Thanks Paul.

Much appreciated.

Hi Paul,
In relation to the Max Drawdown calculator and the differences between your set up and the one given out.
If I take the last 301 bets on wet tracks the figures are

301 trials

Av odds $3.60

Edge 0.44

Profit 26 .6 profit

Max Drawdown 25.4

LLR 16

Chance of Winning 27.9 (my current Win %)

Staking I use is

Bet to take $200 divided X Gross price of odds

$200 divided $3.70 = Bet of $54.

I would be most interested on your calculations and how they differ.

Thanks for that.I appreciate it.

Cheers
darky

Hi darky

301 bets, 27.9% Strike rate, average div of $3.60, edge 0.44%, risk threshold of 50% and assuming a $10,000 bank the figures are:

Expected profit: $106
68% of the time the results will be between -8.9% POT (-$2,135) and 9.7% POT $2,347
95% of the time the results will be between -18.2% POT (-4,376) and 19.1% POT $4,588.

Anywhere between the above ranges is normal. There is still a 5% chance that your results will fall outside the above ranges. Bottom line is that you are risking a lot of money for virtually no profit and IMO given the small sample anyone betting and relying on an edge of only 0.44% will more than likely go broke.

Thank you Paul.

Is there a answer to the liklihood of failure ?
i.e Increasing the Acceptable Price.?

I mean by that if the av price is $3.60 Not accepting anything below $3.80 - $4.Plus.

Cheers
darky

Hi darky

Your edge is the problem in that its too small. Your average div is made up of all your bets across all price ranges. Accordingly if you don't bet on the shorter ones then your strike rate will reduce which makes it even harder to profit.

In terms of likelihood of failure, my view is that risking 50% of your bank to potentially win only 0.44% POT doesn't make any sense. Most punters overestimate their edge assuming they have one in the first place, which most obviously don't. To win with such a small edge is very difficult if not impossible.

If you can send me a list of these horses then I will analyse them for you and send you the results so you can see for yourself the impact of changing the minimum price and 115 or so other variables.

Hi darky

Exceeded the allowable time to edit. All I need is a CSV file with date and horse name.

Generally there just numbers for me as long as the horse is Fav and a acceptable price i will bet it.

Out of the 16 contenders today there were only 2 I bet on,
Belmont / R 4 H5 /Jestic $3.20 lost.

Cranbourne / R 1 H 8 /Racing Nadine $3.10 lost

Hi Paul,

Whats your take on betting Double overlays exclusively?

Cheers
darky

Hi darky,

Personally I do not price all the runners and look to bet "the overs". There are major Syndicates operating in Australia that are struggling to win with that model and they employ the best technology and dozens of people so the average punter stands no chance. So no I do not suggest that you attempt to back "Double overlays exclusively". In any case you need strong evidence to support the notion that your prices are accurate enough so as to uncover potential bets that fit the notion of a double overlay. From my experience they sometimes exist but are rare.

When looking at the form in an effort to find a suitable bet, I am mainly concerned with analysing those factors that I know are a market weaknesses. Some of these are basic factors that are obvious from the form guide, while others involve more complex intelligence such as speed ratings and other factors that I call my profile factors. For the most part, I totally ignore many of the factors that the majority of other punters consider important because the market already values them correctly. I have identified some of these on this forum in previous posts.

When I decide to bet I am doing so on the basis that the horse in question fits into a group of horses that are undervalued by the market sufficiently to return a satisfactory profit. This does not mean that I am applying a fixed set of rules as most races present a range of competing variables that require a fair amount of subjective analysis to be made. That is where the art of form study and a comprehensive knowledge of betting math/science is required.

So in summary it's the combination of variables that are incorrectly valued by the market that make the bet profitable. As part of that process I tune into the markets intelligence when determining my final win & place probabilities.

This makes sense.. the invisible becomes visible and presents an opportunity to yield the kinds of returns which are there for the taking but largely ignored - untapped by the market. The more I look for this, the more I opportunities I see. A quest in itself which could last a lifetime I reckon.

Question is; do we have to - want to wait a lifetime to get to this point, if at all??

LG

Hi LG

In the main it's all about identifying those factors that the market already values correctly and those that it doesn't. The answers to nearly all of this can all be found using your version of Axis.

Hi Paul and others,

I'm about to read through the whole thread as i've got some spare time but wanted to reply to the last couple of posts first.

