Slipperytoad’s Maxims
The goal of handicapping is to estimate probabilities/odds rather than pick winners in individual races. Success is measured by the accuracy of the probabilities/odds, not by the outcome of any single race
Confusion, frustration and indecision – the mortal enemies of a winning player.
“You’ve beaten them once …. Now go out and bloody beat them again.”
Alf Ramsey. Extra time team talk, 1966 World Cup Final ... You can’t talk of what was, what if’s or what could have been. To be a winner you need to win time and time again..
“Don’t believe all you read”
“You could say, that our whole theory behind betting on horses is to take a contrarian approach to whatever the public is doing.”
Interview comment by Alan Woods, one of the most successful horse racing punters on the planet.
Know the difference that makes the difference.
Don’t let anyone do your thinking for you
Its better to be approximately right than to be precisely wrong
Warren Buffet
Think for yourself
Gerald Celente
It is easier to find fewer winners at longer odds in order to make a profit than it is to find lots of winners at short odds to make the same gains.
Horse racing is not like a casino game where aside fom guessing what spin or hand we should bet or pass on or simply play every wagering event (spin, hand, dice throw, etc). In racing based on past racing factors you should pick and choose exactly and only where you feel confident and when you may have an edge or where Joe Public may be wrong.
There are millions of minds trying to take money out of the markets but very few of them consistently make more than they lose. What’s your edge?
Life is divided into three terms – that which was, which is, and which will be. Let us learn from the past to profit by the present, and from the present to live better in the future.
William Wordsworth
Good intentions are worthless until they are translated into actions! If you want to be successful in betting you need a plan for success!
Markets don’t run on hope. The markets will tell you when you are right or wrong
Sherlock Holmes pointed out that when you eliminate all competing options, it’s the remaining option you have to go with – regardless of how improbable it may seem. Consider this approach when handicapping unplayable races to find those high priced winners.
“The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.”
John Maynard Keynes
“Mistakes are the portals of discovery”
James Joyce – Irish author (1882 – 1941)
When everybody thinks alike, Everyone is likely to be wrong
Losers think of selecting the winner and beating a race. Professionals think of betting for value and beating the races
Never succumb to anyone who just wants to let you know what you are doing will never work.
Don’t fall foul of the favourite/longshot bias i.e. Horses with short odds (i.e., favorites) tend to win even more frequently than indicated by the final market odds, while horses with long odds (i.e., longshots) win less So, during tissue compilation, don’t underestimate the chances of preferred contenders and overestimate the changes of marginal contenders
The best handicapping literature in the world are your own records
Try to “know what you do not know”
Anonymous
The crowd is smart … so let them do the handicapping and analyse them
The difference between success and failure is small. Therefore you need to continually work to maintain your edge and continually work to improve your performance.
Successful punters think in terms of chances., not fancies and certainties. They try to assess the true chance of a horse in a race and bet on the basis of their evaluations.
Value is all-important – not winners. The secret is not getting more heads than tails, its winning more when a coin comes up heads than you lose when it’s tails
Common sense dictates that you cannot outsmart the public if you are handicapping with the same information and methods as the public
The successful punter never allows items of news, “whispers” or thoughts of others override his train of thought when assessing a race’s runners for betting purposes
Following the herd is fine until they all run off the side of a cliff together.
If you want to make money … big money … do what nobody else is doing
Maths and models should be aids to thinking, not substitutes for it
Alfred Marshall – Founder of Cambridge economics
To be a winner, one must know or perceive things which the public must not grasp. If there is no special insight then there will be no special odds, no bargains, no overlays; the more that information is used by the public, the less it pays off at the bookies
To be successful you’ve got to have had some failures in your career – and learnt from them – otherwise you have probably been too conservative
Picking winners is easy. Beating the odds is not
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
“The aim of any entrepreneur is to make more money than you lose”
Theo Paphitis
Knowing the moment to sell is what separates the successful entrepreneur from the also-ran. According to George Soros’s son, the hedge fund billionaire sells out when his back starts playing up.
The market is incredibly efficient; don’t buck the analysis done by other who determine the market.
“Only simpletons believe everything they are told! The prudent carefully consider their steps”
Proverbs 14
We don’t want to bet horses simply because we like them. We want to bet them because we can make money in the long run by betting them.
To be a winner, one must know or perceive things which the public does not grasp
Dont try and make money, try not to lose it.
Variance will kill a gambler quicker than a girlfriend with a credit card.
The average player is average for a reason. He constantly makes bad decisions.