handicapping horse

Double Your Chances of Making a Profit At the Horse Races With …

October 2, 2013 By Admin Leave a Comment

If you are one of the many people who are handicapping horse races and trying to make a profit, you would probably like to be able to double your profit without too much work. The easiest way to do that is right under your nose. Before we discuss how to increase your profit, or perhaps to start actually making a profit, let’s talk about your record keeping.

Most of us don’t like the arduous task of keeping records, especially when we are playing the ponies. For one thing, it takes a lot of fun out of it and secondly, it is a lot of tedious work. This is where you have to make a decision. Are you a recreational horse player who just wants to wager on races and have some fun, or are you a serious horse player who wants to make a profit? If you are doing it just for fun, then set aside an amount of money you can afford to lose and have a ball.

On the other hand, if you are trying to make it pay, you’d better keep track of the money. Picking winners is fun, but finding good bets is how you actually succeed at horse racing handicapping. How will you know whether you’re doing a good job of it if you don’t know which bets that you make are profitable and which ones are losers? Being able to eliminate bets that don’t show a profit is one quick way to increase your r.o.i., return on investment.

Now here is another way to increase profits dramatically and it only takes a few minutes. First of all, find out how much each bet costs. I don’t mean the amount that you risk, but rather the amount the track takes out of the pool. The percentage of takeout, or vig as it is sometimes called, varies from track to track and state to state. Paying over 20% at one track and around 15% at another can have a big impact.

Let’s say you make a profit of 10% and you’re playing at a track that charges 21% on the bets you make, moving your action to a track that charges 15% increases your results by 5%, which just happens to be a 50% increase in your profit. That’s right, just by playing at a different track you may actually be able to increase your profit.

You will also be voting for a lower takeout with your money. If enough horse players do that and handles change according to the takeout, state lawmakers who set those figures will start to pay attention and start treating us as consumers and customers rather than thinking of us as sheep who can be easily led and who will accept whatever is given to us.

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Bill Peterson has 1 articles online

If you want to learn how a horse owner and insider handicaps just go to http://williewins.homestead.com/truecb.html and get the truth. Bill Peterson is a former horse race owner and professional handicapper. To see all Bill’s horse racing material go to Horse Racing Handicapping, Bill’s handicapping store.

Following Trends in Horse Racing Handicapping or Knowing When …

May 12, 2013 By Admin 1 Comment

Perhaps you’ve had this experience when handicapping horse races. You start out with a plan to pick winners in a certain way and develop your own little method. It starts to show promise and then starts going sour on you. You started out by winning a little or perhaps even a lot, but then you watch your winnings dissolving and even start to lose money. You wonder if you should stop or if the method you were using will start working again. Does this scenario resonate with you?

One of the most common responses you’ll get when you ask a horse player how he or she is doing is, “Up and down.” Gambling on horses is a roller coaster ride, both financially and emotionally. The problem is that it is hard to tell if you’re winning or losing at the moment. One way to solve this problem is to work in modules. You can set aside your next twenty bets as a module, for instance and just keep track of them and see if you make money.

Whatever the length of the module happens to be, if you continue using the same criteria and start to have a history of modules to look at, you may be able to determine if you’re really winning or losing. It may also teach you other things about your career as a horse player. If you find twenty races too cumbersome, you can always use fewer races.

The same method may be applied to the race results at your favorite track. You can use it to spot trends and those trends may be the very reason you are losing that money back. Just be careful when looking at trends or setting up modules that you don’t start over reacting to normal fluctuations. Knee jerk reactions will set you on a course of chasing the normal aberrations in statistics as though they were a long term pattern.

On the other hand, if you see that in your last three modules over a two week period a certain factor, say early speed, has lost a lot of its clout, you may be able to change your method slightly to account for that. Weighting factors formally or informally, depending upon how rigid your guidelines may be, will adjust your method of picking winners according to changes in the track as well as the changes in the horses themselves.

One example of this adjustment process if the natural maturing of horses that occurs every year, but gets little notice by the bettors. I’m talking about how a horse that is three weeks away from becoming a four year old is considered a three year old, even though it is nearly a year older and about to be considered a four year old. While stewards make weight allowances and adjustments throughout the year as the horses mature, how many of the bettors won’t bet a three year old against older horses, even when it is just weeks or even days away from becoming a four year old?

If your modules show more and more three year olds beating four year olds, it is just because they are maturing and learning how to race as they also become stronger. How many other trends do you think you could spot if you had a month or two of modules to compare?

