Staking Plans Vs Level Stakes

[Pauls123]

Hi all, here we go again, this has probably been hashed out countless times.
Since mid december when I changed my philosophy on my bets, i.e. to only back on pace runners resulting from my sectional times analysis and even with a couple of reasonably bad run of outs, this is my story:

130 bets in 118 races (sometimes I will back 2 or more horses in the same race)
42 winners for a POT of 35% with a strike rate of 32.3% from my total bets and a race strike rate of 35.6%. My average win divvie is $4.20.

This all looks ok to me. I have played around with various staking plans including the "original retirement staking plan" and my own small variations of it. They outperformed my level stakes when things were going ok, but when a couple of run of outs occurred, the level stakes come back into play and it still shows the best overall result.

I know I am answering my own question here, but does anyone have any super duper staking plans that they wish to share.

Paul

[Chrome Prince]

Pauls,

The age old conundrum has reared it's head.
Keep it simple, % of bank not reducing is the best staking plan you can use, UNLESS you find that there is an overlay type arrangement.

[Bhagwan]

Hi Paul,

Every time this subject comes up, some one, pro level stakes, becomes very aggressive towards anyone who even mentions progressional staking.

I wonder who it will be this time.

Cheers.

[partypooper]

Bhags, there is a definite "perception" about staking plans, and there can be a definite advantage to ones mental attitude, but the truth is that all staking plans are really just a series of level stakes sequences. If you disect say after 500 bets you will see that there has been x number of bets @ level 1, x number @ level 2 etc etc etc, now as the S/R of the selections cannot have possibly altered (i.e. the horse doesn't know that it is the 7th bet in a series)
what you are left with eg. 50 bets at level 1, 37 bets at level 2, 30 bets at level 3 etc etc etc , all with the same S/r and average divi, so in fact you ARE betting at level stakes.

To prove it as I've said many times is to just add up the total amount staked over those 500 bets, divide by the number of bets to arrive at an average bet size, then apply that average bet size to all 500 , and you will see exactly the same S/R and average divi,.......... I wish it were different but it isn't.

[Pauls123]

Very interesting and fascinating replies and thanks. Chrome for interest sake tomorrow I will run all those bets I mentioned and start with say a bank of $100 and bet to 5% of that without reducing the bets till a higher bank is reached and go from there,.........and will respond accordingly.

I must say one thing forums like this generate to a certain degree, and that is they get punters keeping records of all their bets whereas they probably wouldnt have done that so much before in the past. $20 here, $30 there, who cares.

I used to work with a bloke back in the mid 70s, boy I hope he doesnt read this,..oops, anyway, he would bet just about every day at work on every race, and he pretty much always lost. I asked him why did he have to bet on every race, why not just have his 1 or 2 bets on what he thought were his main chances for the day. He said if he did that he might miss out on a good priced winner. Needless to say he lost a lot and ended up borrowing money from the credit union in order to pay his racing debts.

Those people probably still exist but these forums gets the punters thinking a lot more smarter now as to their losses etc. Good Stuff....!!!

And Party, I agree with you there also, but what about all these so called money factories or whatever, that are advertised on "another site", do they work..???

Paul

[Try Try Again]

Hi Pauls123,

I would be very careful about betting as high as 5% of your bank as it only allows you 20 losses before you destroy your bank. I use a 2% of maximum bank non reducing and have found it acceptable to my betting. At one stage I had lost about 50% of my bank but it has recovered to be now 3 times the low point. If I had been using 5% the bank would surely have been wiped out. I know Bhagwan has previously suggested 0.5% as been a very safe starting point i.e. $5 for a starting bank of $1000. but this may be too cautious for your liking. Just make sure you give yourself a comfortable buffer when things turn pear-shaped and you hit that losing run!

