Posts Tagged ‘Horse Races’

We’ve all had the experience of picking a horse to win but getting such lousy odds on it that we pass it by, figuring it is not a value bet. Then, when the horse wins, it hurts to know that we passed up cashing, even though we realize that we must stick to value bets or eventually lose our bankroll.

I will always advocate insisting on value in a bet. Indeed, I’ll go one step farther. The art of making profits on horse races is the art of handicapping combined with the business of identifying value in wagers. Without finding value, you are only solving half the puzzle. While handicapping and picking winners is fun, it can be expensive fun if you don’t discipline yourself to only bet on horses that are undervalued by the crowd.

The favorite wins about a third of the races, but betting to win on favorites is a losing proposition. If you like a horse to win, but can’t find value in the win pool, you can still put your handicapping skill to good use and perhaps, find value in the exacta pools. The crowd focuses on the favorite and the obvious choices for second. Typically, there will be a few exactas that are over bet, but that means there will also be underlays in the pool.

The most obvious way to find value is to find the horse that is the second favorite in the exacta pool, in other words, the lowest paying exacta with the favorite, and to determine if that horse deserves to be the second favorite and if it is over bet. In other words, if you can’t eliminate the favorite in the race, can you eliminate the second favorite?

There is no reliable formula that I know of to accurately determine fair value in an exacta, though many have tried. I think that practice and experience are the two keys to knowing what a good price is in the exacta pool.

Of course, this all depends upon your ability to determine that the favorite really does deserve all the action it is taking and that requires experience, as well.

Grand National is the most popular horse racing event in the UK. Every year, thousands of people crowd around the television set to watch the live telecast of the event. Among these people, many would already have placed bets on the horses. The key question now is, “Which horse will emerge the winner?”

If, like many others, you have placed bets on the horses, you would surely be interested to know what your winning odds will be like. Many won’t even bother to think about the odds. But knowing the odds will create a more interesting betting experience. And who knows, you may even start winning some bets!

So how do you go about increasing the odds of winning? The first place to look, is to go to a sports book website (related to Grand National of course), and look out for tips. But note that not all tips are reliable. Do a quick check to see if previous data is accurate. Has the experts from this particular website tipped any winners before? If so, how frequently?

When reading up on betting tips, it’s wise to keep a healthy level of skepticism. Always check things out for yourself, and don’t rely on others to do your homework for you. At the other end of the spectrum, you also don’t want to over analyze things. Just keep things simple. That means looking up information on the horses, jockeys and trainers who are competing in the Grand National event. A list would most certainly help.

Based on the list, you may then do more research on the entrants. For example, you can easily find out who the past winners are. You can also see who the National legends are, and which horses the pundits are rooting for. Of course, the more popular the horse, the weaker the odds. Popular horses usually have odds at around 12 to 1. Unpopular horses can have odds that go as high as 100 to 1.

When picking horses, always bear in mind that the Grand National is an event that is unlike other traditional horse races. Therefore, you can’t use conventional betting methods to try to pick winners. Skills, speed and power do matter. But in a Grand National race, luck is an important element as well. So never write off any horse. The horses, although less likely to win (at least according to what the masses think), have better odds. That means when you win, you win more.

Ultimately, it’s up to you find a balance between rational betting and betting based on luck. You have to have a bit of both to get better winning odds. If you really can’t decide on the horse to bet, just bet leisurely based purely on luck. There are websites with software that will help you pick a potential winner. It may just be your lucky day!

Times have changed and so has horse racing handicapping. In order to find winners, years ago, we had to figure out everything using long math and long hours reading past performances. For instance, when trying to figure out the pace scenario of a race, we’d have to calculate the fractions the horse actually ran by making adjustments using its beaten lengths at each call.

Now we have software and computers to make those figures readily available, including speed figures that use sophisticated algorithms and track variants. Do you remember when Andy Beyer’s Speed Figures first came on the scene? That seemed to change handicapping, but since everybody started using them, how much did any of us really benefit from that new idea? Now they are in most programs in some form or another and anyone who buys a program sees them.

For that matter, how much has your win ratio or profit line changed based on all the new information that is available? If you are like most people, your own ability may have improved a little over the years, but all the information hasn’t really made you a better horse racing handicapper. If you don’t think that all the information hasn’t changed much, just take a look at the numbers.

