I was at a party the other night and was chatting with someone who is not only a profitable bettor but also has a love of the sport of horse racing. This love of the sport has lead him into contact with a some of the TV personalities that we see presenting on channels such as Racing UK. Not only do they present but they often also created odds lines and provide tips.
He was telling me about the sheer knowledge of horse racing that these guys have. Of course I wouldn’t expect anything less, after all they are presenting horse racing programmes!
However there knowledge is very traditionally British!
What I mean by this is that they approach horse racing from an enjoyment of the sport rather than a business. If you ask the majority of these guys if they bet then the answer will be ‘rarely’.
Why?
Because they can’t make a profit. They may know everything about horse racing as a sport but they know nothing about horse racing as a profitable betting medium.
Yet every day thousands of punters listen to their advice and take their forecast odds to be gospel!
If I gave you advice about oil shares and then admitted that I knew nothing about how the oil market worked but I knew everything about how oil was made would you take it?
Of course not!
So why take it from racing presenters.
This brings me to the second point of this article. There are two types of people, those who love horse racing as a sport and those who love it as a way to make a lot of money from betting.
These are two very different types of people and rarely do they cross-over. This isn’t to say that pro-bettors on horse racing don’t enjoy the sport, they do but it is very secondary to the true business of making money.
Let me explain why these two types of people are so different…
If you main love is for the sport then you are going to be focusing on the horses, trainers and jockeys. Names are going to be important to you, knowledge of pedigrees will make a big impact and you will be interested in the intricacies of all aspects of a race.
When horse race betting is your business then ultimately all that matters are figures. Of course you are going to be interested in the same things as those who love sports but you will be looking at them very differently. The intricacies will be looked at from a point of view ‘Can I rate this or analyse it in a methodical way to improve my bottom line’. If the answer is ‘no’ then the interest for it has gone.
To be at the top of the game as a pro-bettor all that matters is increasing your bottom line, nothing else.
Once you have mastered that you can then come back to the sport and enjoy it once more but until that time focus on the right thing is key, and as a profitable bettor the only right thing is profit.
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