Horse Betting Profits
The horse betting game is all about profits.
For the casual player, profits are a way of keeping score – a way to judge how one’s approach is faring. For the more determined bettor, profits are everything – otherwise, why waste the time? The HRG Index and /or the various methods we offer will, if you are even just a little bit serious, get you into the black.
The question that must first be resolved however, is “how much do you require from the game? The savvy player knows that serious money cannot be made on paltry $5 and $10 wagers. This basic fact must be faced. If you cannot bet more than $20 without feeling reckless, and if you cannot lose that bet without getting down on yourself . . . perhaps you need to reevaluate your reason for betting the horses in the first place.
Once you have an on-going record of profitable betting, how you then structure your money management approach becomes very important. Again – once you have a decent term of recorded results (say – a month, or 50-60 races) that are showing a positive expectancy, you can begin to optimize your return. Each small gain in either win %, or win price can cause a big change in your long-term, bottom-line ROI.
Short term riches are possible of course. We’ve all heard stories of the lucky $2 player hitting a once-in-a-blue-moon pick 6 or whatever. But that is not what can be expected, nor can it be promised. If some system seller tells you that his method will guarantee that you will get the big money – run as fast as you can in the other direction!
This is a long-term game. Literally anything can happen in a single horse race – and does. Neither should a serious bettor care, nor be put on tilt by the outcome of any short series of races. Having a slight advantage over the game – that is extended over a long period of time – while the betting is being optimized – leads to real, and serious profits.
Thirty-five years of observing myself and other horse players has taught me many things about the realities of handicapping and betting the horses. But perhaps the most important lesson learned – the one that most players never learn – the one that prevents consistently profitable wagering is . . . a smart player does not wager in too many races.
How many is too many? That varies of course, but if you are betting in even half the races offered at a track on the average race day – that is very likely too many. One needs to be constantly on guard against throwing money that has been hard-won in a race that the bettor had a good handle on – onto the next race where he does not feel a solid sense of the most likely outcome scenarios for that particular mix of horses.
Another lesson that takes many years to “get” is having minimum acceptable odds parameters. You need to be able to pass on low-odds favorites even when they look like a shoe-in in today’s race. Your decision needs to be whether to bet against that horse if another looks capable, or passing the race altogether. I’ve written in other places that if a player is consistently betting horses at less than 2/1 – he’s playing in a losing game. In most circumstances (and in the long run), even betting horses at less than 3-1 as a steady diet will likely have a negative long-term profit expectancy. The more races you wager the more true this becomes. After all, favorites win only around 33% of the time. If you are very restrictive in the kinds of races you wager, and have very strict qualifying parameters for the runners you’ll consider, then (maybe!) you can push your acceptable odds range down just a bit.
Subscribers who follow the HRG Index will be guided away from those two money-burning errors. The HRG Index shows; which horses to wager, the acceptable odds on those horses, how to bet on them, alternate scenarios to cover important scratches, and will give guidance on longer-term money management strategies that will increase bottom-line profits.
Read more about the HRG Index here: Horse Racing Picks
Back to home page – click here: Horse Betting Success