Cash rich, time poor

RoyalAcademy2

The thread of irishgoat below is a bit puzzling to say the least. I guess I have lots of doubt on its authenticity and claims of success. Its written as if there is a "eureka" moment possible in betting on racing-there is not! Discipline, hard work and more hard work is the ONLY route to success.

Being very time poor for form study I often wondered if a methodical following of a tipster like Delargy or McClean could possibly compensate? The biggest problem for me here is being "told" what to do and even though I don't have the time it would probably be very boring and routine.

There are sites that monitor paid-for sites profitability and some are profitable over the long term.

There are also occasionally guys out there generously passing on their own thoughts - the verdict on the effort on this website has a hung jury at present - and one of the best I have ever seen was Shanto on racecaller.com which sadly is no more. Anyone know where he emigrated to?

I know I don't post a lot here but it could be a useful debate?

kiers47

Fair assessment. I will add to this.

There is a common misconception amongst people who enjoy a bet or enjoy racing or sport that doing it for a living is he holy Grail. It may be for some and yes if your good at it it can be rewarding I guess. But it's not all it seems to be it can be w miserable way of life.
By all means people should be trying to become a winning punter. That's a given. But I certainly wouldn't be giving up my job to try and beat the bookies or exchange commission. It's a broken system and takes far to much effort for such small reward.

Whiplash85

RoyalAcademy2 wrote: »

The thread of irishgoat below is a bit puzzling to say the least. I guess I have lots of doubt on its authenticity and claims of success. Its written as if there is a "eureka" moment possible in betting on racing-there is not! Discipline, hard work and more hard work is the ONLY route to success.

Being very time poor for form study I often wondered if a methodical following of a tipster like Delargy or McClean could possibly compensate? The biggest problem for me here is being "told" what to do and even though I don't have the time it would probably be very boring and routine.

There are sites that monitor paid-for sites profitability and some are profitable over the long term.

There are also occasionally guys out there generously passing on their own thoughts - the verdict on the effort on this website has a hung jury at present - and one of the best I have ever seen was Shanto on racecaller.com which sadly is no more. Anyone know where he emigrated to?

I know I don't post a lot here but it could be a useful debate?

I often wondered was that Shanto guy the voice from ATR. His strike rate was phenomenal.

BumperD

Gambling full time would be miserable. The lows are as punishing as the highs and would wear you out, mentally draining

Two tipsters I followed for a time was Pricewise Tom Segal and that was over 10 yrs ago when he was hitting some great form. He’s gone to pot long ago, one year recommending 5 ( yes FIVE) different horses for one championship race in the space of 2 weeks on his various platforms (ante post, the racing post daily edition, 3 on separate previews). I followed McClean for a short while around the same time when he was posting selections in the Sunday times. That fell away and died

I do take note of the more knowledgeable posters on here who post consistently, with a rationale rather than just x horse 2:30pm with no logic/rationale which are just random selections/fancies.

For the most part, I bet infrequently , and only based on horses I follow myself . I set aside x per year and if that’s lost it won’t bother me. I’m more interested in the sport as a whole and have interests in the sport outside of the betting side.

Betting every day with 5 or 6 selections, I never quite got that. That behavior is more aligned to problem gambling rather than someone expected to get a positive value return . Each to their own I guess but if you want to have any chance making a few quid a year betting on horses, you have to maximize the bet when the price is assways or you have information indicating a better run is expected compared to the price, that way you maximize the chance of beating the over rounds built into the market. Trying to do that with large stakes other than on track at big festivals is hard. Having said that, not an issue for me with my modest wagers.

I’m always interested in hearing of new sites/forums though a lot are now just feeders for online bookmakers rather than discussion forums

Fanny Wank

I know a few people who made good cash playing poker back in the day. Lay people seem to think gambling for a living is glamorous. It's not, it's a grind similar to a lot of jobs. Putting in long hours. As one of the lads used to say "variance can be a cruel mistress"

2ndcoming

Whiplash85 wrote: »

I often wondered was that Shanto guy the voice from ATR. His strike rate was phenomenal.