Years ago, when I first started trying to make sense of this game, the crowd’s choice, the favorite, won about 30% of the time. Now, after all these improvements and additions and all the marvelous new gadgets and computers the crowd is still picking about 30% winners. The only people making more money from the horse races are the people selling information.

We are drowning in a sea of information and everybody seems to be looking for the best system to pick winners. Rather than trying to add more information and weighing which information is important and which bits of data are relevant, why not get back to the basics? Horse racing handicapping hasn’t really changed since horses started racing against each other. It still comes down to speed and pace.

Common sense tells us that the best system is the simplest and easiest to use. Complicated systems may impress the user, but if you want to pick winners and make money, master the basics of true handicapping with something simple and proven, like True Handicapping.

I can tell many people how to be more successful and win more money at the horse races just by doing one thing. One of the factors in betting that many people overlook is the track takeout, also known as the “vig.” Vig, short for vigorish, or takeout, is the amount of money deducted from the pools before all winning bets are paid. For instance, if there is a total of $10,000 bet to win on all the horses in a single race, that becomes the win pool.

When the people who played the winner are paid off, they get to divide that pool, but only after the track has deducted a certain amount of money that is governed by the laws of the state. There is also something called “breakage,” which we will discuss in another article. For now, let’s talk about the variations from state to state in the amounts of money that race tracks deduct from the pools.

First of all, almost all venues take a higher percentage from the exotic betting pools than the straight bet pools. Straights are win-place-show, while exotics are wagers that include more than one runner; exactas, trifectas, daily doubles, pick threes, etc. California is an example of a state that allows more of a takeout on exotics. In California the takeout allowed by law on straight bets is 15% (this is very modest compared to some states) while the exotics are subject to the 15% plus an additional 4.75%. When you are trying to show a profit, that 4.75% can make a big difference and may make you want to consider straight bets instead of the flashier but more expensive wagers like exactas and trifectas.

Let’s take a hypothetical situation and look at what the differences in state laws regarding takeouts can mean to you the consumer. Let’s say that Bob the Bettor goes to his local otb parlor three times a week and makes $100 worth of wagers each time. In the course of a year he will have wagered a total of $15,600. Of course, that doesn’t mean he lost it all, in fact maybe he is a pretty good horse picker and losing slowly over time, and he loses about $1,560 or about 10%, in a year.

Bob likes to play the races in sunny Arizona because they start later in the day than the East Coast horse tracks so he has more time to handicap his program. The problem is that the tracks in Arizona are allowed by state law to deduct a whopping 25% on straight wagers and 30%-35% on exotics. So of the $100 that he wagers each day Bob is paying a minimum of $25. In the course of a year it costs him $3,900 to play the ponies. It costs Bob $25 each day to play, but one simple change could reduce that to $15, a savings of $10 per day.

If Bob likes to play a track that starts later in the day, he could switch to the Southern California tracks and pay only 15% on his bets. Instead of costing him $3,900 his wagers will now cost $2,340. That is a savings of $1,560! At the end of the year he will be ahead over $1500 and all he had to do was be a wise consumer. For the casual bettor this may or may not be a big concern, though I don’t know why it wouldn’t, since whether your wagers are casual or not it is still real money, your money.

Professional gamblers need to use every means at their disposal to make a profit, after all, it is their livelihood. If you are seriously playing the races and trying to make a profit you need to be a wise consumer. If enough people spend their money where they get the best deal, the management and state legislators will take notice and start to give you a better deal. There is a lot of competition for the gambling dollar right now and many states depend upon that income to fund their programs. Make them compete for your money and you’ll get a better deal.

Playing the horses can be fun, exciting, and even profitable, but like any other activity involving money, it can involve unnecessary waste and loss. If you want more information check out a list of track takeouts by state. Also, if you want a better deal, call, email or write to the state legislators and let them know how you feel about the deal you’re getting in every state that has a race track that you want to play. They make the laws and will yield to financial pressure.

If you gamble on horse races then you are always looking for that elusive something that will help you select winning bet after winning bet. Whether such a thing actually exists is very open to question but every gambler thinks that it just might be out there somewhere.

It is this thought that many so called tipsters rely upon to get punters to part with their money for supposed expert tips. Sadly most of us come away from such offers sadly disappointed. They do not provide that pot of gold we seek.

