In all forms of gambling then accurate record keeping is a must if you are going to take the game seriously. If you fail to keep records then how can you possibly know that you are winning and making money or not? This is how the gambling industry makes its money, by large numbers of punters who do not know if they are winning or losing. If your losses are gradual and over a long period of time then it is difficult to spot this without record keeping.

With a run of results like +$45, -$53, -$17, +$144, +$122, -$165, -$87, +$16, -$34 then how would you know that you were losing $29 over that series of runs. It is very difficult to see a $29 loss merely looking at those figures. You tend to see the two large wins back to back and it is these wins that stick in the memory and keep people betting.

Imagine what it would be like if you were to have hundreds upon hundreds of these results. It would be impossible to detect losses if these losses were gradual and being supplemented by ongoing income. This is another reason behind why bankrolls are important but yet it is rarely discussed but yet this is one of the most important betting tips that you can get. If you set aside $5000 as a bankroll and you lose all of it over time then it is pretty safe to assume that you are not making money from sports betting.

However though, some people would rather live in delusion than see the truth of what they are doing. Many professionals keep records not just for their profit and loss but also their betting history as well. This is where trends can reveal themselves and this is also where you can improve your own performance tremendously. This self appraisal and self analysis is critical for success in sports betting as it helps you to locate and then eliminate mistakes.

I use a spreadsheet to record my results and data whether I am betting on sports or merely analysing my past performance. It is important to do this for numerous reasons but you also need to know what strategies are working from those that are not. Maybe you fare better at certain sports over others. How will you possibly be able to detect this unless you keep records? If over 1000 bets on football you were winning on average $9 per bet but these bets were merged together with tennis bets and you also had 1000 bets on tennis but only this time you were losing $7/bet on tennis.

Over the course of these 2000 bets then you would be ahead by $2000 and you may be feeling very good with yourself. But that $2000 win has been made by winning $9000 on football betting but losing $7000 on tennis betting. If you had eliminated the tennis betting from your operation then you would be ahead by $9000 and not $2000.

This is the power of keeping records because over very large sample sizes then it becomes very difficult to see different types of bets when seen with the naked eye when they are not written down.

The title of this article may sound confusing but not once I begin to explain what it is that I am really saying. It is pretty well evident that in athletics, different distances suit different athletes. The reasons as to why this is so are both long and complex and well beyond the scope of this article. Usually the body type of an individual and their overall physiological make up dictate if they can even be an athlete at all.

This is similar to Horse Racing as most horses are simply not cut out to be race horses in the same way that most humans are not cut out to be athletes. Then we start to become immersed in the rather complex study of which types of athletes are suited to which types of distances. This is usually achieved through trial and error but the chest cavity also has an impact as well.

So it is clear then that humans differ greatly and their capacities to do certain things differ greatly as well. So what this means is that all athletes can only be truly successful at a high level at certain distances. While it is true that some athletes can be successful at different distances, the other distance is not that far removed from the original distance. A top athlete may be successful at both 100m and 200m or 200m and 400m. Or it could well be 800m and 1500m or even 5000m and 10,000m.

But you never see a 200m runner at 800m or vice versa. These same principles apply to horse racing perfectly and they apply to distances as well. You never see a 5f specialist running at 1.5 miles. These are so different as to be identical to a 100m runner running at 1500m……it just doesn’t happen. This is not to say that a 1500m runner could not run 100m…..of course they could. What I am actually saying here is that the 1500m runner simply would not possess the explosive power and speed of a specialist 100m runner and therefore would never achieve a top level of performance.

So what all this is leading to is that when horses are either stepping up or down in distance for the first time then there are always possibilities for problems. Usually this stepping up or stepping down process is all carefully calculated and it is usually the case that this is being done simply because the trainer believes that it may improve performance and not lessen it.

So what this means is that you cannot always assume that just because a horse is trying a distance for the first time that it is going to struggle. Quite often there is a marked improvement in the performance level at the new distance. This can often be observed when horses have poor or indifferent form at another level. The time to be careful is if a horse has had good form at a certain distance and is then moving up or down to a new distance for the very first time.

Many people have often said that bookmaking is a licence to print money. Well I do not agree with that statement for several reasons and the main one is that bookmaking is a business just like any other and that business depends on people placing bets in sufficient quantity for the bookmaker to meet their overheads and then have enough profit left over to make it a viable concern.

