how to beat the bookmaker

[CVByrne]

I can see there’s lots of talk on football betting. Let me just say a few things.

 

Bookies want your £10 & £20 first goal scorer punters. People who don’t care if they make money overall they just want a flutter for an interest. It’s fun, the same way people pay money to do things like go to the cinema etc.. by betting on Man U vs Chelsea you now have an interest in the game, a team to support. If you lose your bet you don’t dwell on it you don’t really care, the bet was tied to the match.

 

The same way there are the punters who do accumulators on football just because the £5 bet is not an amount you’ll dwell on if you lose, but the times when the accum comes in you get the enjoyment of winning a few hundred. It’s like a kind of bad saving, that you’ll pay in £10 for 20 weeks and then win £160 once, you’ve lost money overall but that £40 lost is what the enjoyment cost.

 

But if you actually want to make money you have to bet with the key word in mind every time. Value. All events have an outcome, what you need to do is bet on events where the outcome is more likely than the odds imply. But this is all based on your opinion. You think that 2/1 is value on Villa away win at say Stoke. You’re betting against the belief of the masses and bookies.

 

How good your opinion is what will make or break you. But simple rules and lessons can aide you from the beginning. The idea of adding in a “couple of bankers” to up the odds is the single worst thing to do when betting on football accumulators. You should simply just bet on what odds look value to you, if it’s 3 teams and they’re all odds on then that’s what it is, don’t try add in 2 other teams to make the accum bigger. Also there are more matches than the Prem, lower leagues are often a goldmine if you just know some stats about home record, form etc..

 

It’s important to reiterate, there is effort involved in trying to make money. If you just want to throw on an accum or a football bet for an interest that’s perfectly fine, I do it. It makes a non interesting match interesting. But if you’re interested in making money you’d want to get rid of the common bad mistakes I mentioned above.

[PussEKatt]

There really is only one way to beat the bookie:

Place your bet, if you lose double up on your next bet.Keep doing that until you win then walk away.  

[AVFC_Hitz]

There really is only one way to beat the bookie:

Place your bet, if you lose double up on your next bet.Keep doing that until you win then walk away.  

 

Rory Delap has a long through doesn't he?

[PussEKatt]

I dont get it ?

[leviramsey]

You haven't read the thread, have you?

[CVByrne]

I do worry the people who say to keep doubling your bet are actually serious.

I mean when I go collecting winnings from Bookies I always look at the poor souls playing the fixed odds betting machines and think it's their money I'm taking. But it's clear fundamental logic of betting is less common knowledge than I thought.

[leviramsey]

But it's clear fundamental logic of betting is less common knowledge than I thought.

One sidelight here: it is extraordinary to me that the idea of buying dollar bills for 40 cents take immediately with people or it doesn't take at all. It's like an inoculation. If it doesn't grab a person right away, I find that you can talk to him for years and show him records, and it just doesn't make any difference. They don't seem to be able to grasp the concept, as simple as it is.

[CVByrne]

Similarly how I cannot learn a foreign language. I cannot grasp it, I'm forever doing a translation into English in my mind. I struggle terribly with spelling in English even. Some people just don't get some things. For me it's languages, for others it's like Buffett said.

[snowychap]

..

Edited September 17, 2013 by snowychap

[villaguy]

I guess 'value' is all about an intimate knowledge of the sport. What references do you use to make you decide on this? Personal, via expert pundits, making charts etc or all of these combined

[CVByrne]

I wonder what rant snowy left at 1am.

[CVByrne]

Villaguy, my term “value” is based on my opinion and is due to my intimate knowledge of the sports I bet on and my experiences and knowledge of lessons learnt from the past. I do - as I’ve said - have others who’s opinion I would value and I’d bounce mine off theirs but only after I’ve an opinion formed of my own.

 

This is usually the case for the big races of the season where an antepost market exists. Antepost means where you can bet on a specific horse winning a specific race weeks or even months in advance, with the higher odds on offer a result of you losing your bet should the horse not run.

 

I don’t follow any tipsters or put any stock in pundits etc.. because even if they’re right their views are public and as such bookies can react accordingly adjusting their odds. You are simply a sheep then and won’t have any real value long term. In fact when I or another is keen on a horse and he gets tipped up by one of the big tipsters we get angry as his price plummets. Tom Segal in the Racing Post is the value killer for sure.

 

One of the key things is to review your bets after the event. You will lose the majority of your bets and by reviewing a race you can see if you went wrong, you can look at the winner and see if you could have picked that horse out etc.. Basically improve your knowledge all the time.

 

The racing I bet on, which is Jumps racing doesn’t lend itself to stats very well as the variables are too many in each race, the different ground, the different style of the fences, mistakes made jumping them, different tracks, the level of fitness between early and late season. So as a result of that I absorb all the info and form an opinion rather than have any form of charts and or betting system.

 

I suppose it's just lots of experience. There is no simple quick way to be good at it. But there are lessons you can start with that can help significantly. Like keeping records of all bets, immediatly stopping betting if emotion/anger is taking over. Review review, review.

[Risso]

Review what went wrong - surely that's always just a case of backing the wrong horse/team/golfer whatever?

[snowychap]

I wonder what rant snowy left at 1am.

 

Keep wondering.

[leviramsey]

Wasn't a rant as such iirc. More a point about diversity of thought processes.

[CVByrne]

Review what went wrong - surely that's always just a case of backing the wrong horse/team/golfer whatever?

 

 

Well in horse racing you normally look at the winner and his form and see how you may have spotted him. What clues were there, was it just one that couldn't have been spotted, etc.. 

 

While with football you can go back and look at the pattern, are you backing too many home teams, are you betting in cup competitions etc. The other thing to note about football is never ever let the bet go to full time. Always close out a bet during a match little by little as it approaches full time. This is the advantage betfair gives you and all pros use that advantage. 

 

Keeping records and reviewing them is important.

 

I wonder what rant snowy left at 1am.

 

Keep wondering.

 

 

   

[snowychap]

Wasn't a rant as such iirc. More a point about diversity of thought processes.

And when I read it back this morning it appeared not to make as much sense as last night.

[CVByrne]

So I've had an excellent start to the racing season. Started back on 12th October and over 1k up so far before the season has really got going.

So I decided I'll post every Friday evening or Saturday morning my best bet the day for the Saturday in this thread. After I've got my bet on of course.

Hopefully a few will follow me on them and make a few quid and it'll also prove how you can bet and win consistently on horse racing.

It's key to point out that most bets will be around double figure odds. So the idea is to land two or three in the season but will overall make a profit. It's not a win every week sport. It's a take the losses every week and celebrate the big wins.

I'll keep a running total of profit and loss on the selected horses in this thread. I'll also post reasoning behind each bet in case people want to ask questions.

It should be a bit of fun anyway.

[AVFCDAN]

Do it mate, I back horses a few times a week but I tend to go for quantity over quality, e.g back 6 races at Wolverhampton and hope to come out of it with profit.

I'm not really someone that follows horses and watches them come downturn handicap etc...

I tend to do ok

[snowychap]

It's key to point out that most bets will be around double figure odds. So the idea is to land two or three in the season but will overall make a profit. It's not a win every week sport. It's a take the losses every week and celebrate the big wins.

I couldn't agree more with the approach.

p.s. If you spot anything that stands out in novices with regard to Cheltenham prospects then feel free to give them a mention in the thread, too.