In this article I want to tell you about a tipping scam which seems to come around with a fair regularity. It is not a new scam but it still manages to part a lot of people from their money whenever it is used. Basically the scam works like this. On a Tuesday or Wednesday you receive a letter telling you that the tipster knows of a horse running next Saturday that is nailed on. IT CANNOT LOSE. Everyone is going to have their money on it, the owner, the trainer, the stable lads and the trainer’s dog.

This is the big one, but the trainer cannot tell you the horses name until Saturday for fear of it affecting the horse’s starting price? However, if you telephone on Saturday morning he will give you the name of the horse for free out of the kindness of his heart. They are such generous people tipsters!

Saturday comes, you telephone and they take your name and then give you the name of the horse. This is all very simple all very quick. All you have to do then is place your bet and wait.

One of two things will happen. The horse will win or the horse will lose. (There are no other options). If the horse is a winner you can expect a letter the next week telling you that by providing you with a winner the tipster has shown what a wonderful person he is and you should invest in his tipping service immediately. And lets face it who isn’t going to join his service if he can churn out winners like that, he must have inside information and good contacts.

Now if your horse lost you will get a letter explaining that the horse was “under the weather”, or the going did not suit or the jockey forgot his lucky underpants. There will always be a good reason. But don’t lose heart because our tipster has got another horse for next Saturday which is even better than last weeks and again phone on Saturday and he will tell you the horses name for free.

So far it does not seem much of a scam but let m explain what is actually happening.The reason the tipster will not give out a horses named until Saturday is because he is looking for a particular set of circumstances. A race with no more than 7 or 8 runners, where there are only 3 or 4 horses with a real chance of winning.

Having selected the race and the 3 or 4 possible winners all that happens is as people call they are given one of the four horses names. This is done in sequence so if 100 people telephone 25 will be given the name of horse A, 25 horse B and so on. This means that baring a real unexpected result at least 25 people will have been tipped the winner.

These are the ones that will be invited to join the Tipsters service, the other 75% will get the offer of a second tip. Of these 75 at least 18 or 19 will get tipped a winner the following Saturday.

Just think about it if the tipster uses a mailing list and offers 1000 punters the initial free tip offer possibly as many as 500 might respond which means 125 will be tipped the winner. If less than half of these sign up for a £100 service it would still bring in around £6,000 for the cost of the mail shot. (about £500).

Make sure that you do not fall for this scam and keep your money in your pocket.

Beware of free tips as my old grandfather used to say you get nothing for nothing and even then the price can be expensive,

When horse races are drawing near, fans are always rushing to place bets. To have a more enjoyable betting experience, perhaps you may wish to consider placing your bets online. There are several benefits when you do so.

Save time and avoid hassle.

Usually, bookmakers are swarmed by lots of people when race day draws near. If you try contacting the bookmakers, you may have to spend time queuing up and waiting for your turn to come. You may find it a hassle to be jostling among the people. When you place bets online, you can avoid all that hassle altogether, and focus on picking winners.

Secure and reliable.

A decade ago, perhaps it’s not a good idea to place bets online because the technology is not mature enough yet. People were hesitant to go online to make any form of purchase, as they do not wish to reveal sensitive credit card information. However, things are different now. Online purchases have become very much a part of our everyday life. Even technology averse people are willing to purchase groceries online. This meant that technology has come a long way. You can be assured that when you place a Grand National bet online, you are dealing with one of the most secure and reliable booking system in the world.

Reviews, tips, and hints available.

The challenge is always to pick a winner. The Grand National features 40 horses in a race. In every race, there are favorites, and there are non-favorites. If you choose to bet on a hot favorite, the odds may be something like 10 to 1. An unpopular horse may have odds like 100 to 1. It is not easy to pick out a winner. In a difficult race like the Grand National, luck plays a more important role than on any other circuit.

In the past 100 years, only 10 favorites came out as winners. This is a race that anything can happen. Highly skilled professional jockeys have failed to win the Grand National. Mares, believed to be weaker horses compared to male horses, had managed to emerge as winners.

Obviously, speed, power and skills isn’t everything in the Grand National. Luck is just as important. But luck isn’t something that is measurable or tangible. That’s why choosing a winning horse can be a challenge for many people. When you bet online, you can easily read hints, tips and reviews that are posted by other experts who share the same interest as you.