Essentially Paul what your saying (and correct me if i'm wrong) is that you do bet overlay's however you don't take a strict mathmatical stance on what constitutes an overlay or underlay. What I mean here is that you use whatever tools you have available whether it be subjective course knowledge, objective knowledge about the horse through facts and figures or mathmatically derived ratings (i.e. speed) and use them all to determine selections you may like in a particular race. You then decide if your getting value on these selections (overlay) and bet accordingly.

On a personal note approaching it this way makes a great deal of sense to me because its something you can relate to basically anything in life. If you go grocery shopping you unconciously decide if the steak your looking at buying is worth the price that Woolworths are offering, if its not you pass or if its 'cheap' or you deem it to have value you purchase it. The same goes when your comparing what new TV to buy, you weigh up all the options the TV has, DVD, HDMI, Wifi, place a value on all those options in your head and decide if the price the store offers provides 'value' to you or an overlay.

I work in the financial planning industry and the same method is used by many to determine whether to buy or sell shares. Weigh up the debt, industry, earnings, management etc etc, decide on what you beleive its worth and if thats more then the current price you buy.

All of these examples I believe are no different to picking a horse to back (or lay) and become profitable. Now i'm not saying i'm a professional and profitable punter however I definitely think the value or overlay approach is the way to go unless someone can show me differently (obviously mechanical works as well). Now the extremely difficult part of this process isn't deciding if something is an overlay or not, its arriving at the pricing point of the horse or field your looking to bet on.

Paul has (in my view) correctly stated the best way to go about this, and its to find the profitable or at least break even components of a horse or even a race type that the vast majority can either not access readily or typically ignore. Elements like barrier, 100 point tatts raters, last start winners or placegetters, radiotab's tips, particular jockeys, days since spell and weight are all examples of elements that are typically available right there for absolutely anyone to access or see on a screen when placing a quick bet 30 seconds before the jump and help determine a punters decision.

It's for this reason that I believe, without any solid evidence to post besides clearly stating its just my view from various stats i've used at since purchasing a database, that some or all of those elements i've posted as examples above can be either ignored or weighted lower in the punters decision process. The trick is to find and probably more importantly understand why particular elements of a track or horse don't just produce winners (i.e. strike rate) but produce PROFITABLE winners with CONSISTENCY. This is the path i've embarked on and only woken up to in the last probably 2-3 months since purchasing the database and while it still hasn't made me a profitable professional punter, i certainly feel i'm well on my way to being profitable.

Ask yourself this, if you had the following three stats infront of you what factor would you weight higher in your ratings or decision process (note the figures are just for example purposes and not actual stats). Also note the consistency figure relates to how many times the profit covers the largest odds winner.

1) Last Start Winners - 32% Strike Rate, 5% LOT, -2.06 Consistency
2) 7 Days since last start - 16% Strike Rate, 15% POT, 10.17 Consistency
3) Barrier 12 at that track - 26% Strike Rate, 54% POT, 1.63 Consistency

Some would pick Last Start Winners because of the high strike rate, lots would pick the barrier 12 at the track stat because of the combination of very high POT and reasonable strike rate, however it's the consistency of the profit with a reasonable track rate of point 2 that i've now started looking for. This is the point I believe Paul is getting at, find those factors that are rarely looked at by the wider market, are profitable, and consistently carry that profit without one or two large winners making up the majority of that profitable angle.

I've already written enough especially considering i'm far from professional and not even profitable yet, but the above touches on the process i've started going through and I definitely think i'm walking the right path now. I'm interested in others thoughts and note everything i've written is just my opinion and doesn't mean i'm right, but i certainly feel like its close.

In the regard to Double overlays I use Gary Crispes analyisis of prices and I can tell you that most Priced under $4 are invairably double that on the Fixed Tote (UniTab.)
Hence the question.

Thank you for your reply.
Much appreciated.

Hi darky,

Some might disagree with me, but if you are regularly betting to prices (using the example quoted) that have an assessed probability =<25%, and these are available more often than not at double that on the tote at jump time, then I suggest that they (the assessments) aren't much good. This is is no way a personal statement aimed at Gary as I have the utmost respect for him, but is made in the context of the math required to support your suggestion.

