Strategies



AUSTRALIA HORSE RACING - TIPPING SERVICE

Strategies

SYSTEM 1 - Bet on massive overlays
This is our preferred method and where the real value is, but patience is virtue and lack of discipline can undermine you. We recommend that you follow a massive overlay approach.

Firstly, the best way to describe an overlay approach working is by considering the analogy of coin tossing. In this hypothetical situation, lets consider that a newspaper is full of tips on a coin tossing event and the public money weighs towards "heads" and "heads" ends up on the NSW TAB at $1.80 and "tails" $2.20 (assuming no TAB margin). Sure, it's easy to work out that "tails" is the better bet, but lets go through your likely thoughts on how you determined this;

1. You either directly or indirectly gauged that the probability of each situation winning, ie "heads" and "tails" both had a 50% chance of winning.

2. You then converted each probability into a price, ie 50% = 2 to 1 = $2.00 (inversely).

3. You then considered that the odds on offer for "heads" was under the probability of winning - poor value.

4. You then considered that the odds on offer for "tails" was over the probability of winning - great value.

5. You then considered that the "tails" bet was an overlay at 1.1x ($2.20/$2.00). (Top marks if got this one right!)

Our market estimate service provides the answers to step 1 & 2. We work out the probability of every horse's chance of winning each race. This probability is based on our strike rate over many years of data and checks things like a horse's speed, class, jockey, trainer, running position, barrier, weight, track performance, distance performance, going performance, tenacity, strike rate, risk (lowest negative ratings) and so on. If our top rater is rated at 25% probability (from our history of strike rates for similar conditions), it will be posted inversely at $4.00. If this doesn't make sense, then you may find our overlay system a difficult one to master and we recommend that you consider the other systems below.

Our market price also includes the TAB margin to reflect what to expect on the NSW TAB (and similarly with the bookie). Therefore the bare minimum overlay level would need to be 1.2x, just to break even. Never consider an underlay unless you have more information than us or are following the grey fields in Easyform. (Check out past overlay performance at figures). We therefore strongly recommend that you incorporate a massive overlay strategy into your approach. Betting on our top raters that are underlays is no different than the misguided public taking "heads" in our coin tossing analogy - they can only lose in the long run.

Your role is to complete the remaining steps 3-5. You need to look for odds greater than our market estimates for the same reason why you would take "tails" in our analogy above, we provide the probability of a horse winning, you look for where the value is. That can be with the bookies or any of the TABs around the country. With TABs though, you need to bet near jump time to ensure that the same overlay will occur at jump time. There are also great services on the web that offer the best price from all 3 TAB services. We have approached some of these companies that provide these type of services to be promoted on our site - but no takers. We guess the marketing team are on the ball and see us as a real threat to their revenue. A warning to Australian punters, if you use these types of services, make sure they are not operating offshore as offshore betting is illegal in Australia.

The first things you need to do...

1. Determine the overlay value to run and stick with. Check out our overlay results under the menu item "Other" then "Performance". The higher the overlay, the higher the profit, but at a cost of strike rate - for example, a TRIPLE or 3.0x overlay may not win a race for several days.

2. Determine what AREA you want to follow. We recommend M7 (Metro Saturday) races at this point until we post details in the performance link (refer link in 1) .

3. Subscribe to the service that best suits the days you want to bet on and the frequency. Refer to subscription for pricing details.

4. Determine the horses you want to follow ie TOP 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5. We recommend either the TOP 1 (top selection only) or all TOP 4 selections, but not the others. The TOP 4 has a higher strike rate than the top selection only, and a higher profit on turn over. However, a little more complex to follow and larger outlays apply (more bets per race). Either approach is a good one.

5. Check Example on how this process is performed.

If you decide to follow this overlay approach, start thinking of yourself as a professional punter, the turf investor, the leader at the track! You are no longer the unguided gambler. We recommend that the turf investor adopt the following mindset;

A) If you are at the track, it is better not to wait for betting fluctuations to determine what the professionals are betting on (unless you are seriously following strategy 2 below). Our market estimates provides you with the best information at hand, and it's your move that the followers at the track are waiting for! Take the bookie overlay whilst you can, the odds typically come in as a result of your bet along with the other professionals. This will become more evident as you use the system, especially at the track.

