Warts n All (26th March 2006)

I don’t watch The Morning Line on Channel 4.

The program is targeted at a certain category of the population who feed off the crumbs of information communicated in a tabloid style from a group of (self opinionated) pundits. I realised a long time ago that to be successful in punting you need a swim against the crowd and listening to the likes of “Big Mac”, “GG”, “The Cat”, “Female” et al was not the way forward.

Anyway, for some reason I tuned into the program on Saturday. Fortunately one of the guests was Dave Nevison a well-respected professional punter and Racing and Football Outlook reporter. Interesting enough he explained his approach to making a living from backing horses.

There were 3 main thrusts to his approach

(a) multiple jackpot/scoop 6 bets when the pool offers value
(b) high volume, fast turnover betting day-to-day.
(c) backing multiple horses in each race

The other reason for his approach relates to the psychology of winning. More bets = more chances of winning. A measured approach i.e. waiting for golden opportunities might be ok, but as Dave stated, a losing run could result in bigger and bigger bets to get yourself out of trouble. This point got my creative juices flowing regarding my own approach.

A few beers and a lot of pondering last night, made me realise I like Dave’s approach and that my current betting strategy has all the hallmarks of a workable plan with a few adjustments.

1. Laying horses to lose but targeted toward the lower grades of racing. My exploits on the All-Weather has taught me that below grade 4, things get a bit woolly in terms of reliable form so why not start laying horses below this level (or lower) than trying to back them? There are plenty of low-grade races everyday, so pickings should be easy and plentyful in theory.

2. I need to dream the impossible dream. Dave plays the Jackpot/Scoop6 with the positive expectation of winning the big prize. He won ~ £90,000 in the scoop6 the previous week and selecting the winner of the bonus race entitled him to a ~ £40,000 bonus. His profit on turnover must look good at the moment.

I don’t have large funds available to attack these pool bets however I can look to create my own version of a perm/multiple bet with the hope of a substantial win to get the bank moving forward rapidly. For most punters this means the time honoured mug bets such as accumulators/lucky15/32/64/Heinz/Yankee’s. Not for me.

Often on a Saturday I take a view on a number of races. In addition to win singles why not combine a number selections together to form the basis of a small stakes perm such as the following?

http://www.gamblinguncovered.co.uk/systems/5001_plan.shtml

Let’s see I can use my selection methods and the basis of the perm to turn that dream into a reality (long losing runs are expected though)