Bad Habits

walsworth

walsworth

Journeyman
Joined
Jul 19, 2006
Messages
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Location
North Herts
Over the years I have tried to cure my bad betting habits but I still keep slipping back.
I no longer try to bet in every race and I gave up multiple bets many years ago.
I never bet unless the word “good” is part of the going description and I rarely bet in a race of more than 12 runners.
I never bet below class 3 and I don’t do each way, if I don’t think it will win I leave it alone.

I still get depressed after a prolonged losing spell and try to cheer myself up by blindly backing favourites though!
 
I think it all has to be taken in degrees, though.

The thought of even betting in every race horrifies me. It's probably something I did as a teenager when I used to hang about the bookies most afternoons, but shillings on three-crosses across the board.

I do consider myself blessed not to have an addictive nature. I like a drink but go off it for Lent every year without batting an eyelid. Right now I'm on medication which prohibits alcohol and it isn't bothering me a jot. I've never smoked beyond teenage experimentation or the very occasional cigar.

As for betting, I reckon some outsiders would reckon I'm addicted to betting but I don't think so. I do enjoy mental challenges though (crosswords, sudoku, etc) and I probably wouldn't bet at all outside of the Derby and Grand National if I didn't study the form so I would argue that I'm more 'addicted' to studying the form than betting, which is more of a side issue. I know in the long-term I'm in front so I know it isn't unhealthy [for me].

Long losing runs are part of the bigger picture. I had a really bad one not that long ago but reckon I'm over it. I haven't got back to the winning levels of, say, ten years ago yet but I don't mind too much.

I'm betting lighter because I'm studying less.

I'm studying less because my eyesight is deteriorating.

Deteriorating eyesight is allowing me to focus on more important things in life. Like living, for example.

I'm working on the basis that when my driving licence comes up for renewal on 2025 I might not pass the eye test and won't be allowed to drive so I want to squeeze as much driving into the next few years as I can.

My house is sold and we're house-hunting, moving into temporary rented accommodation next month while we work out where we want to live. It's a downsizing operation and will allow us to afford something bigger and better in Spain than we had planned. (Prices are booming here and falling there so it's the perfect storm for us.)

This is all impacting upon my time too so less time to study, less betting, less watching the racing on TV and just catching replays later.

Stay focused, walsworth. Stick with what you know you're best at and let the rest go, at least in the short term.
 
Bad habits? Reading walsworth's post makes me think he could easily have shared it with us under the heading "good habits" and the fact that he has and mostly uses discipline is a major plus point. I found that with age I too do not bet in every single race, only very occasionally do I attempt a life-changing multiple bet but if I use a 10p stake to back as an example seven horses 1x 7 fold & 21 x 5 folds @ 11/2 9/1 10/1 13/2 6/1 7/1 & 4/1 it gives you over 200K so sometimes the "fun" bet is worth the 10p/£2 stake (forget all the doubles, trebles, 4 folds etc which is where the cost of a multiple really escalates).

As to the prolonged losing spell, that must be the thing we all have to deal with but I'd say that any losing spell that you have is probably only half as painful as if you'd been backing each way.

The problem with reading posts like this is you sometimes wrongly fall back on giving advice so here's mine on point 2 :whistle:. It's all well & good if you can rely on the racecourse's accuracy in its assertion of the going at a meeting but they give out the most agreeable description of the going even if sometimes it's nothing like the actual going on the day (overwatering etc). Could this be something that is negatively impacting your selections?

In summary I wish I had as much discipline as you still appear to have but you have spelled out in your post where things might need to be looked at.
 
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Betting for me is about finding what you're good at, and not trying to widen your horizons too far. The more information you try and deal in the harder it becomes.

Like Walsworth, some try and narrow criteria to focus on a subset of good quality racing. Others like Gigilo are good at making donkey racing pay. DO is a ratings man and tries to be ahead of the handicapper. Outsider likes to focus on big prices to be ahead of the tissue. Slim relies on information and networks.

My preferred is antepost punting on National Hunt racing, and I now very rarely bet outside of that unless I'm actually going racing. I treat racing more like the stock market and play the prices in markets that have good liquidity. Taking money on horses that will shorten by laying off on the exchange. I'll often play more than one horse in a race just locking in profits. It has the added benefit of having plenty of losers in my accounts which helps to keep them open. The Festival is the easiest to play of course given there are currently 18 markets to play in. A bit like Slim, I heavily rely on information. Knowing the target race, health, or something out of the public domain at the time is gold. Outside of that, the few individual bets I have are pretty much all based on information or value.