B) If you are in the habit of reading or listening to media tips - we suggest you avoid them. The tipsters confidence will cloud your decision. Even worse, you might miss an overlay bet and bet on a losing tipsters tip! We have looked at many main stream tipsters best bets and they should be called "Best strike rate - Worst Profit". Think about it, there is always going to be too much public money on these horses and the returns are just going to be poor. Bookies know that people will want to bet on them at lower odds, so they are more than likely going to try to get the lowest odds possible. If you have the discipline, access the media to gain a further advantage. Look for tipsters information that affect the market and may justify why the weight of money is on a particular horse. This is what you want to find, weighted money on one horse which opens up overlays on others. Start by checking the 2KY tips, Late Mail and Skychannel, these three tipping sources guide most of the market. The other horses will increase in value and you should be well informed to realise what is value and what is not. Look at our example case which indicates this scenario. An alternative is to avoid the race or if you are more aggressive, lay the horse - the probability is on your side to make a profit if you can get similar TAB odds.

C) If a horse is under our market, then look on. This follows our bet for investment philosophy. Sometimes however, it is hard to pass or bet against the top-rater, especially a very short one. Set your own rules if betting for pleasure, but as a professional punter, any underlay is a poor bet.

D) Don't spend time on analysing raw form - we have done this hard work for you. Maximise your efforts in checking barrier trials, horse fitness, last start video runs, debut horses etc. This may allow you to eliminate some of your bets. If you need to set up a form filter, we suggest that you use the Easy Form data. This information is not subjective, so you can be assured that the information has no bias and consistent each week.

E) Start thinking that all horse's have a chance of winning. Each horse's chance of winning can be expressed in terms of odds. Our odds statistically indicate these chances. A $2.00 horse has a 50% chance of winning. A $4.00 horse has a 25% chance of winning and a 75% chance of losing. Once again we have not included the TAB margin in these examples. Don't despair if your overlay bet doesn't win in one race - this is a numbers game - long term you should win. We are openly showing you that our $4.00 pick will only win 1 in every 4 races or cynically lose 3 in every 4 races - think like this and it will be easier to understand why an overlay is so important.

F) Be careful with place betting and exotic betting. You must try to get overlays with these as well. Websites such as Betfair offer fixed place betting, so do some bookies. Look for the overlays! With Exotic punting, it is a lot harder, but we provide links to follow overlays on quinellas and exactas (but these are not fixed odds so be careful of the market fluctuations). You will find that our top 5 selections will win most trifectas. However, you will lose long term boxing the top 5. One alternative is to use the Exacta combinations we list and box the remaining of the Top 5 for 3rd. This has not been tested but makes sense using our best exacta combinations with the top 5 selections. For the casual punter who does not want to consider overlays etc but wants to dabble in the exotics market, we suggest standing out the top 2 selections for first and selections 3 & 4 for second on a quinella card. If either of the top 2 selections are not in the betting, then have the top 4 selections for second on the quinella card. This might sound complicated, but we are just recommending not to quinella our top 2 if both are in the market (ie it will not pay much if it wins).

SYSTEM 2 - Identify the horses that have merit when shortening in on the market.
If our framed market for a horse is well under the bookie or TAB odds and the horse starts to shorten quickly in the market, it may represent a "good thing". The place market is a good indicator of this in the TAB market. Once again, if the win market shortens quickly and the place pool lags behind considerably, we have found that the horse is well in the betting.

SYSTEM 3 - Identify over-hyped favourites to find value elsewhere.
The weight of money may be too heavy on a well publicised horse. The weight of money will blow out the odds on the other horses and represent great value elsewhere. As you know, exotics without favourites pay extremely well. So if we consider a short favourite poor odds - why not take a quinella without this favourite? If you can ride the losses, a big one awaits!

SYSTEM 4 - Use in conjunction with other systems.
Comparing the tips of other main-stream services is a good option. However, the market price usually reflects this widely known position and typically offers poor value. Sometimes tipsters tips run at good overlays and these are definitely worth taking, but you might have a hard time trying to find double or higher overlays so stick with something that's realistic like 1.5x. Many of our existing subscribers also use their own final selection process with excellent success. At the least, you will be more comfortable with your bet if you know we have also rated your selection a good chance.

SYSTEM 5 - Use Easyform and establish your own criteria for tips to bet on.
This is a great filter and should reward you if you put in the effort. Some things to look for are front runners at leaders tracks. Very light horses or simple combinations such as betting on the top tip that is also the top class and lowest risk etc. We are also finding the PACE/WGT figure as a great filter on our tips and we will publish some plans when more data is obtained.

SYSTEM 6 - Bet under a market limit that you set for yourself.
This ensures that you maintain a good hit rate whilst ensuring profitability. For example, you may decide to only bet on horses that we frame at $3.50 or less but are still considered an overlay.