Strategy

Introduction

After many years of struggling with the practical (and psychological) aspects of punting I have determined that “Guerrilla Betting” is one method that can provide that all so important edge over bookmakers and fellow punters. In summary it means:

“to be always on the lookout for situations when the enemy (the crowd) is weak and take advantage of the profitable betting opportunities they provide”.

Examples are identifying an advantageous draw bias, favourable statistics or trends. Taking advantage of crowd hysteria, confusion or lack of knowledge in chaotic races. Unearthing a horse or team that has superior abilities compared to it rivals, specialisation, whatever. The point is to exploit any situation that can give you an edge over fellow punters.

It must be ego at work, but I think almost everyone who has set out to find a way to “beat the races” has hampered themselves right from the start. The reason?

Trying to beat the races rather than some subset of the races, like dirt sprints, maiden claimers, or off-track routes at Ferndale. It’s important to be a specialist in this game because nothing works in all situations.

You have to find the right tool for the job.

We’d all like to find the “hidden Z component third race back followed by drop in class and jockey switch” factor which would make us rich in any situation.

But every situation is different.

It’s important to define your “situations,” find the really relevant categories, and then use the predictors that work in those categories.

My objective is to develop a portfolio of betting strategies using information that the public underuses or ignores. The focus is to develop, document and track results for each of these strategies on this web site. Their developement is based on the following premis

In order to make money betting on sports, you must either have information that is not being used by the betting public, or you must have a superior ability to process the information that is public

What you wont read on this blog is a daily list of “my tips”, however, you can review selections on my virtual notepad.

Currently my experimental investment portfolio consists of the following strategies

Horse Racing

[*] Pace Handicapping (predominately All Weather races)
Analysing past races to see what sort of runners have been winning. Analysing the horses entered in a race to try to figure out how the race will be run. The object is to find the horse or horses that best fit the profile of what it takes to win at the track.

[*] Virtual Stable
Objective is to identify horses who in my opinion are winners in waiting

[*] Bath Racecourse
Selections from my local track

[*] Exotic
Beyond the “One Horse” bet and limited to to fields of 12 or less and applied as follows

Exacta as a win bet: When the favourite is your first choice but an underlay as a win bet. Play the favourite on top (first) over what you consider to be the likely placed horses

Exacta as place bet: When the favourite is vulnerable to a long shot(s). Bet the long shot to win and play the favourite on top of your longshot(s)

In chaos races: If the favourite is false and there are multiple win contenders, write down the probable exacta payoffs in table or matrix and bet the highest paying combinations.

Bet Types

• Win – When I have a strong opinion
• Place - Bets on favourites that are more than likely to place
• Trading - “Back to Lay” legitimate  favourites or market leaders
• Exotic - Exacta’s (see above)
• Lays – Against vulnerable or false favourites

Selection

The overall objective of my handicapping process is to identify, in advance, the two out of three races that are not won by the crowd favourite and for win bets identify two non-favourite horses (or more) most likely to beat the favourite

To determine contenders’ I have developed my own ratings using objective measures or “par” standards for speed, class, pace etc. Each par score is derived using statistical techniques. Each contestant is matched against these standards to create a rating and subsequently a relative ranking between horses.

Ratings serve to bring out the logical contention in a race; beyond this they have only a small value. Skill in the work of making sound selections is found in the individual’s knowledge of horse racing and his ability to evaluate his ratings in accordance with the facts as they pertain to thoroughbred horses.

If horses were machines, then ratings alone could be accepted at near face value. But race horses are not machines; they are animal athletes whose performances in many instances are governed by stable intentions as well as the physical condition of the horse.

Per the advice given in Clive Holt’s Book “Be A Successful Punter” the next step in identifying contenders is:

• Note the higher rated horses and close rated horses
• Visualise the running of the race (see pace handicapping above)
• Investigate their past performances and compare them with the race to be contested for any marked disparity in class, value and weight
• Establish which are capable of acting on the course, over the distance and on the prevailing going
• Take note of any form comment that indicates superiority or ill-luck in running.
• Establish the horse can run to its best or promised best with evidence of recent proven, progressive or promising form
• Ensure the horse’s stable is in form and not suffering from below par performances
• Review the rest of the field for any obvious danger that doesn’t show up in the ratings

Money Management

The ratings are then used as a basis of calculating fair odds for each horse per the example below:

My “edge” i.e. how much value is being offered by the market is calculated as follows:

% edge = probability of win x odds – probability of loss

Initially I use my tissue to identify value in the early price markets. The benchmark I seek is around a 15% advantage or positive difference between my prices and the market to guard against odds fluctuations and inaccuracies in my process i.e. any edge in red (over 50%) suggests I need to review my assumptions!

Why? Because the market (especially Betfair) is smart therefore in all races (especially low grade events )  I let the “crowd” do their handicapping first then analyse them in matching my opinion against theirs (via my tissue) a few minutes before the start of the race. Its at this point the crowd has processed all available information and factored their opinion into the market; the critical decision point for we “value” punters.

As a follower of the Sartin Methodology I bet a minimum of two horses to win.

The decision criteria i.e. the amount of money to bet on contenders with the biggest edge who in my opinion are the most likely winners is governed by the Kelly Criterion (shown in the “% bank“ column) and easily calculated on my PDA.

optimal bet % = edge / odds

To  keep things simple for the blog, I will track my progress using level stakes at starting price on the results page