Why? Because the notion that anyone has assessments that are consistently able to deliver probability with an implied betting edge (ignoring the TAB takeout) of ~50% is absurd. Of course after removing the takeout it becomes even more distorted. The SP market is simply too accurate for these types of price anomaly to exist on a regular basis.

Example

Bairnsdale
R 2 H 3 Asseed $1.70 Fixed $19

Grafton
R 3 H 1 $2.25 - $2.80

R 4 H 2 $2.70 - $9.00

Townsville
R 1 H 3 $1.70 - $4.70
R 2 H 5 $2.45 - $9.00
R 3 H 8 $3.20 - $14.00

R 4 H 4 - $3.70 - $7 Horse $7 $3.00 - $15

One hopes for a Miracle on both.

Hi darky,

Your post confirms exactly what I'm saying.

Combined probabilities in the assessments of 331.52% versus the market of 76.61%. I suggest that if you are betting to these prices consistently then it won't be long till you go broke doing so.

Yeah.
Must admit I,m going along those lines with it.
Thank goodness the $7 win came up.
The age of Miracles is still with me.

Begs the question though - why put these asessed prices up if their that bad.

Darn good thing I,ve got a sense of Humour.

Hi darky,

They are based on the old Don Scott weight based ratings and are priced using an antiquated and totally out of date mathematical base. If you want to rely on information that is freely available in the public domain, is based in ideas that don't really apply or are irrelevant in today's marketplace then you get what you pay for or in this case don't pay for.

How can you seriously expect to derive a profit from something that everyone else has?

I suggest that you get your hands on proven and reliable ratings if you want to follow that course of action (trying to play perceived overs). Whether you buy ours or someone else's isn't the issue, just do your own research and start putting the odds in your favor.

Had a look at your examples Darky. the D Scott method rated it at $1.70, Neural's $6.50 and Morning Line $14, so anybody's guess?? AND all sourced from the same website....please explain??

I favour the Morning Line as a LAY indicator....lol, that's how much I think of these ratings.

Hi All,

Thanks to those that have recently contributed their input into this thread. As a result of darky's questions and the subsequent responses regarding betting on overlays etc, we have come up with some interesting ideas.

The common theme in these posts has centered around the prospect of success or otherwise when betting overlays on ratings such as Don Scotts, Neurals etc.

A common mistake made by a lot of punters is that they are betting on ratings from which they have no idea of how they actually perform. So the question is: Does anyone on this forum maintain a list/spreadsheet of Don Scott, Neural or other ratings across all races for at least a 12 month period?
We are prepared to provide a complementary copy of our Axis Historical software (see website for more detail) to the person that has this information and is prepared to share the results on this forum for the benefit of themselves and others. This offer is obviously made on a 'first in best dressed basis'.

From this it will become apparent to everyone the exact strengths and weaknesses associated with these ratings so that at the very least those using them can make informed choices.

You will find that in some cases, they are fairly accurate. Also that they do not necessarily need to be applied like a scientific instrument to make them effective or helpful.

LG

Paul,

I've gone through stages of recording the Nuerals however now I've just started backtesting/keeping records of my own ratings that i've put together. I think I prefer to know whats going into producing the ratings myself rather than flying blind on just the results. I guess both ways work however I find it rewarding the process of putting them together and following their progress.

Have always enjoyed fiddling around with Excel and equations and problem solving, I think thats why I enjoy the punting game.

LG,

In various ways they have served me very well over the years .
Normally though I much prefer the UNITABS Tipsters selections over any Rating service and believe me I,ve seen them all.

The latest bit of nonsense were the EXTERxxxx selections of which many have complained to me of.

For those who,ve found something that suits them may the punting Gods be with you.

Hi Paul,
Great idea and one hopes you get a response.

Cheers
darky

For those still interested the figures to date are

242 Bets / 38 Win/ Av Price of winner $5.99 /Loss - betting to prices to take $200 a race $595.

Win % 15.7 %

I dont Place bet so no records for these.


Incidentally in my real betting wet tracks have the most winners at good prices - Av $3.40

No relation to R+S .

One of the better posters pointed this out to me a long time ago.

I'll save you some time, "don't give up your day job", based on success using the No. 1 ranked D Scott or Neural rated selection. As I said in my earlier post they provide some good Lay opportunities:

No. of races reviewed: 10,817

D Scott No. 1 ranking selected 2261 winners, 20.9%WSR, -$727 LOT
Neural No. 1 ranking selected 2029 winners, 18.75%WSR, -$1785 LOT

LOT based on Tote prices $1 bet. Might get better if you seek out overlays, but these selections generally start favourite 60% of the time: D Scott 1379, Neural 1238 selections started favourite.