The best attitude to take, when betting on Grand National, is to make leisurely bets with amounts that you can afford to lose. That way, you can focus less on the winnings (as stakes are at an acceptable amount), and focus more on the drama and excitement of the race. In other words, be there for the horses, and not the money. The betting just heighten the excitement, which makes the races all the more enjoyable.

If you like to gamble and have been to a casino or racino and played slots and also bet on horse races, you may have wondered which one is a better deal. Of course, that is easy to answer if all you are looking for is an entertaining diversion. If all you seek is entertainment then the answer is as simple as asking yourself, “Which one did I enjoy the most?”

On the other hand, if you are interested in the economics of the question, or perhaps trying to stretch your dollar a little farther, then let’s consider some of the pluses and minuses of each gambling venue. First of all, let’s talk about the cost as far as takeout is concerned.

Riverboats usually don’t give as good odds as land based casinos when it comes to the payback on games. While slots in some states pay as little as 70% to consumers, other places with more competition, like Las Vegas, for instance payback more than the state law requires.

The state of Nevada requires a payback of at least 75% on slots but many casinos pay back closer to 95%. Factor in the perks that they offer and a smart consumer can get close to 100% value if you consider free meals and other goodies they offer. So shopping around and taking advantage of the casino incentives can bring the cost of playing slots down close to even. But of course, in order to play there you have to be there and that can be pricey.

When it comes to horse racing, the picture is not so rosy. The takeout on win bets in the best of states is around 15% but that doesn’t factor in breakage. Realistically, the horse player pays at least 20% for the privilege of playing the ponies. On top of that, few race tracks offer free admission like casinos do and since Hinsdale closed in New Hampshire, I’m not aware of any free lunches being served trackside.

There is a bright side, however, to the prospects for gambling on horses or dogs, for that matter. The slot machine offers little chance to improve the odds while a good handicapper and a master of money management may actually improve his or her chances of winning at the race track. Luck will always play a part in any speculative human endeavor, but good handicapping will certainly tip the scales in a horse player’s favor.

On the other hand, if you are strictly a numbers player and don’t get a lot of enjoyment out of watching horses race, the casino may be the place for you. I enjoy the races because they are live events and the horses are beautiful. It is a real live sporting event with magnificent athletes and plenty of good old fashioned drama. You just can’t get that from a slot machine, though I have to admit, the casino buffets are mighty tempting.

Of all the different kinds of horse races available to the betting public, no category of races evokes stronger feelings than maidens. Why do people feel so strongly about betting on them? Some people say that they are a complete mystery because the horses haven’t established what they can do, while others seem to think that they are the ones that run true to form.

Statistically, races for non winners produce a high percentage of winning favorites. That seems to indicate that they really do run true to form. If the crowd can pick the winner with a fair amount of consistency, then they can’t be too hard to handicap.

The problem is that all those races aren’t created the same. You have to know how to pick and choose which ones you play and which you pass. The thing about horses that are young and haven’t won a race yet is that they are still improving, still learning, and haven’t sustained the kinds of chronic ailments that older horses have gotten from their years of competition. So what you see is usually what you get.

The problem isn’t getting what you see, its getting what you don’t see. In other words, those first time starters really are mysterious. On the other hand, the people who work the backstretch have seen those first time starters work and know a good piece of horseflesh when they see one. So if you see a horse that is in its first race, and the odds are pretty low on it, you can figure that is inside money. Does that mean you should bet on it?

That is a personal choice you have to make. I usually pass them by. In fact, by not playing a race for non-winners with first time starters in it, you can greatly increase your chances for success. As long as each of the entrants has at least one race you will have a pretty good idea of what to expect. Some trainers will give a young horse one race to just run along with the other horses to feel like what it’s like to compete and will instruct the jockey not to push too hard. Those horses seem to improve dramatically in their second race.

Therefore, I really like to see a race where each one has had at least two races. That is when you really get a good look at what they can do. For that reason, my best bets when picking winners in maiden races has come from those events with horses that each have at least two starts. Picking the kinds of races you bet on is just as important as using a good system to make sense of all the information.

Many racing services now offer jockey statistics that show certain jockeys have their strengths and weaknesses. The jockey who is successful with sprinters on the dirt may not fare so well with routers on the turf. Other jockeys just seem to handle younger horses better.