Gary O'Brien or Des Scahill? O'Brien has been known to steer punters in the right direction in fairness to him.

longshotvalue

Fanny **** wrote: »

I know a few people who made good cash playing poker back in the day. Lay people seem to think gambling for a living is glamorous. It's not, it's a grind similar to a lot of jobs. Putting in long hours. As one of the lads used to say "variance can be a cruel mistress"

I can agree with the poker part of this. Playing internet poker for a living is just a terrible existence (at lower levels), way easier to do a normal job.



It was easy money maybe 15 years ago but now there is simply too many good players and its an awful grind.



Its a similiar thing with Betting on horses, my time available to study races have gone down hugely in the last few years and so have results. Its no fluke, it takes a lot of work to find the value in these races.


I would hate to be depending on gambling for living expenses, and after trying it with poker about 10 years ago, its just not worth it even if there is money in it.

kiers47

Fair points Aidan. Im pretty terrible at poker and even i managed to win some money online about a decade or 15 years ago. I am good with numbers which did help. But ive tried online again at low-mid stakes in the past 5 years with a terrible and i mean woeful success rate.


But i have been thinking some about this. It does seem that people just want always want the easy cash. I mean who doesn't i suppose. What i mean though is that people are usually looking for an easy way of making it pay and tbh i cant be having that it is even possible to not put in the effort and get some sort of roll going.

Firstly people should always, absolutely always do their own study. If someone makes a case for something and tells you it is value. Then you should be trying your absolute hardest to convince yourself they are wrong. If they aren't then back it maybe.

Tbh if i was to do it full time. I wouldn't even entertain taking selections from others. I would listen to them but i would ultimately want to be making the call.
You need to be hard on things. You need to scrutinize everyone and everything. There needs to be no blame. If you lose you move onto the next bet. None of this blaming jockeys or trainers crap. If you make a bad bet. Accept it, learn from it and move on. You can be critical but you must always be the one to take the blame if something or someone needs to be blamed. Accept that not every value bet will win and once you are placing value bets then that is all you can do. Anything that happens after that is just down to that great word someone used above "Variance". This is the absolute key.

This is why i wouldn't do it. It is an absolute cruel game and the level of effort to what it is even worth getting out of it is to great for me. I enjoy it and would like to keep my hobby's separate to my job.

Whiplash85

2ndcoming wrote: »

Gary O'Brien or Des Scahill? O'Brien has been known to steer punters in the right direction in fairness to him.

Gary O Brien

Shemale

2ndcoming wrote: »

Gary O'Brien or Des Scahill? O'Brien has been known to steer punters in the right direction in fairness to him.

Dessie struggles to pick the winner after the race

RoyalAcademy2

A few points on the above:

No-one has admitted to paying for selections and if you follow the monitoring sites you will see that most involve daily selections - often many bets - and this requires too much time chasing shadow prices and often concentrates on AW racing, something of little appeal to me. If you do subscribe, expect the long losing runs where you regularly have to question your own sanity. If I were to nominate one site with very consistent results not costing a whole lot it would be the "stat of the day" from Chris Worrall. Just one daily bet, no BS and good results. Not for me though as I prefer to lose my own money!

Concentrating on a single, specialist area can be interesting. If you select an area like 2yo nurseries it greatly reduces the data that has to be monitored and you will become an expert in a relatively short time. I like to compare OR, RPR and Timeform ratings to see where the handicappers differ and where the official handicapper may have over or under-estimated and consequently there's a few ricks and a little value. Koikeeper on the Betfair forum does good stuff on hunter chases, for example. I have 5 or 6 areas I work on......when I have the time.