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Bill Peterson has 1 articles online

Filed Under: Horse Racing Articles Tagged With: handicapping horse, spot trends

The Lesson a Day Method to Horse Racing Betting Success

November 23, 2012 By Admin 1 Comment

How do you make money betting on horse races? That is a question many people ask me and now that the economy is in the tank, many people are trying to do just that. The short answer is that there is now easy or risk free way to make money handicapping horse races or wagering on them. The long answer is a little more complicated.

It is all about knowledge and how you apply it, obviously. First of all, what do you know about horse races and making money from them? Here is a pop quiz, answer this one question and go to the head of the class, “What is the vig, or takeout, including breakage, at your favorite race track?”

Are you paying 25%, 20%, 19% for the priviledge of making bets? If you can answer that question, go to the head of the class. If not, don’t feel too bad, you’re not alone. But it does indicate just how prepared you are to make money off your investments if you can’t even tell what you are paying to make those investments. If you were using a broker to buy stocks, you would know what the fee was. Buy a house and you will know what the broker’s percentage is, but when it comes to gambling, people often don’t think of it as a financial transaction or investment.

Here is a good way to turn your losing ways around within thirty days. Each time you go to the track, or bet on horse races, answer one simple question and write the answer down in a notebook. That is your homework assignment. After thirty days you will have learned thirty things that may help you to make a profit. At the very least it will make you a sharper horse player. It is real money and you have to treat it like real money.

Before you handicap the races or make a bet today, ask yourself one question. If you don’t know the takeout and breakage, then that could be the first question. If you are playing more than one track, find out the vig on each one. That may help you to start making a profit, or at least losing less. If you learn one new thing each day about handicapping or betting, then you will soon be much better informed that the people you are trying to beat.

Just keep filling that notebook and every once in a while, give yourself a little quiz. Ask yourself some questions. Knowledge and how you apply it is the key to making a profit betting on horses.

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Bill Peterson has 16221 articles online and 12 fans

Filed Under: Horse Racing Articles Tagged With: handicapping horse, horse races

Horse Racing Handicapping Using Online Stable Reports

September 24, 2012 By Admin Leave a Comment

Many handicappers now use Advanced Deposit Wagering (ADW) services online. They offer the convenience of wagering from home along with other attractive perks like free programs and even some bonuses for deposits. Before signing up with an ADW, however, you should make sure that it is legal in the jurisdiction where you live and plan on using it.

One of the ADW capabilities that is often over looked is the stable report service that you can set up through your account. We all know that it pays to follow jockeys, trainers, horses and to wager on them when the time is right. That is one of the strengths of a stable report. You can get an alert in your email everyday that lets you know when one of the horses or trainers you are following is racing.

How can this help you to make money betting on horses? If you are handicapping horse races for a living, you know how difficult it is to keep up with all the information that is necessary in order to bet on the ones you are following. If you start your morning with a report that alerts you to every race that might have a potential bet in it, then think of all the time that could save.

You can also keep notes on trainers. I like to keep a few of the patterns that make me money with a particular trainer in the notes section. Then, when I open the race with that information in front of me, I can see if that trainer is repeating one of the patterns with that runner. I can also keep notes on a horse that had a bad trip and may improve.

One of the problems that we all face in the world of high tech handicapping is information overload. While we may only rely on a few pieces of information to make a bet, the few pieces may change from bet to bet. One wager may be based on a trainer racing a maiden off a good series of works and the next wager may be an older horse who had a bad trip last out but looks to improve with a better post and a little luck.

If you haven’t started using stable notes and reports I advise you to give it a try. You can start slowly with just a few of your favorite trainers and work your way up as you find what works for you and what has the best value.

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Bill Peterson has 1 articles online

Filed Under: Horse Racing Articles Tagged With: handicapping horse, horse races

Why is Horse Racing Handicapping So Difficult

May 31, 2012 By Admin Leave a Comment

If you’ve ever seriously tried to make a profit betting on horses, you’ve probably discovered that handicapping horse races is hard to do if you really want to make money. You may have asked yourself why it’s so hard when it seems that it is so easy when you first start. It appears that all you have to do is gather your information, and there’s plenty of it out there, then just find the best horse or horses and bet on them, right?

Horse racing handicapping depends on good information. Using past performances, speed graphs, sire statistics, jockey statistics, trainer statistics, track models is how you determine which horse is the best. But even with all that information, or perhaps because there’s so much information, it is extremely difficult to make a profit. Of course, there’s the problem of over coming the vig, but we’ll save that rant for another horse racing article.

