There’s a lot of information about how to make a profit from your betting.
Heck, there’s thousands of articles on the Race Advisor alone and hundreds of them contain different strategies.
A few weeks ago I wrote up a strategy that we use and I was left a very pertinent comment…
“Thanks for all the help but there is so much information I don’t know where to start”
And he had a good point.
There’s a load of information and that’s there for a good reason. Everybody is different, everybody has different amounts of time available, different bankrolls, different risk levels and… different ways of working.
Which means that there’s no single strategy that’s going to work for everybody.
It’s just not possible.
But how do you find the one that works for you?
More importantly, how do you find the one that works for you and prevent yourself from getting distracted by the wrong thing?
The answer is… focus.
You MUST focus yourself and be honest with yourself.
Most bettors that I know of are not honest with themselves. And if you’re not honest with yourself then you’ve got no chance of being able to make a profit from your betting.
So grab a piece of paper and a pen and write down:
- How much bankroll you’re prepared to invest
- How much risk your comfortable with (can you lose your bankroll and it not be a concern or must you maintain your bankroll at all costs)
- Based on your risk level consider what kind of ROI (return on investment) you would like to get
- How much time do you have available each day to find selections
- How many bets do you like a day/week/month
- Can you cope with downswings well or do you need to keep them to a minimum
Answer these seven questions honestly and you’ve got the beginning of a roadmap to the type of selection process and betting that is going to work for you.
Always keep these answers handy and refer to them regularly. It will prevent you from going off course, it will keep you focused on what your goals are.
Now that you know this, next you need to focus on whether a system or strategy is going to best for you, and this can be done by answering the following questions while keeping in mind your previous answers.
- Do you enjoy analysing races?
- Do you have at least one hour to spend every day?
If you answered “no” to either of those two questions then the chances are you’re going to want to use a betting system. The building of a systematic process which allows you to find your selections on the day of racing very quickly. The time being spent previously to create the system.
If you answered “yes” to both of these questions then a betting strategy may be the best solution for you. This is an approach where you build a process of analysing races that you put into practice each day on the races that meet the criteria you specialise in.
Which brings me to the next stage…
Choosing your race criteria.
Again, you must be focused. Most bettors are far to generic in choosing the races they’re betting on. It’s an easy mistake to make. After all if you look at all races then you’ll find more selections and make more profit.
No.
If you do that then you won’t fully understand any type of racing, you’ll be bettong on more losers and losing more money.
Focus is the key,.
Choose a race type, small distance range, single ground condition, small range of number of runners in the field and possibly even specific classifications.
And don’t give yourself multiple options. Choose one of each of the above and that’s it. Those are the races you focus on. If there’s only one race that meets those criteria on a day, then there’s only one race.
That means you have a lot more time to spend on that race really understanding it and giving yourself a much stronger chance of picking the winner.
Once you’ve got your race conditions now you need to choose the factors you’re going to use in your analysis. Start by writing down a list of between five and ten factors that you think would have the most influence over whether a horse is going to perform well or not in the races you’ve chosen,
Don’t overthink this.
If you just sit down and write down the first ones that come into your head, most of them will be right. You can swap out the ones that aren’t effective later. But don’t worry about them for now because the majority that you write down are going to be correct.
Overthinking usually replaces correct decisions with wrong ones. So don’t do it.
Now your work starts to develop your system or strategy. But…
You know exactly the type of approach that is going to suit you. Go through the Race Advisor archives for strategies, systems and angles and bookmark any of those that would work for you based on your answers to the earlier questions.
The chances are you will only be left with a handful.
From those choose the one that fits best to the type of betting you like and the race conditions that you’ve chosen.
And now it’s time to start practising your selection process.
I’m actually not a fan of paper trading. I prefer betting to very small stakes of just a few pennies because the difference between having real money bet, however small, and nothing is huge psychologically.
Test your approach, make tweaks and continue to test. When it’s making a good ROI over at least 100 winning bets then it’s time to scale up your stakes.
Follow these steps to help prevent you from getting information overload and developing a betting approach that’s going to work for you.
This is faultless strategy and a great aid to regulating ones betting.
I am sure that we will all benefit from following these simple rules
Many thanks
Rick Greene
Thank you very much Rick.
I appreciate your help and the fact that you offer a lot of free information and helpful programs. What annoys me most is people selling tips etc and showing profits to large bets £20 – £100 per bet, if you break their figures down to small bets most are rubbish and not worth paying for.
Keep up the good work and the free content you offer I appreciate your hard work.
Hi Bill, thank you very much for your comment.
I don’t know what to believe on ROI now.
Eddie ( Anonymous Ginger ) has just confirmed that it is the same as LSP, is that correct?
Hi David,
Thank you for your message. I believe that you are looking at ROI for laying?
ROI is the amount risked divided by the profit. If you are laying then this is your liability of all your lay bets as it’s the amount risked. If you are backing then it’s your stake size, as this is your liability in this situation, divided by your profit.
So if you’ve made £150 profit and you risked £1000 to achieve it then you have made a 15% ROI.
I hope that clears it up.
Eddie said it is calculated on the PUNTER’s stake not YOUR risk. This means that to get a good ROI all you need to do is lay a string of 33/1 losers and get an ROI around 80%.
I think there has been some confusion in your support tickets, which is easy when talking about ROI and lay betting.
It is on your stake, which is your risk in back betting. In lay betting a lot of bettors consider your stake the amount you’re risking on the bet. i.e. laying at 5/1 for £1 is the equivalent of a £5 stake because you’re losing £5 if the horse wins.
So let’s keep it and say it’s based on your RISK, whether backing or laying it’s the amount you’re going to lose.
If you’re laying at 33/1 then you’d be expecting to “win” (the horse lose) 97% of your bets as the horse is expected to win the race 3% of the time. So to make a profit you’d need to be getting a minimum of 98% losing horses (winning lays) but probably as high as 99% or even 99.50%.
Michael,
Thanks, at least we are in agreement.
I have tried to say the punter’s stake is HIS risk , not the layer’s – but some falls on stony ground.
NOBODY seems to see the layer’s risk as the punter’s liability, but want to see the punter’s risk as the layer’s liability!