I can say for certain that most of my own methodologies have been profitable over the years as they are tried and tested routes to winner finding that are often contrarian and so require strong faith. Does this mean I am betting profitably? More often that not, no! My world of work and family impinges and my colleagues will laugh when I say "guess what? That horse I mentioned won at 12's today and, yes, I wasn't on!" I think part of the reason is most of my friends have no similar betting interest so it's easy to lose concentration. I often think a small email group of like-minded punters could be a route worth trying. To work it would probably mean a generous sharing of views and ideas.

Anyhow, thanks for all the contributions so far, it's a great game.

RoyalAcademy2

This is a reasonable effort to sum up the highs, lows, frustrations and willpower involved in "faithfully" following a professional tipster.

https://www.geegeez.co.uk/the-ups-and-downs-of-tipping-services/

It doesn't cover the boredom of being "led by the nose" or the dissatisfaction of not being able to form one's own opinion in any satisfactory manner.

People forever under-estimate the likelihood of a long losing run. For example (if my maths are accurate) the chances of a 30-selection losing run - backing horses at an average price of 4/1 - are 22% over a 1,000 series of bets. Not many will survive this kind of setback. Also, Tom Segal has often recorded 50 consecutive losers in a row.

I still think that specialisation is the key to your own selections: Ballydoyle have, for example, recorded an LSP with their stable outsiders in Group One races over a sustained period of time. Few enough bets, big prices and an interest in every flat season (James Pyman wrote about this recently).

Mostly Harmless

RoyalAcademy2 wrote: »

People forever under-estimate the likelihood of a long losing run. For example (if my maths are accurate) the chances of a 30-selection losing run - backing horses at an average price of 4/1 - are 22% over a 1,000 series of bets. Not many will survive this kind of setback. Also, Tom Segal has often recorded 50 consecutive losers in a row.

100% agree, so many people fail to comprehend just how many (and how long) losing runs can/will be and do not stake accordingly - certain thread on here a fair demonstration of this phenomena too, this from Hugh Taylor gives a great overview of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QaHN-57Ajo

longshotvalue

RoyalAcademy2 wrote: »

This is a reasonable effort to sum up the highs, lows, frustrations and willpower involved in "faithfully" following a professional tipster.

https://www.geegeez.co.uk/the-ups-and-downs-of-tipping-services/

It doesn't cover the boredom of being "led by the nose" or the dissatisfaction of not being able to form one's own opinion in any satisfactory manner.

People forever under-estimate the likelihood of a long losing run. For example (if my maths are accurate) the chances of a 30-selection losing run - backing horses at an average price of 4/1 - are 22% over a 1,000 series of bets. Not many will survive this kind of setback. Also, Tom Segal has often recorded 50 consecutive losers in a row.

I still think that specialisation is the key to your own selections: Ballydoyle have, for example, recorded an LSP with their stable outsiders in Group One races over a sustained period of time. Few enough bets, big prices and an interest in every flat season (James Pyman wrote about this recently).

Pyman is typically late to the party, if it wasnt for big priced Ballydoyle outsiders, i would be the biggest looser of a flat tipster anywhere.. There are literaly loads of oppertunities. Even their superbly bred 2yo's are often just stupid prices, in big races. Take Lancaster Bomber and Mendelsohn in the Derhurst last 2 years. Long may it continue of ill have to wait for NH every year.


Now hopefully we'll all keep it quiet and let the bookies still price them up far too big.

abarkie

RoyalAcademy2 wrote: »

Also, Tom Segal has often recorded 50 consecutive losers in a row.

Don't recall the Racing Post promoting that!

That said, I have given up buying the Racing post - other papers are available

RoyalAcademy2

There's a good piece by Tony Keenan on the modern (Irish) betting market here:

https://www.geegeez.co.uk/tony-keenan-watching-the-markets/

His final paragraph is where any punter worth his or her salt should have a variety of views.