So what this has led to in recent years is an influx of people who are going onto the betting exchanges trying to act as a bookmaker. This is fine to a point but there is far more to bookmaking than meets the eye. I would say that my knowledge of bookmaking is superior to at least 99% of the people who gamble but yet that isn’t high enough for even someone like me to operate on the exchanges as a bookmaker.

There is no doubt that many gamblers are becoming more sophisticated in how they gamble and that can be seen on sites like Racebook for example but the problem is that they are simply making sophisticated mistakes instead of unsophisticated ones. I have known many people personally who were seduced by fancy looking software in the belief that this was some Holy Grail of betting. The latest batch of trading and betting software that interacts with the API of the betting exchanges is one such example of this.

But yet I have been around the gambling industry for a very long time and more than long enough to know that software by itself simply will not do the job properly. Software will really only be of use if it supplements a proven winning method. Take BetAngel for instance what I use, that is a fantastic piece of kit that will help you in your horse racing trading but yet it cannot make you money without an underlying philosophy behind you.

So it is clear then that the betting exchanges are having a huge impact on how punters are betting and even though the average punter is becoming far more knowledgeable and sophisticated, in my view then they are simply making different and more sophisticated mistakes. What this tends to do is leave the punter in a situation where if you were to listen to them speak; they would sound as if they were a really successful punter. This is exactly the same with poker.

But as always the core element is in how much money you are making and most people who can “talk the talk” simply cannot “walk the walk”. So it then becomes clear that taking the next step in sophistication is not the be all and end all if all it does is lead to you making more sophisticated mistakes. This can be linked to someone who trades on stocks and shares to someone who bets on horse racing. One seems more sophisticated than the other but yet is simply making mistakes on a larger scale in what is or seems a more sophisticated environment.

There is usually an old adage in Horse Racing that goes like this “don’t expect a horse to do something that it has never done before”. What this statement actually means deserves some sort of explanation. Usually there are reasons behind why a horse is doing something for the first time. It could be facing a certain type of going for the first time or a certain course for the first time. Maybe it is racing on a right or left handed track for the first time or even wearing blinkers.

Some horses will never have won before but whatever the reason, this can and does have a serious impact on the horse actually winning. This is where you can find good horses worth laying if you can find reasons for them to perform poorly. If you can find several reasons then so much the better. Other factors to take into account are if a horse is travelling a long distance for the first time.

Anything that is new to the horse can impact on its performance and being confined inside a horse box for periods that are far longer than what it has been used to could have a damaging effect. Usually the sensitivity of the betting on the exchanges finds these factors out as a rule and the price adjusts accordingly.

Another huge factor in why horses can perform badly is if they are experiencing a different distance to the one that they normally run at. If a horse has only ever run over 5f and is now running over 6f then this is a question mark against the horse in question. You can often look at the racing history of certain horses to see how they have performed and over what distances. Usually all these factors and more have been taken into consideration by the odds compilers and bookmakers but some manage to slip through the net.

The average horse is far more temperamental than what you think and it can be disturbed for a multitude of reasons and it will not always be visible to the naked eye. The key to all this is to look for reasons as to why the horse may do badly. If you are looking at a horse that is running over a certain distance for the first time then common sense has to be applied here if the horse is still vastly superior in ability to its opponents. You cannot lay a horse simply on this reason and this reason alone as the difference in ability is enough to offset the reason that you are trying to put forward for a poor performance.

Usually when it comes to laying a horse then I look for at least three reasons for a horse not to win and the race to be a competitive one with at least two or three other horses in with a serious shout of winning besides the favourite.

The way that the betting exchanges tout their product is that it is matched betting and that you are pitting your opinion against that of someone else. So it is your knowledge of sport or a sporting event or person against that of someone else. In a sort of loose fitting way then this is true. However the vast amount of liquidity on the exchanges these days is stemming from outside institutions, bookmakers and traders.

Skilled financial day traders have an edge on the exchanges because they are trained in their profession. But yet as a punter then you really shouldn’t be taking these people head on anyway. As a rule then the bookmakers use exchanges to hedge their own offline betting activities but they also back and lay for other reasons as well. However there are many institutions who are operating on the exchanges so you never really get access to individual money in the way that it is touted because the money is pooled.