The hardest way to win in my opinion is be a generalist. Looking at a days racing, or a card because of the feeling of wanting to have a bet. I'd be surprised if anyone that thinks 'It's Saturday, so I must have a bet' is a winner overall. Winning takes hard work, discipline, a betting and staking strategy, and you need a specific method to make it profitable.

The great thing about TH is that between us all we pretty much cover all bases and type of racing in some way or another. It never ceases to amaze me how broad the strategies are that people are able to make profitable. And whilst many take it seriously, and are in it to make money, many others are happy to be casual punters, and it's just a bit of fun. Doing it for fun as a hobby or interest is absolutely fine as long as it's with money you're happy to lose, and I think generally that's true on here. I find it amusing for example when Moe is really miffed when a horse with a name she likes wins and she hasn't backed it.

Given we are all heavily into our racing, the risk is addiction, and when that happens it's time to stop completely. Given we all frequent a horse racing forum, it's almost certain that many well known contributors over the years have come and gone because of addiction. There may be posters now that are in that place. And that's tough, and hard to get out of. A good friend of mine was in that place, and I know just how badly it affected him, his family, and pretty much his whole life. He sadly passed away at an early age, not related to this, but I often wonder how much the stress contributed. What I will say is that if anyone is or feels they're close to that place, there can be no better understanding group of people than the TH collective who would absolutely get it. As such my mailbox is open if anyone ever needs a private, non-judgemental chat.
 
Nice post, Maruco, and a lot of good sense. For me, my main betting is based on eyecatchers (my eyes), but I do like watching good racing in addition to that and having something on gives a focus to the race. To cater for that I have a couple of “play” accounts for small beer which generally need topping up from time to time.
 
I'm occasionally envious of my brother (the one immediately older whom I regularly reference on here).

He buys the Timeform horses to follow book and has a somewhat photographic memory of it. He doesn't study form at all. He backs on the basis of what he sees for himself or what he 'reads into' the Timeform comments, something he's also very astute at. He ignores the ratings, by the way.

I've no idea if he wins or loses long-term and he probably doesn't either but he only bets £1/£2 and usually only on a Saturday.
 
Nice post, Maruco. Never been a big investor but getting married and having a family made me cut right back. Losing money backing horses is impossible to justify when you have a mortgage.
 
Colin Phillips said:
Nice post, Maruco. Never been a big investor but getting married and having a family made me cut right back. Losing money backing horses is impossible to justify when you have a mortgage.
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Yeah I don't have a wife or any kids so my lack of responsibility for want of a better word is a reason why I've followed racing to the extent I have.

Most of my biggest wins have actually come on dog racing, I love a reverse forecast on a dog race, so the horse racing and debating on forums was a way of learning and aspiring to learn about something different.

I'm probally guilty of being a generalist but anyways, I am going to stop posting once this next jumps season starts, I'll let the avid jump followers, specialists, and posters get stuck in and make the forum as good as it can be.
 
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Interesting to read about different ideas and ways to approach backing horses, winners of course!

I have tried using HRB to try and come up with various systems involving trainer habits, horses for courses etc. but never found anything really satisfactory. I invariably seem to fall into the "back fitting" trap, which I still don't fully understand.

I have over the last 15 or so years come up with an Excel sheet that I can paste the race card that I am interested in according to the criteria mentioned in my OP. There are numerical values given to various parts of the past runs of each horse in the race. The elements that I take into account are; last 3 races, Course and/or Distance winner, days since last race and position in the betting market or forecast market depending on the time that I check the racing.

The actual value given for each of form elements that I use has been tweaked over the years and I don't think I can find much improvement. When all these numbers are added together they give a theoretical rating of the horses ability, which I then convert to a "tissue" which I compare to the market. Most of the time I find that my tissue broadly follows the betting, so I must be doing something right!

Occasionally there will be a blip where I have a horse on a low rating that is much shorter in the betting than I would expect. I put this down to money from people that know more about the ability of the individual horse than the general public.

I have found over the years that a good proportion of winners do come from my top three ratings, the trick is to decide which one obviously, that is where intuition and a little extra reading takes over.
 
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Just my view, but I've convinced myself th real nub of success at this game is knowing something others don't. That may arise from inside info, form study, ratings, profiling, stats, noted in running, or myriad other qpproaches, but - if you can light on something not generally in the public domain, and can hang you hat on it - value is near enough guaranteed. The real work is separating the facts from wishful thinking, imo, and that's the path this all-absorbing hobby oft leads astray on.
 
