Betting Strategy: Finding an edge in an overcrowded game

Betting Strategy / Ian Dean / 11 February 2009 / 3 Comments

All that snow has given Ian Dean plenty of time to reflect on 25 years in the game and the struggle to find the way to a winning bet.

Betting in the 21st century can feel like being on a conveyor belt, and hats off to anyone that can boast more than a fondue set and a cuddly toy at the end of the week. The racing programme offers little chance to pause for breath and reassess your modus operandi...unless, that is, the north wind blows and the show splutters to a virtual halt for a fortnight.

During the current hiatus, I have been reflecting back 25 years to when I was cutting my teeth punting. The formbook was king in those days, with deliberations centring heavily on ground, trip and weight, and horses still 'blew up' on their reappearance.

It's been all change since then, of course, the previously neglected areas of draw bias, pace analysis (including sectional timing), trends and value betting have all had their glory years before entering the mainstream, their edge diminishing along the way.

The edge I found most profitable came in the early 90s when inexperience was generally believed to hinder novice chasers pitched in against seasoned performers. The official handicapper would rate chasers solely on their form over fences, resulting in the majority receiving an initial mark below their hurdles best. Time and again these horses would win without the betting industry revising its opinion.

One race that lingers fondly in the memory is a novice handicap chase at Leicester in 1995. This supposedly routine contest was dominated by three handicap debutants (all above-average hurdlers, mind) in General Wolfe, Kadi and Maamur, racing from marks of 93, 108 and 97 respectively.

Not altogether surprisingly, the form worked out rather well, the trio embarking on a winning spree that culminated in General Wolfe landing two Peter Marsh Chases, the latter off 150, Kadi the Mildmay of Flete off 137 and Maamur the Ritz Club Chase at the Cheltenham Festival off 141. By God, the game was easier back then!

As with the majority of winning 'systems', the market did eventually realign, in addition to which the handicapper overhauled his approach, firstly by commonly using a horse's hurdles rating as a start point and now by often allotting marks beyond even that level.

So are there any edges left? In a recent series of articles with professional punters, the advice that cropped up time and again was the need to think differently to the crowd. Sound advice given that most punters lose, but what exactly are they advocating?

Well, it's clear that hype is a four-letter word. Fall for it and you may as well use your readies as Rizlas, according to the pros. No argument there. Another key is to understand where human nature leads the innocent punter astray.

Punters seem flawed in the way they view potential, being over-zealous in their desire to be the first to spot future stars. Nick Mordin has pointed out that debutants and unexposed horses with attractive pedigrees, high-profile trainers and fancy entries invariably attract far more betting interest than they prove to warrant.

Also, a tendency to over-emphasise most recent outcomes and adhere to conventional wisdom has been identified in sports such as baseball and football, leading to poor decision-making, and it's not a huge leap to apply the same rationale to racing.

To beat the crowd, it pays to note situations that are counter-intuitive. For instance, it has been shown that following recognised trainers with a poor recent record at a certain track is likely to show a better return than supporting those handlers to have performed well at the venue of late. The market clearly overcompensates for the significance of this element of trainerform.

RUK got into a counter-intuitive vibe this week when debating Denman's run at Kempton on Saturday. In attempting to look beyond the bare result, they showed the race again with the winner Madison De Berlais obscured, in effect leaving Denman to run out a clear winner from Alberta's Run.

Obviously, this didn't happen. But it could have, had Madison De Berlais been snowed in at Nicholashayne, in which case the reaction to Denman's return would have been dramatically different. If nothing else, this serves to remind that handicapping is not an exact science; that you can scratch the winner from every race in the formbook and you would still have a formbook, albeit one telling a different and flattering tale.

Paradoxically, old-fashioned form study is once again an edge, partly as many are distracted down other avenues of research, partly as the volume of racing is suffocating for those with only spare time to devote. The option here is to specialise in an area you feel most profitable. For those of us that love the variety of the sport, this is easier said than done, but it is one way of wresting the odds back in our favour.

Comments (3)

1. Frank | 11 February 2009

   Excellent article...readies as Rizla...like it.

   You do leave out the most commonly overlooked tool any punter can have...the racing research ratings of John Whitley....absolutely invaluable if you are serious about picking winners.

2. Ian Dean | 13 February 2009

   Thanks for the kind words, Frank. And thanks to the proof reader that spotted i'd put one too many zs in Rizlas (non smoker, you see!). I'm not familiar with the Whitley ratings you speak of, Frank. Do they work well for you both on Flat and over Jumps?

3. Eddy Massey | 14 February 2009

   I very much rely on the speed ratings and look at the performance of the horse over its last 3 - 4 races the LTO doesnt always give a true picture but ofcourse becomes one of the factors. The weight of the horse itself is always true missing factor which would settle our descisions one way or the other when we've taken the other factors into consideration