Advice

Help! I’ve Got Two Systems With The Same Selection

I don’t think I’ve written about this since 2010, so I thought it was about time to come back and tackle this issue. It might be something that will effect todays horse racing!

If you run more than one betting system or strategy then you will, without a doubt, have faced the problem of more than one approach giving you the same selection.

Of course, this isn’t a problem on its own. But what if one system tells you to back the selection and the other tells you to lay it!

You’re in a difficult position of having to decide whether to back, lay or ignore the bet.

So what can you do?

Well the first thing is not to panic. There are a number of ways to go about making a decision of what to do…

The simplest is to not take the bet.

There will always be another race.

Unfortunately not taking the bet is not always that simple. If you’ve built your approach on past data and didn’t take into account what would happen if you didn’t bet on these selections, then before you do that you must re-analyse your approach on historic data and remove these selections.

Effectively by not betting on them you are changing the system you built. And if you change the system you built then you must make sure it’s not relying on the selections you’re removing to make a profit.

My preferred approach over the previous is to see which of your selection methods generates the greatest return on investment (ROI).

Then choose the bet that approach has suggested.

Once again this will require a little bit of time investigating details. I wouldn’t recommend that you simply go ahead and do it.

Go through your records and pull out all of the selections where both approaches have selected the same horse. Have a look at which approach generated the most profit in this scenario and use this approach to determine how you’re going to place these bets in the future.

If we continue the process from the previous example a little bit further, then we can break the selections we found down into odds ranges.

You should have at least 30 winners in each of the odds ranges you break them down to if possible.

Now check which selection method performs better in which odds ranges, and the method you use is now dependant on the odds available on the selection.

Both of these techniques are good ways to determine how you’re going to bet when this happens. The first way is the quickest and simplest, particularly if you use software to build your betting systems.

But don’t forget…

Although it is effective, if you’re prepared to spend more time using the later technique then you are also likely to generate a greater profit.

Michael Wilding

Michael started the Race Advisor in 2009 to help bettors become long-term profitable. After writing hundreds of articles I started to build software that contained my personal ratings. The Race Advisor has more factors for UK horse racing than any other site, and we pride ourselves on creating tools and strategies that are unique, and allow you to make a long-term profit without the need for tipsters. You can also check out my personal blog or my personal Instagram account.

One Comment

  1. There is an even easier method that requires no work at all.

    If both methods are profitable in the long term, simply place both bets as normal.

    With a little effort one COULD compare the two stakes ( if possible under system rules ) and place a bet for the balance of the two figures – but always remember to keep both bets IN FULL on your system records.

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