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walsworth said:
The elements that I take into account are; last 3 races, Course and/or Distance winner, days since last race and position in the betting market or forecast market depending on the time that I check the racing.
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If it works for you it works for you.

Psychology plays a huge part for me (often to my detriment). The thought of limiting myself to just the last three races would prey on my mind. It's something a lot of systems seem to rely on, though. Maybe it's because I work mainly on handicaps in which the winner tends to be either an improver (last three runs maybe) or a sleeper (more than three runs ago) so by restricting myself just to the last three runs I I would feel I was eliminating half the possible contenders for it.

I've noticed Raceform and Timeform ratings tend to restrict themselves the last six runs. Again, I'm happy to go back a season and more to come up with a possible rating. In the early cards RPRs will go back quite a bit but in their final ratings they seem to limit themselves to six runs or 12 months, whichever is the most recent. In the case of Deja, which I put up for the Ebor, he was just about top rated when the early ratings came up, based on a rating dating back to his Old Newton Cup win last summer, but at the 5-day decs was well down the ratings because they now didn't go that far back.

(Incidentally, this is another reason why I like looking at the early entries for the big handicaps. The RPRs at that stage give me an idea of how older form might come into calculations.)
 
reet hard said:
Just my view, but I've convinced myself th real nub of success at this game is knowing something others don't. That may arise from inside info, form study, ratings, profiling, stats, noted in running, or myriad other qpproaches, but - if you can light on something not generally in the public domain, and can hang you hat on it - value is near enough guaranteed. The real work is separating the facts from wishful thinking, imo, and that's the path this all-absorbing hobby oft leads astray on.
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I think that's absolutely spot on Reet. It's all about beating the market. If you can do that you will stay ahead over any reasonable period of time.
 
Maruco said:
I think that's absolutely spot on Reet. It's all about beating the market. If you can do that you will stay ahead over any reasonable period of time.
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I’m not sure if you’re talking about “value” here, Maruco. Not entirely sold on value and my best bets come from getting worse and worse value as price shortens. Conversely, I eschew better value as price lengthens (don’t back drifters) and mostly I’m glad I do. In some senses one could argue that a horse represents value if it has outrun its price, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it has finished in the money.
 
With you on that one Jon. Wasn't it Slim who had something like................Get the value & lose, it's what we do
 
barjon said:
In some senses one could argue that a horse represents value if it has outrun its price, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it has finished in the money.
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Yes, this is something I've mentioned a few times in relation to some of my longshots. But I don't mind not winning with them, to be honest, as perverse as that may sound. If I get on something at 50/1 that finishes one place out of the money I might be slightly frustrated but at least I will feel justified. As I often say, as long as my horse is trying I don't mind. If it is trying, has no bad luck in running yet doesn't run to my expectations it's me that's got it wrong and I can live with that, as long as I learn from it.
 
I'm full of bad habits but I'm fine with them as I'm relatively new to betting on horses and I'm doing it for minimal amounts and for fun.

I'll find a meet, usually in Ireland, and bet on pretty much every race of the day (except the bumper.) If I'm up early, or awake all night, and have my picks selected before any horse has withdrawn, and a horse of mine does withdraw, I'll usually find another, even if it means picking a horse I had dismissed previously.

Like I said, I'm relatively new at horses. Despite having a RacingTV subscription for a year, and watching Cheltenham for three years (I don't count being nine years old and betting at Point to Points, even though it's very much part of my childhood,) I'm very infrequent and go in bursts of looking at races. I don't know what I'm good at picking i.e. which types of races, and sort of justifying betting on everything in a day by saying I'm figuring out what my niche is.

I'm heavily reliant on my Best Odds Guarantee. I don't have the nerve (or knowledge) to wait for what I think might be a better price coming up. My horses often reach higher prices I could have waited for, but I don't know when to quite jump on a price, know when a horse is being backed from elsewhere, or when they're going to drift. In the same vein I have absolutely no insider knowledge, no contacts, and am almost entirely relying on what I've seen before or what I read off a quick read of the Racing Post form guide. On the "what I've seen before" a horse I think is good, that doesn't perform, I can be quick to dismiss, even if I get the feeling there's a possibility they can pull something out. (Nazine today in Ballinrobe was a super impressive maiden winner, but I saw them do poorly, so I have no inclination to to "test" my "spirit" by backing them again today, even if viewing that maiden win says they can do something special.)