"There are still cases when they (betting markets) are not accurate and as many different reasons why: maybe the connections of one horses just don’t punt to the same degree as another, perhaps a major punter who has travelled in for the race is planning a big bet but the ground changes making his horse vulnerable but can’t help himself and plays anyway. Beating the Betfair SP is well-known as a good way to judge your punting beyond simply overall profit and loss but it is not the only way and it can pay to be open to horses that the market just doesn’t fancy. They can and do win."

RoyalAcademy2

I just realised I "plugged" two articles from the same source in recent days. This was not intentional.

Mostly Harmless

RoyalAcademy2 wrote: »

There's a good piece by Tony Keenan on the modern (Irish) betting market here:

https://www.geegeez.co.uk/tony-keenan-watching-the-markets/

His final paragraph is where any punter worth his or her salt should have a variety of views.

"There are still cases when they (betting markets) are not accurate and as many different reasons why: maybe the connections of one horses just don’t punt to the same degree as another, perhaps a major punter who has travelled in for the race is planning a big bet but the ground changes making his horse vulnerable but can’t help himself and plays anyway. Beating the Betfair SP is well-known as a good way to judge your punting beyond simply overall profit and loss but it is not the only way and it can pay to be open to horses that the market just doesn’t fancy. They can and do win."

Would agree that the exchange show prices are not a 100% accurate illustration of the relative chances of all runners in a race in 100% of cases. But it is by far and away the best (only) measure available.


If you're not consistently beating BSP then you're highly unlikely to be a winning punter over a sufficiently big sample of bets. Some significant drifters do win and some heavily punted shorties do get tailed off but a mature betfair market is invariably better informed than any one punter.

BumperD

RoyalAcademy2 wrote: »

I just realised I "plugged" two articles from the same source in recent days. This was not intentional.

They are a good read

kiers47

Im gonna drag up this thread again. Mainly as i love the title. haha

I was watching an interview with Neil Channing recently where he was asked for advice about people starting out in the game and he made a comment that i thought was very interesting and probably quite accurate.

He said something similar to the below.
Anyone smart and disciplined enough to make it as a professional punter is probably intelligent enough to get a much better paying job than punting could ever offer and certainly more reliable with less risk.

longshotvalue

kiers47 wrote: »

Im gonna drag up this thread again. Mainly as i love the title. haha

I was watching an interview with Neil Channing recently where he was asked for advice about people starting out in the game and he made a comment that i thought was very interesting and probably quite accurate.

He said something similar to the below.
Anyone smart and disciplined enough to make it as a professional punter is probably intelligent enough to get a much better paying job than punting could ever offer and certainly more reliable with less risk.

He is right, gambling for a living only seems like a great idea, its far easier to have a normal job and far less stessful.



Not that i gambled for a living fulltime, but i did supliment my income for a period with online poker and despite making a decent few quid, its just not worth it. And its only getting harder.



Racing is the same, it take a huge amout of work to pick out the value, and just not worth the time. Its far better treated as a bit of fun that can make you some small amount of money in the longterm.

kiers47

Yep would agree with that Aidan. I did do a bit of experimenting with the idea myself with poker and horses. Maybe i failed but i thought there were easier ways of making money ultimately.

A Channing reference is essential in these kind of debates. I needed to get it in. The man is a legend haha

hobie21

He's an excellent poker player to. I remember him pointing out my obv mistakes at the Irish Open

Mostly Harmless

Channing is hardly an uber judge tbf, as far as I know he is a dedicated bad ew punter with a big team of people to get him on.

More chance of making a living pissing in the wind than playing poker online these days anyway...

Mostly Harmless

As an aside, how long would people generally take when pricing up a typical race? (e.g. 10-14 runner handicap)

Just interested as I feel like spending more than ~5 minutes per runner becomes counter productive.