But is there any other way to exploit the human element when it comes to the riders? I say there is and it is one that is often overlooked. I once bet a horse in a turf race that was racing on the inside. It looked like the horse had good tactical speed, coming out of the sire Silver Hawk, and it was a first time turfer. I handicapped the race and figured the horse would get a ground saving trip and be in striking position on the rail near the end of the race.

The jockey was a good rider who had a good win percentage so it looked like all systems go. Because the horse hadn’t raced on turf before, many of the players laid off it so the odds were very generous. The race started and played out exactly as I thought it would. My horse was on the rail with only a few tiring horse sin front as they went around the final turn. A hole opened up on the rail and the horse lunged forward, but as it did, the jockey started sawing on the reins trying to pull it back. This startled the green horse and the more it pulled the more the rider pulled back violently sawing away at the reins.

The horse began swaying and stumbled a little, nothing serious, it was just thrown off stride a little but stayed on its feet and kept trying to get through the hole. At that point the rider leapt off the horse. I had only seen a rider actually leap off a horse one other time and I think that rider wanted to make sure the horse lost. In this case, I think the rider was afraid to go through the narrow opening.

The rider walked away from the incident, no worse for the wear and the horse shot through the hole and won the race, but of course, without the jockey it was not awarded the win. The lesson was that the jockey would not take a horse through a tight spot. As I watched her more and more I realized she really needed an outside lane to win race or an opening you could drive a truck through.

I would play her if she had an outside post position, but never if I thought she would wind up on the rail or behind a wall of horses. I still think she is a good rider, but I also know her limitations. By watching jockeys and knowing their quirks, you may find situations where a good jockey will not win. Some jockeys love to skim the rail while others are rail shy. Some are good with an outside post while others can’t handle it. Knowing which jockeys are in the right position or have the horse with the right running style is one more way to make money on horse races.

If you have ever been to the horse races you may have asked yourself this question, “Is it really possible to win and if so, who is winning all the money?”

The first time I ever went to a horse track was over 50 years ago. I was a kid and my grandfather was a conditioner there. His friends owned and trained horses. Some of the jockeys were also his friends. So I started on the inside looking out. It never occurred to me what it was like for people who go to the races just as bettors with no inside connections.

Years later, after my grandfather, known as Montana Chet to his cronies, had passed away, I moved away from the New England area and started attending races in a new venue. That was an eye opening experience. I became an outsider and learned what it was like to handicap just using past performances. It was very hard, to say the least.

But that experience, as difficult as it was, also gave me respect for the men and women who do attempt to make money from the races. It also forced me to learn how to handicap just using information that was available to the public. I also quickly learned that most of the money that leaves the track finds its way out of there in an insider’s pocket. When I say an insider I mean an owner, trainer, jockey, groom, jockey’s agent, clocker, or any one who frequents the backstretch and has inside information.

That doesn’t mean that horse races are fixed. Most of them are honest. But it does mean that it helps to know things that the public doesn’t know. For instance, let’s say you know that a trainer has been having problems with a horse and wants to try something new in a race and instructs the jockey not to try to win but to take the horse all the way to the back of the pack and make it rate for the whole race rather than letting it go to the front as it usually does? Though that horse may look like a contender and get bet by the public, it isn’t going to win.

The trainer isn’t doing anything illegal. He or she may realize that the horse is not settling as good as it should in races and needs some schooling and the best place to get it is in a real race. Another situation may be that a trainer has a good horse that is a contender in a race, but the trainer has decided that the horse, with an easy race for conditioning, will be competitive in an upcoming stakes race with a much bigger purse. So he or she tells the jockey to take it easy and just go for a nice ride. Don’t push the horse and leave plenty in the tank for the next race where they can make more money.

That is good horsemanship, but if you see the horse is a contender and bet on it, you are going to lose. On the other hand, if you worked on the backstretch and knew the trainer, you’d know you shouldn’t bet on that horse and you would place a wager on one of the other runners. Do you see what you as a handicapper are up against?

I hope I haven’t discouraged you, because that isn’t the point of this article. What I am trying to do is to show you why you have to think like a trainer or insider in order to win money at the horse races. It can be done and I have done it, but to do it, I had to remember the lessons I’d learned on the backstretch. The two things that you must be able to do if you are going to be successful are to know if a trainer is serious about winning in that race with that horse and also if the runner has the ability to accomplish that task.

In order to do that you must understand trainer moves and the toteboard and its secrets.