Who said anything about 'or', my dear Moriarty?

LG

Its a interesting exercise though finding out whats total rubbish.

Its surprising what people who contact me have to say about most of the well publicized Rating Services.
It would make your hair curl.

Frankly I,ve yet to see one make a yearly profit.

As one proprietor told me once.

"I,m not here to make you a profit but to point you in the direction of good horses"

There is some truth in that.

Ive been reading and contributing to this forum for many years now,lately just reading.

I have to say though that what Michal has written above could be stamped as an advisory note over almost every thread in the Horse Race Betting Systems Forum. Simple in nature but one of the most important comments ive read.

Its the recurring mistake that every single person on here has or is still making.

Understanding this issue is the key to success.

Hi Paul,

Picking up on your point here and also another in one of your earlier points(re-posted by Dale above).. what would you say is a LARGE enough sample with which to be confident in identifying:

1. what the market values correctly / incorrectly
2. where there is a pattern or theme that is more likely to be repeated with a 'reasonable level' of confidence

I have seen various suggestions on here regards a suitable sample size but given that you are in the business of quality data / database / testing over the longer term, I am interested to see what your view is on this. Apologies if I have missed one of your earlier posts which spells this out!

Cheers LG

For me, the above means searching for false favourites to Lay, or for others, to seek out another horse to Back. This is usually indicated by a Fave priced outside the norm. By norm I mean a selection with a price within the average SP for the particular field size. I define average as 80% of all prices starting from the middle price and working outwards to encompass 80% of all SP's that has occurred over a three year period. Any 1st Fave outside this range is a likely false favourite. There were a number yesterday, but just two as an example were R1 Caulfield $3.90 Fave Googly Gander & R7 Murray Bridge $3.80 Fave Addiction To Rock. Both lost.

For me, the best practice is to disregard previous form entirely, and let the law of averages 'do the talkin'!

Or in other words Random Chance more commonly known as pot luck eh Rincon.

Dale.Your right on the button .

Nahhh....if I wanted to bet Random Chance, I'd look up threads like Longshots with mathematics, I'm bored, Ripsnorter Lay system, the list goes on.

Hi LG,

In terms of sample size, obviously the more the better although the benefits than can be gained analysing non-current data (say more than 4 racing seasons old) starts to diminish. Why? Because the market place changes and accordingly commences to revalue various factors. My own analysis of these and others is a big part of how I stay ahead of the game. This applies to point 2. that you raised.

In terms of point 1. , the benchmark returns (average returns) from backing all horses using SP/NSW tote returns around a LOT of 11% (using a proportional stake). If one can identify factors that perform much better than that say LOT of ~6% or less then that is the beginning of the process that I and others such as the major syndicates adopt. Essentially you model needs to be continually updated to cater for this aspect (it's called adaptive market hypothesis).

Thanks Paul. Informative and insightful, especially where you start to reveal some of the 'inner world' of the professional and back this up with some hard numbers e.g. the starting point for where the serious analysis begins.

I had a quick look at the adaptive market hypothesis. That is one hell of a wormhole in which to get lost in for the 'mere mortals' amongst us.What is evident to me however is the need for a 'rolling data sample' to monitor when & where the risk v reward playoff changes, and to evolve with the moving target in real time.

Cheers LG

Hi LG,

That is a great point to take from this. It is also something that we build into Axis; practical and relevant data balance.

For instance our past 20 starts are a rolling 20 for each horse. We maintain 5 years worth of 28 day months (as horses race in 7 day weeks not Calender months) in our database before the program archives the data. For trials we keep 3 years of rolling data. The same does not apply though to our pars (benchmarks) which go back around 14 years. Everything we do in terms of program structure, is set up to display only relevant information with an emphasis on as much speed as possible achieved by controlling the amount of information the program has to access. Of course users have full control over the settings and can 'horde' everything if they want, but those are the defaults and the archive allows them to test as much data back as they want.