Try Try Again

[stugots]

cant recommend the 0.5% highly enough, reasons being -

still win when alls going good
still lose when the goings bad but you never wake up one day to find a massive chunk of your bank gone, & there will always be bad runs regardless of your average divy

just went thru 52 losers in a row, is a mostly longshot system after all, then within the last week had 47 bets & hit 9 winners, $57.5, $23.8, $20.4, & so on

if i had been running anything more aggressive than 0.5%, well i probably wouldnt been making this post & another seemingly promising method could have been binned

[Bhagwan]

If one is going to use any progressional staking, I feel its important to know in advance what the cut off point will be .

This idea can work well .
This is from the staking machine UK

Target to win .5% of bank. + losses.
e.g. $5.00 / 1000.00

Bet to odds of the selection so as to recover losses.

Do this over 6 bets.

Start again if no winner within those 6 bets.

Min price $2.20+

Target races with 12 runners & less.
This helps with the average SR using average selections.

Cheers.

[Pauls123]

Thank you one and all, like I said I would run some stats on my figures with betting a % of a bank. I just updated my spreadsheet and this is now my correct figures, keeping it simple this time:

No of bets 136, (over a 3 month period usually only betting syd and mel sats)
No of wins 42 for a flat level stakes POT of 29.4%

Using a $100 bank and betting 5% of that bank I ended up with a POT of 16%, my bank was wiped out at one point so I guess I had to borrow some of the housekeeping money to top it up.

Using a $1000 bank and betting .5% of that bank I ended up with a POT of 25.8% and of course my bank was never threatened. The starting bet was $5 and after having those 136 bets was still betting $6 per bet.

Bottom line, all very interesting with level stakes still coming out on top over the 3 month period.

When your on a roll with any sort of a staking plan the POT is looking very rosey but a run of outs sure brings you back to reality quick smart.

I've been away for the last 6 weeks touring down around victoria and the great ocean road and whilst I was still able to do my sectional time analysis and black book entries I didnt have access to watch the replays like I do at home here. Watching replays I find is very helpfull as it can influence your decision as to the merits of times run.

Paul

[Bhagwan]

Good results there Paul.


The original idea with 0.5% level stakes was that it adjusts downward after a losing day & upward after a winning day.

The idea is based around the fact that a punters decision making is a lot clearer when he knows the money side of things are taken care of if things don't pan out on the day.
In other words, if say we hit 30 losers in a day .
Its not the end of the world.
Come next day we bet 0.5% of remaining bank.

This 0.5% percentage is used to create a buffer between the big swings up & down , as if betting say 5%-10% of bank up & down, which is not the strongest way to bet.

No matter how good the selection plan is, the average plan will have 20+ outs plus, at some stage , so try & be prepared.

The theoretical run of outs for a 30% SR is 41 in a row, this may not happen until next year, but it will happen when we least expect it, so once again, try & be prepared because the stats will not be denied.

Remember...
The TAB & Bookies know you have their money in your pocket & they want it & some.

Cheers.

[Chrome Prince]

Thank you one and all, like I said I would run some stats on my figures with betting a % of a bank. I just updated my spreadsheet and this is now my correct figures, keeping it simple this time:

No of bets 136, (over a 3 month period usually only betting syd and mel sats)
No of wins 42 for a flat level stakes POT of 29.4%

Using a $100 bank and betting 5% of that bank I ended up with a POT of 16%, my bank was wiped out at one point so I guess I had to borrow some of the housekeeping money to top it up.

Using a $1000 bank and betting .5% of that bank I ended up with a POT of 25.8% and of course my bank was never threatened. The starting bet was $5 and after having those 136 bets was still betting $6 per bet.

Bottom line, all very interesting with level stakes still coming out on top over the 3 month period.

When your on a roll with any sort of a staking plan the POT is looking very rosey but a run of outs sure brings you back to reality quick smart.

I've been away for the last 6 weeks touring down around victoria and the great ocean road and whilst I was still able to do my sectional time analysis and black book entries I didnt have access to watch the replays like I do at home here. Watching replays I find is very helpfull as it can influence your decision as to the merits of times run.

