
It's the same with betting. You will do far better long term if you can
make a concentrated effort of learning and research in one key area
rather than flitting from this to that.
9) Laziness
Most punters are LAZY! They have religiously followed a doctrine of
poor planning and lack of research. They refuse to study and spend
hours looking at how they can win at betting. They refuse to invest in
the game and invest in their own learning . You cant refuse to spend
money, just look at the racing for 30 minutes and expect to win long
term. You simply can't get away with that in the hardest trade of all ,
Winning Money at Betting. If it was that easy , then millions would do
it .You must either invest in your betting , or pay someone to do just
that .
Natural human tendency is to try and get away with the least amount of
effort. Lazy punters are cannon fodder for the bookmakers. They make
little or no effort in their selection process nor make an effort to
extract maximum returns from their bets. Those who put the most work in
are the more likely to succeed.
My philosophy is simple. I believe that if a bookmaker, journalist or
odds compiler spends 3 hours on a race then I'll spend 6 hours on that
race to gain the edge.
The famous golfer Gary Player once said "The Harder I Work the Luckier
I Get". That is true about both golf and betting .Most people can't
spend 12 hours a day studying betting as they have families, jobs,
commitments and lead their own lives. That is what you pay us for. We
do that study for you and re-invest money in our betting so that we can
find every edge possible to Help You Win.
10) Stupidity!
Amazingly most punters fail to learn from their mistakes. They continue
for years making the same basic errors time and time again. Pure
stupidity.
Strive to improve your betting performance by continually learning from
the mistakes and weakness is your game.
Your bookmaker may have been laughing at you for years. You have it in
your power however to improve your betting and hopefully wipe that
smile from his face for good.
By: m mcguiggan
Article Directory:
http://www.articledashboard.com
Guy Ward is an experienced and well respected uk horse racing and
betting analyst.
Find out more at www.Mathematician-Betting.co.uk