Other than for sentimental reasons there is very little point of having the runs of Sunline and Might and Power in your database. It wastes space and slows down the database. It is also irrelevant as the market has changed and in many ways the data is so unrepeatable that its misleading. On top of that, testing ratings and so on based on races that happened 13 years ago is asking for trouble, unless the ratings have not changed in that time (always a possibility with some). This is something most punters don't take into account. There is no point testing a ratings method that for all intense purposes no longer exists because they have been superseded by a better version of the same rating. This is another reason for using Axis. If (not when) we change and improve the performance of our ratings, we actually release a file that replaces all the old ratings data in the database with ratings that are calculated with the current algorithm. This is done 'as if it was calculated on a that day basis' and requires us to keep a snapshot of each day in order to do this properly. This consumes an incredible amount of data and time to do it correctly. Notwithstanding that, we do it so that our clients are actually testing past data using the most recent algorithm instead of having to wait months before seeing any emerging patterns that the new data produces. This sensible practice is not performed by any other provider in the marketplace.

We as punters would expect nothing less and require that information for ourselves so it only makes sense to provide it to our clients as well. After all we all view the data in a different manner based on our own personal views, which in turn makes the likelihood of saturation remote.

Thanks RP sorry it took a while to respond.

Obviously those are limited (or selected) races, but certainly a large enough sample to get a good idea. The type of analysis that Axis is capable of is far more detailed than the strike rate for top pick, although as you eluded to, most punters don't even know the rudimentary information even though it can be obtained if someone has a decent command of excel.

What we are talking about is analysing the various elements of those ratings (once imported into Axis) that go far beyond the basic or even an advanced excel users capabilities. Using Axis to analyse this type of data will reveal the strengths and weaknesses of such ratings utilising more than 115 elements many of which are exclusive to R2W and their clients. That is knowledge that is certainly NOT available to the majority of punters and possibly not even to the providers of the rating themselves. Even if they were able to analyse the ratings in that manner they are definitely not going to publish such analysis.

We maintain that armed with this type of analysis, you are well on the way to exploiting the possibilities that the rest of the market cannot see. With Axis there are no secrets, whatever the rating is that you import; the Analysis is available.

As analysis example:

Performance of each rating or rank across distance, track condition, class and 115+ other factors of that pertain to the horse and/or race. Performance of each rating or rank for last start winners, where in their current prep they are, SP rank, Betfair rank and so on for all horses form factors which are available. What about those that aren't? How does top rated perform when it's an R2W backmarker? How does it perform on different track conditions? (all track conditions are verified independently) What about both Backmarker with that has superior track condition ability? Or you can combine a Backmarker, TC and SP together? The ability to drill down is endless and the further you get from the superficial the greater your edge over the market grows.

The performance of each rating or rank across the actual rating value. Want to know what the performance is when the rating price is between $1.0 to $3 ? What about things like, when the top rated horse is so many points or dollars ahead of others? When the 2 ratings/ratings agree ? When they don't? What about top pick when its ranked 1 on the API? What about something more difficult like: What is the performance of the top pick and also top IR rating (our Intelligence Rating) or any other or group of our ratings? Or when they are also so many points clear of the rest of the field? What about our indicators? You could get dizzy and lose months of sleep and still wouldn't get through all the possibilities.

Finally there is the Consensus panel where you could build your own complete rating from all the data at your disposal in that module and include if desired external ratings into the mix. Of course there are the endless options that you could then test and analyse!

At the end of the day it's up to the user as to what level of work they decide to put into their analysis and punting in general. Most don't have the tools or the ability and/or time to build such tools for themselves. We just make it easy, accessible and definitely affordable.

Paul,

What i don't get is where are the files coming from regards different / external ratings I might want to incorporate into the tool. Typically what might be the process of extraction? And how to guestimate costings for upload etc

Cheers LG

Hi LG,

The importing of any ratings is handled by Axis based on the requirement that you need to have to access to the rating/price-line in a csv format. That is the clients responsibility to obtain. For example you may want to see how a rating that you are currently using performs when lined up against specific form factors or other R2W ratings. There is a small one off admin cost associated with setting up this facility. At this stage you can import up to 5 external ratings/rankings/price-lines etc. This also applies to clients using Axis Historical.

Further details can be found in the online manual under Data, Database, Downloads and Imports and then select the Importing Private Ratings section. You also have the opportunity to do what we term an external list test. See manual for further details.

If you have any other specific questions feel free to call me directly.

Cheers Paul.

LG