Racing Tipster Review – What lessons have we learned?

I re-joined the Onebooker website just over 4 months ago, asked to provide insights on the ‘Sport of King’s’ and to hopefully identify a few winners.  So as we enter 2012 I thought it was worth some time looking back over that period, to assess how I have performed.

The good news is that if you have followed each and every one of my selections, since September, you will be ahead.  The racing selections are in profit in the period from September to December by 10.55 points, or showing a 5% return on all stakes ‘invested’!

Those headline figures whilst encouraging don’t tell the whole story; they do not include any of the successful back-to-lay transactions other than covering the initial stake;  individually two of the four months completed showed a loss; attempts to find overseas winners (Melbourne and Breeders’ Cups) were unsuccessfil.  Assessing the figures in detail reveal some important betting lessons.

Multiple bets are a bookies dream: This is an old adage, but one that is worth highlighting. I have tried four doubles and one Trixie ( 3 x doubles and a treble) all unsuccessful for a total loss of four points.  Bookmakers like to accept multiple bets, such as doubles, trebles or larger accumulators, as they know the odds of you having a loser increases.  Whilst the reward is greater, relatively they increase their chances of keeping your money.  I will continue to use this type of bet sparingly.

High stake bets are showing a good return: The sample size is only four, but looking at high stake selections (4 or 5 points, until November when we agreed the maximum bet was 3 points) shows a profit of 12 points on 13 staked, or a return on investment of over 92%.  Hopefully, these selections will out perform the overall return and I will continue to monitor them.

Keeping the faith is losing us money: I have recommended eight horses more than once, two (Oh Crick and Mallusk) three times, for a combined loss of 32 points, unbelievably none of the eight horses have obtained any return from the bets made!  Does this mean I shouldn’t keep the faith on horses that I think are good value or well handicapped?  Well those figures certainly indicate that, although looking a little deeper, there have been some significant next-time out successes from horses I have selected.  There were 11.00 (10/1) wins for both Consigliere and Outlaw Tom in their next runs after being selected here, whilst Kumbeshwar was also successful at less rewarding odds.  With a couple of horses that I am waiting for (such as Noble Alan and Third Intention) this area will be worth further assessment later in the year.

Finally, there is one other area that I wanted to analyse, which is each-way betting.  However, having started to review my each-way selections, I realised that this is a complicated area and one that needs to be covered in more space than I have here.  So that will be covered in a future post.

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