However there are ways to circumvent this problem and trader and institutional activity may account for a large amount of liquidity in certain markets. But traders rarely understand tissue prices and what represents value and are mainly operating around their own individual strategies. What this means is that betting prices often oscillate either side of what are optimum pricing levels.

So it is possible to find very good value on the betting exchanges but it takes patience to wait and a good tissue price at hand that has a proven track record of accuracy within a few percentage points. The older strategies of using weight of money indicators have long since been dead in the water and I never really thought that they would work anyway as they were too well known. Trying to ascertain short term market movement is difficult because there is a tremendous amount of short term noise and manipulation of the markets from some very powerful sources.

However there is a difference between short term movement and longer term movement as in my opinion, it is easier to find longer term movement than short term movement on the exchanges these days. The bigger markets of Horse Racing and football are where the greatest liquidity is found and this is where the greatest outside influences can be found. In my view then it is important to elongate the trading process so that you can get away from traders and institutions who are driving prices in a certain direction based on their own short term strategies. It then becomes very hard to predict when and how far these people will drive the price short term and trying to follow them becomes difficult.

So one of the keys to making money on the exchanges is to highlight who you are going up against and what they are doing. If you can do that and then get your hands on a good tissue that accurately assesses true chances of winning then that is a very good start.

In all forms of gambling, the lure of winning immediate money is strong and in a roundabout way, this desire and fear of losing is what drives the betting industry to a large extent. People do not like losing money, they like winning money…..that much is obvious. But yet this desire of winning and fear of losing become so polarised that the punter ends up taking these two points to an extreme and their betting strategy and habits are formed around these emotions.

In poker, many players like winning quick easy pots and do not value bet decent hands when they should mainly through fear. These emotions are prevalent in Horse Race betting too but the bookmakers know that it exists and exploit it. This is why the majority of punters back the horses at the top end of the market. They do not want to back middling to high priced horses because even though the pay-off is high relative to stakes, the chances of winning are slim at best.

So the first and second favourite in the betting becomes the target for many punters. This is just as well because the first and second favourites tend to be the horses with the greatest chance of winning. Because they have the greatest chance of winning then these two horses satisfy what the majority of the betting public crave and that is to have immediate success by way of winners and to avoid the pain of losing money. So in a way these factors feed on themselves but the effect is that because so many of the betting public want to back such horses then the prices can become shorter as a result.

This can lead the first and second favourites to be poor value if the price gets contracted in this way. But if you look at this situation for a minute then this not only highlights why amateur punters lose money but it also shows how professionals win money. If the favourites and second favourites are becoming poor value because the mass of the betting public is supporting them then by sheer definition, there must be value elsewhere in the market.

The amateurs are being seduced and shackled by their own greed and fear and it is greed and fear which drives the betting market. Even money favourites will win around 50% of the time but yet their true winning ratio will be less than that as the price of evens will more than likely be shorter than what it should be. But even though a punter is backing at Evens when the true price should be at least 5-4 or 11/8 does not deter them because when it wins a high percentage of the time, it feeds their desire for winners and fends off their fear of losing. The end result in all of this is a long and slow steady drip feeding of money into the hands of the bookmakers but as long as punters are greedy and fearful then it will continue to happen.

For the novice horse racing punter then it can be difficult to identify which horses belong in which class at first glance. In other sports like football then it is far easier to see the difference in class. Most professional teams play in leagues so in cup competitions where teams from different leagues compete against each other then the difference in class is obvious. It is also obvious in horse racing of course although less so to the novice. So when analysing form then one of the most important factors is in if your horse has shown any sort of proof whatsoever that it can win in the class of race that it is about to take part in.

Often a major question must be placed at the side of a horse that is moving up in class for the first time. In a way this is a trip into the unknown until further evidence becomes available. Often though the rise in class is justified and the horse often performs well in the next category up. Once again the analogy with football is clear as football teams in the lower leagues who have been promoted have also done well in the next league up and many times teams have recorded back to back promotions in successive seasons.

To help any novice to further understand a new sport when it comes to betting on horses then it always helps to make analogies with other sports and I always try to do this with my articles. To really immerse yourself in the complexities of form then I advise you to seek out a form book like Raceform for example.