The final bad habit I can think of is how I judge an entire day of racing. A reason I use to pick a horse in the 2.40, to justify my selection, could be entirely dismissed in 4.10, despite all the same logic applying, I instead just go on a feeling.

I suppose a habit that's both good and bad is that I have absolutely zero trust for reported goings. I'm far more likely to look out the window, or look at what the weather was, and no matter the drainage, think, "There's no bloody way that's good-to-yielding."

Saying all this, outside of the grand national my biggest day of betting was Cheltenham three years ago, when I was putting at most €2 on each race. Since then I'm putting even less on horses, so for me it really is a day of watching races and risking minimal amounts. I'd like to be a winner, but if three years of sporadic horse racing betting has cost me, in bets, more than about €75 euros (not counting bets in the bookies in cash from the pub) I would be very surprised. What it's cost in booze and RacingTV subs is another matter. What it's given me in a day's activity and enjoyment is what it's about.
 
FiftyP said:
I'd like to be a winner, but if three years of sporadic horse racing betting has cost me, in bets, more than about €75 euros (not counting bets in the bookies in cash from the pub) I would be very surprised. What it's cost in booze and RacingTV subs is another matter. What it's given me in a day's activity and enjoyment is what it's about.
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In many ways you could have nailed it there 50P. Imagine if you were hooked on golfing, skiing, shooting & rallying. Kerching, kerching, kerching!
 
I think I`ve every bad habit in the book (even at my age!) but I do enjoy it! I think it`s in the blood .My grandfather was a street bookie and my grandmother had a flutter most days. I remember when my dad died I was clearing the contents of his jacket and found a betting slip with 3 winners in a yankee! But, obviously, you must bet within your limits and make sure there`s plenty left over for the bills and life`s other essentials.
 
barjon said:
I’m not sure if you’re talking about “value” here, Maruco. Not entirely sold on value and my best bets come from getting worse and worse value as price shortens. Conversely, I eschew better value as price lengthens (don’t back drifters) and mostly I’m glad I do. In some senses one could argue that a horse represents value if it has outrun its price, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it has finished in the money.
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Most people bet to obtain value but some more consciously than others.

The theory adopted by Reet, to which Maruco agrees is a sound one and will inherently generate value (to them at least) if they strongly believe they have information to which the people who form markets (be it bookies or exchange players) don't.

But with the "information" comes an added complexity in that value then exists only in the eye of the beholder.

e.g. face value would unquestionably be somebody offering you 6/1 about calling the roll of an untampered die whereas 4/1 may provide value to you if you'd been tipped off that the die was loaded in favour of a particular number. You're then effectively betting on a double though; the reliability of the person who tipped you off + the adjusted percentage of the loaded number landing - as it's highly unlikely that the die would be set to land on the loaded number 100% of the time.

As neither attribute has a truly defined percentage it'd be down to you to assess whether the combined odds have a greater than 20% chance.

But of course there are many forms of information from which people try and generate an edge, the principal still stands however and few are keen to put in the effort.
 
We should state for a large percentage of the public that any gambling more than 1 pound a week on the lottery is in itself a 'bad habit'.

The looks some people give you if they see you go in or out of a bookmakers are terrible.

A news report out today stating that free bets are causing problem gambling and people have taken their own lives after getting sucked in through free bets.

That's one thing about me.

I do like to beat the bookmaker with hard cash, the old fashioned way, as opposed to thinking I can win anything substantial for free or through a free bet.
 
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Has no one considered that betting on multiples in the morning will help you if you feel the need to go chasing on a bad day Try having 10 Lucky 15s for the same outlay as 3 "chase" bets. You'll have an interest in most races, you'll have best odds guaranteed and depending where you bet you should get x2 odds on one winner. Most importantly you'll have an interest in an awful lot of races and the temptation to get involved will lessen.
 
walsworth said:
Over the years I have tried to cure my bad betting habits but I still keep slipping back.
I no longer try to bet in every race and I gave up multiple bets many years ago.
I never bet unless the word “good” is part of the going description and I rarely bet in a race of more than 12 runners.
I never bet below class 3 and I don’t do each way, if I don’t think it will win I leave it alone.

I still get depressed after a prolonged losing spell and try to cheer myself up by blindly backing favourites though!
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Ever thought you might have a bad dose of Crapjockeyitis?:D

Stick to the top jockeys for a bit and you'll have winners
 
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