Statistics can tell us a lot of things and it seems that just putting them together should lead to winners. For instance, the winner of 70% of the races is one of the top three horses with the fastest speed rating in its last race. About 70% of the winners of horse races is one of the top 3 horses in the morning line. Approximately 70% of winners are horses who are carrying the same weight or less. The statistics go on and on.

Then why not just combined those statistics and apply them as filters to find the logical contenders? For instance, if you use the three stats I just pointed out and looked for horses that qualified for all three conditions, wouldn’t that lead to some high probability bets? Sorry to disappoint you, but even though it seems so logical, the answer is, “no.”

How can that be? The problem is that there is more to finding good bets than putting together a few statistics. For instance, there is the margin to be considered. While the winner may be among the top three in the morning line about 70% of the time, what if the margin between the top horse is 1-1 to 3-1? What if the margin between the top two horses is 2-1 to 5-2? There is a big difference there and we wouldn’t expect the horse at 1-1 in the morning line to have the same chance of winning as the 2-1 horse in another race.

Therefore, we have to start weighting factors based on ratios and it gets complicated. If the margin is too great, then that may skew our stats. What if a horse has the fastest speed figure in its last race but isn’t in the top three in the morning line? It can happen. It would not qualify to be contender if our selections were based on all three stats. Would you want to leave such a horse out of your considerations?

Our next problem in horse racing handicapping is that not all races, distances, genders, ages are subject to the same filters. Track models for different ages and distances point to much different running styles for winners so it becomes important to adjust our filters according to all of those considerations. Is it any wonder that computer programs with their ability to handle many factors still can’t show us a profit?

Those are just some of the reasons that picking winners at the horse races is so difficult and why people who love an intellectual challenge enjoy it so much. Can anyone make a profit at the track? Yes, but as I’ve just pointed out, it isn’t easy.

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Bill Peterson has 1 articles online

If you want to learn how a horse owner and insider handicaps just go to http://williewins.homestead.com/sharpshooter2.html and get the truth. Bill Peterson is a former horse race owner and professional handicapper. To see all Bill’s horse racing material go to Horse Racing Handicapping, Bill’s handicapping store.

Filed Under: Horse Racing Articles Tagged With: handicapping horse, horse races

Sloppy Betting on Fast Tracks Leads to Horse Racing Profits

April 27, 2012 By Admin Leave a Comment

Last week I was very busy and had to rush to the track in order to make post time for the first race. As I dashed in I saw that the 6 in the first race was at 7-1 and since it was one one of the top three horses in my list of contenders, I raced up to the window and just managed to get a win and place bet down along with an exacta key, top and bottom, with my other two horses.

When I finally sat down and looked at my past performances, I groaned. I looked at the 6 again and noticed for the first time that the jockey’s win average was only 4%. I don’t like to bet on low percentage jockeys. The starting gate opened before I could cancel my ticket. I watched as the 6 broke to the lead and led almost to the wire, but was finally beaten by one of the other key horses. I had a decent exacta and also a nice place payoff.

If I’d had the chance to get to the seller’s window and cancel the ticket, I would have done just that and missed a nice payoff and start to the day. I had been rushed and sloppy in my preparation and wagering, but it worked out in my favor. Some would argue that it was just my lucky day, but I think there was a lesson to be learned from all this.

In my quest to cover all the bases I had become obsessive about too many things. In order to get good payoffs on your bets you’re going to have to let your hair down and take a flyer on a horse that is less than perfect. Sometimes there may be a flaw in the horses stats, connections, running style, but the odds are what really determine whether a runner is worth a bet.

Every single entrant in a race has a chance to win. If you don’t believe that, get a month’s worth of results and look them over. You will find that some races are won by the horse with the longest odds and other races are won by longshots that pay big. Before the race was run, those horses appeared to have no chance. Only the “Longshot Louies and Louisas,” backed them.

Obviously, just playing any horse because the odds are long isn’t a good plan, but in the case of my bet, I did have reasons to back the 6. It didn’t win but I still made a profit on it because of how I played it and because it managed to get into the exacta. I’m not advising you to throw caution to the wind and to get too wild in your betting, but if the odds are right, you have to make compromises with your rules and guidelines for handicapping horse races and yes, sometimes you have to even get a little sloppy.

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Bill Peterson has 1 articles online

To see all Bill’s horse racing material go to Horse Racing Handicapping, Bill’s handicapping store. If you want to learn how a horse owner and insider handicaps just go to http://williewins.homestead.com/truecb.html and get the truth. Bill Peterson is a former horse race owner and professional handicapper.

Filed Under: Horse Racing Articles Tagged With: handicapping horse, horse races