However this can be very long winded and there are just far too many races in an average racing day in the UK and most other countries like Germany, Ireland and France for a bettor to be able to follow and analyse them all. Another option to short cut this process is to use an automated rating service or computer program that does this for you. There are also some good services out there that offer ratings as well for cheap prices and subscriptions to magazines like Smartsig and SmarterSig can become a good investment for those who are looking to break into betting on horses.

There are basically two ways to get good ratings and the first is to manually do this yourself the hard way or to develop a computer program to do this for you. Developing a program requires expert knowledge in its own right so that will not be an option either for the vast majority of novice punters. So short cutting the process and finding good reliable and accurate ratings without doing the necessary leg work then becomes a necessity.

There are numerous ratings systems that you can pay for but you need to be aware of a few things first. You need to know if the system has any track record that can be checked and also how expensive the ratings are. You can get your hands on good ratings these days for no more than $30/month which is basically nothing compared to the amount of time that you would need to put in manually doing this yourself.

(continuing on from part two)

“That and how hard you threw it” replied Duncan.

“I know that buts let us just suppose that we could throw it evenly and at the same speed each time then the bounce would be identical for each surface would it not?” replied Matthew.

Duncan nodded in silent agreement. “Well the ball on a roulette wheel falls from the track as soon as its speed falls to a certain point and that speed is constant from spin to spin. So because the metal rotor is made of the same material then the bounce will be the same in the roulette wheel” remarked Matthew.

“Yeah but you still cannot predict where the ball is going to bounce” interrupted Duncan.

“Yes but I read about a case some while ago where someone got access to a Roulette wheel after the casino was closed and inserted black rubber strips into the number slots that were identical in size. The following day when the casino opened, they went back and started betting heavily on red because the ball would simply not come to rest in any of the black numbers that had the much springier rubber strips in them” remarked Matthew.

“That’s brilliant” said Duncan.

“Yeah it is but it is also impractical” replied Matthew.

“What do you mean?” replied Duncan with a puzzled look on his face.

“Well for a start, I just cannot see how the black rubber strips are going to be the same shade of black as the natural black that is in the roulette wheel. Those strips would stand out a mile.” Said Matthew.

“Couldn’t you put a black rubber strip into every black number in the wheel so that there wouldn’t be a colour difference” replied Duncan.

“You could but that has two very distinct problems. Firstly having a rubber strip in every single black number would mean that red numbers would hardly ever come out because the ball would naturally seek out the least line of resistance. Secondly, placing rubber strips in the roulette wheel is just providing the casino with evidence to which they can prosecute someone. No, what’s needed is a way to get the exact same effect without leaving any evidence at all and it being a lot more invisible than placing rubber pads into the number slots” replied Matthew.

“So what do you propose?” replied Duncan.

“Well I had this idea to smear an opaque resin type substance on the black numbers that would be invisible to the naked eye. When the ball hit the number pocket then it would not be making contact with the metal but the resin substance instead which would have a far different level of bounce than the ordinary metal pockets” said Matthew.

“Does this substance exist?” said Duncan.

“You bet your life it does, I know this guy who is a lab technician for a chemical company and he says that Oxydysetomide would do what I was looking for” replied Matthew. He went on, “the stuff can be applied and sets like varnish in a few seconds. But the best thing about it is that the substance can be removed by applying petrol afterwards and this breaks it down enough for it to be removed” said Matthew. Look out for part four coming soon no how to scam casinos.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson
Author “Killer Roulette”

Following on from part one and this just served to mask his true feelings, he was very disgruntled with his job and was resentful that he had not had a pay rise in a long time. He hated the fact that some punters were very rude to him but being good friends with the AGM put him into a very awkward situation because it was him that got Duncan the job in casinos in the first place so to complain now would seem like ingratitude. Duncan always knew just how dodgy Matthew was but the two of them had a lot more in common than being life long friends and good drinking buddies. Both shared a very unhealthy interest in scams and con men and would sometimes talk for hours devising intricate theoretical cons either at Duncan’s place or round at Matthews.