Paul

Hi Paul,

I'm quite surprised by your results.
It suggests that all your profit comes from one or two longer priced collects.
So rather than a steady upward trend, you are on a steady downward trend but the longer priced selections bounce you well above profit.
Would this be correct, as it seems the only explanation for the percentage of bank results, especially as you'd lose your bank betting just 5%.
FWIW I'd recommend 1% or 2% of betting bank.

I use 10% of betting bank, but only because my strike rate is very high.
Over 70%

[goty0405]

Hi Paul,
I use 10% of betting bank, but only because my strike rate is very high.
Over 70%That's the key there. The simplest (and one of the best) methods is the % staking plan everyone is spruiking. However you need to pick the actual start % yourself based on a few things - strike rate, average win, your risk vs reward motivation etc.

If you have a high strike rate (like Chromes 70% above) then using 0.5% is way too "safe". However if you have a long-shot theory than 0.5% could be quite valid.

One thing I also like to do is define reduction levels to build some protection into the profits. Eg. if I start betting 3% of $500 I may choose to reduce the stake by 0.1% everytime my bank moves up by 500.It ends up with something like this....

Bank and %
500 - 3%
1000 - 2.9%
1500 - 2.8%
2000 - 2.7%
2500 - 2.6%
3000 - 2.5%
etc

All the way down to whatever level you feel comfortable at. Some punters dont like this and I certainly dont use it for every system, but it does offer some "protection" for your profits against the expected long run of losers and still builds the bank nicely when performing well.

[Pauls123]

thanks Chrome and Goty, I am glad this has generated some discussion and it is good to get everyones opinion on this. It's something I have thought long and hard about for some time now.

By the way after I left that post this morning I re run my figures with a 2% bet and I think it was around the 22% POT mark.

And Chrome, looking through my winners the best in this period was Reward for Effort paying $16 when it won the BD. (I got short changed there using IAS top fluc as it paid up around the 25/1 on totes, oh well). I've had a few around the $10 mark, then more around the $4 - $7 mark and the usual shorties.

I have to ask though, how on earth do you get a strike rate of 70%,..phewww, with just one selection per race..??

Good on you anyway, if you can achieve this. What sort of POT does this give you.

Paul

[Chrome Prince]

70% strike rate for horses opening less than $1.55 in the UK and taking Betfair SP.

POT 20% pre commission.

Favourites in the UK win up to 40% of races because of the structure of racing.
Usually there are only one or two horses in a big field with a generally realistic chance of winning.
The POT arrives because the horses are rated much more accurately by the bookies, but Betfair markets mean that the price is forced up.

If you back every odds on favourite at Betfair SP you break even before commission.

Horses less than $1.55 get forced up, over $1.55 get forced down a little.

So you can back the real shorties and lay the higher shorties, as the openers are a very accurate rating in themselves.

[goty0405]

Chrome, for UK racing where (and when) do you get your openers?

I've got a couple of UK systems going but I don't know of places to get this data.

[Chrome Prince]

I Find Ladbrokes to be the best, they aren't the earliest, but seem to be the most reliable.
You can also change to decimal odds to make it easier.

[Pauls123]

Hi Chrome and very interesting, you have me intrigued here. A couple of silly questions here as I am not a Betfair person. These horses that open at less than $1.55, can you back them early or do you need to be sitting at your computer at jump time. It is our bedtime when its afternoon in the UK. And I guess your profit margins are very slim in some cases, meaning to win 20% on turnover with a strike rate of 70% you would have to be getting at least $1.75 on every one of your 7 winners from 10 bets. Not sure what the commission is that you then lose.

I'll check this Ladbrokes site out, just for a sticky, all very interesting stuff here.

Paul

[Chrome Prince]

Paul, you can set your bets at Betfair SP well in advance, you don't need to sit by the computer.
You check the openers, set the bets, get what you get and wake up with profit.
Well, not quite that easy, but that's the idea.

A very sad development is that Betfair are restricted from offering SP on Aussie races for the foreseeable future :(
A product I used intently.

Alas no more.