Not even convinced by the logic of doing a 100% tissue in all cases anymore, tend to end up on notional "value" pokes on the betfair show which are usually a bigger price than my tissue for a valid reason (which I am not privvy to).

kiers47

Mostly Harmless wrote: »

Channing is hardly an uber judge tbf, as far as I know he is a dedicated bad ew punter with a big team of people to get him on.

More chance of making a living pissing in the wind than playing poker online these days anyway...

This is overplayed i feel. Probably by his mates and the different media bits he does. Ive met Neil a couple of times and while he will admit himself that he is not an out and out judge the man does crunch a lot of numbers, puts in hours and hours of work and has infinite stories about the game. He has certainly made his fair share of bets of the type but he is far from a one trick pony. Who doesnt love a bit of each way scumbaggery anyway.

kiers47

Mostly Harmless wrote: »

As an aside, how long would people generally take when pricing up a typical race? (e.g. 10-14 runner handicap)

Just interested as I feel like spending more than ~5 minutes per runner becomes counter productive.

Not even convinced by the logic of doing a 100% tissue in all cases anymore, tend to end up on notional "value" pokes on the betfair show which are usually a bigger price than my tissue for a valid reason (which I am not privvy to).

It really depends on the race tbh. I am a bit odd in that most of my bigger bets come in races that really i never fancy anything at first glance. I find that if i look at a race and fancy a horse i find it very very hard to be unbiased and invariably underprice them to the horses relative price and usually i am wrong.
This is just what works for me. I do bet some of these horses mind probably for no good reason other than indiscipline.

Usually for this reason i would say 90% of my bets are in big field handicaps where really there is only maybe a couple of these a week that im interested in so i dont mind spending a bit of time on. I could probably spend 2 hours looking at a 16+ runner handicap. 2 hours is probably the max though. I usually ignore prices or betfair until after i have made a tissue of sorts and im never looking for a bet for the sake of it in this type of race.

Mostly Harmless

kiers47 wrote: »

It really depends on the race tbh. I am a bit odd in that most of my bigger bets come in races that really i never fancy anything at first glance. I find that if i look at a race and fancy a horse i find it very very hard to be unbiased and invariably underprice them to the horses relative price and usually i am wrong.
This is just what works for me. I do bet some of these horses mind probably for no good reason other than indiscipline.

Usually for this reason i would say 90% of my bets are in big field handicaps where really there is only maybe a couple of these a week that im interested in so i dont mind spending a bit of time on. I could probably spend 2 hours looking at a 16+ runner handicap. 2 hours is probably the max though. I usually ignore prices or betfair until after i have made a tissue of sorts and im never looking for a bet for the sake of it in this type of race.

The avoiding of any bias when doing a tissue is very hard alright. Hard to balance the feeling when you are pretty sure that a horse is overs without doing the full tissue vs shoehorning the tissue to make a horse overs because it is the one you went into it feeling strong on.


Not looking at any prices before doing the tissue is key but can be very hard especially when you're tight for time and there is a lot to get through. I try to do a fairly quick tissue and then spend a bit of time to try and fathom any major differences between my prices and the current prices, but this can be hard to do without blindly aligning with current prices, and if you're just going to fall in line what's the value of the tissue.


One of biggest problems is that I tend to have a fairly big long shot bias and go too big on the top end of the market which then means half the bottom end of the market are overs on my tissue.

longshotvalue

Mostly Harmless wrote: »

As an aside, how long would people generally take when pricing up a typical race? (e.g. 10-14 runner handicap)

Just interested as I feel like spending more than ~5 minutes per runner becomes counter productive.

Not even convinced by the logic of doing a 100% tissue in all cases anymore, tend to end up on notional "value" pokes on the betfair show which are usually a bigger price than my tissue for a valid reason (which I am not privvy to).

I dont really look at hadicaps of less that an least 16 runners, but i basically look at everything over 25/1 at least and find the most overpriced one. I ignore all the shorter priced ones (Apart from Cheltenham whren i have loads of time to look at races.)