As both of them were single then this was easy, Duncan was recently divorced and Matthew was doing what he had always done and that was to flit from partner to partner never staying with any girl more than a few months. Over the years they had discussed ways to rip off banks, credit card companies, motorists, just about anybody and anything. But because of Duncan’s job, Matthew had never before brought up the subject of ripping off a casino….until tonight.

It was the very first time that Matthew had revealed to Duncan that he had a full sized proper Roulette wheel that had actually seen action inside a real casino and as part of real casino games. Duncan was amazed by this and inquired as to how long that he had had it. When replied that he had been in possession of the wheel for over three years then this came as a monumental surprise to him.

“So why didn’t you tell me about the wheel before, can’t you trust me or something?” inquired Duncan.

“It’s not that, I just did not want to put you into an awkward position but with you looking for another job and having that interview on Thursday then I figured that you won’t be in the industry for much longer” replied Matthew

Duncan smiled and said “what’s a matter, did you think that I would blab?”

“No not at all, it just didn’t feel right that’s all” replied Matthew.

“So what have you been doing with it and have you found a way to beat the thing” asked Duncan.

“Maybe” replied Matthew with a distinct twinkle in his eye.

“So come on then, tell your good buddy” replied Duncan.

“Well at first I tried to spin certain numbers but I couldn’t do it and after about six months I packed it in. Then I tried to do the opposite and spin away from certain sections and I thought that I was succeeding at this at first but that proved to be a red herring as well. Over the past three years I have tried all kinds of things to beat this damn wheel but the task has proved to be very difficult” said Matthew.

“But you have found a way haven’t you?” inquired Duncan.

“In Theory, I have yet to try it out and won’t be able to until next week” replied Matthew.

“So come on then what is it?” asked Duncan.

“Well I stumbled on the idea really while playing Tennis and it is quite simple. You know that if you threw a tennis ball at numerous different surfaces then the degree of bounce on that ball would relate to how hard each surface was” remarked Matthew. Look out for part three coming soon.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson
Author “Killer Roulette”

I will leave it entirely up to you to decide whether the content of this series is fact or fiction but what you are about to read is based around events that have all happened to a certain extent. The names are fictitious and so is the name of the chemical substance that is used but this chapter tells the story of what could easily be a real scam perpetrated against a casino. It once again underlines the fact of just how vulnerable casinos are and especially when you include inside assists. Like I said, the characters in this series are fictitious but the events are certainly not based on fantasy.

The year was 1991 and Duncan Elway and Matthew Mcdermott were having a meeting around at Matthews house to discuss the possibility of hitting a casino from the inside. Like many other people, they were seduced by the thought of scams and were enthralled by the tales of con men and swindlers. There has always been something appealing and loveable about some of these characters and that is partly why they interest people so much.

But there is an element of the crook in all of us because of how exciting the life sometimes seems from the outside. But Matthew and Duncan have taken this interest to another level and situated inside Matthews basement is a full sized Roulette wheel made by the Paul Tramble Roulette wheel company in Reno. The wheel looks to be in excellent condition and the metallic rotor, canoes, frets and spindle still glimmer and shine like new under the single light that illuminates Matthew’s basement.

Where Matthew came by the wheel he is certainly not prepared to say but Roulette wheels like these can be bought on the open market these days and reconditioned ones can be purchased for a couple of grand. Matthew had his own double glazing business which was hardly pulling any trees up by way of profit and it would be no surprise if the entire thing folded. Matthew was certainly not averse to folding businesses as he had done so several times before and had been officially declared bankrupt owing his business associates considerable sums of money.

But that did not bother Matthew and to say that he never lost any sleep over it would be a colossal understatement. Duncan worked on reception at the casino near to where Matthew lived and he and Matthew had been very good friends for a long time, since they were school kids in fact. Because of their close friendship, Duncan would regularly reveal information to Matthew that ordinary punters would not have had access to. Duncan was very close friends with an assistant General Manager who worked there, close enough to find things out that would interest a charlatan like Matthew.

Matthew would know first hand how the casino had done on any particular shift either on the gaming tables or on slots, if they had met their targets, who was being promoted and all kinds of confidential stuff. Duncan was a likeable guy and even the gaming staff themselves would open up to him and tell him information simply because everyone trusted him. Nobody perceived him as a threat and he appeared to love his job as he was always smiling and telling jokes. Look out for part two coming soon.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson
Author – “Killer Roulette”