It is 6.30am in the morning and Mike’s alarm clock is buzzing and it is time to get out of bed. Mike has already done most of his homework the previous night on the Racing Post website but he likes to get up early to see if there is anything that he has missed. Preparation is everything in sports betting and this is where Mike excels.
His field of operation in sports betting is Horse Racing and especially targeting where he feels the “money” is going to go. Mike goes on to reveal his philosophy.
“You see, the punters want to bet on something. At the end of the day the reasons are psychological. This may seem obvious but your average punter is clueless. Because they haven’t got the time or the inclination to analyse form deeply then they take short cuts. This means that the betting population en-masse end up coming to the same conclusions looking at selections in the same way.
I can tell where the steamers are going to be (a steamer is slang for a horse that falls dramatically in price) based on what people look for.”
I have always known that some punters operate like this and the underlying strategic principles are entirely valid. Professional odds compilers are so sophisticated these days that beating them is very difficult over the long term and probably impossible. In fact if you are not prepared to put the time in that they do and more besides then it will be impossible.
It isn’t so much putting in time either as time and hard work does not always equal success. But the odds compilers have advanced in leaps and bounds over the past few years and this has led to the old traditional ways of finding betting value becoming obsolete. Even If you did find value then it surely wouldn’t be enough to make a living out of it or even a serious second income stream.
“The punters will drive the market at times; this is where the value comes from and not in the odds compilers making mistakes. If a betting firm thinks that the mugs will take 8/11 on a mount then why should they open 4/5? The exchanges are where you can value and especially if you can find a popular market horse that the public want to back”
There is value in this, whether it is following jockeys or stable form, trainer records or course and distance winners then one thing is certain…..punters will identify obvious things in their analysis of the race and this simply will not alter. On the betting exchanges then most of the money comes on during the fifteen minutes prior to a race starting.
This is precisely when surges of money can come on certain horses whilst others are falling out of favour. Any pro sports bettor who is sharp enough and fast enough can identify horses that are about to fall in price or are in the process of actually doing so.
Carl “The Dean” Sampson
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