partypooper,

I dont' think being more selective etc. would improve the results. Anything you come up with in this regard would be by conincidence and statistical backfitting.
What I could recommend though is someone starting with the late mail and applying some of there own filters to weed out poor bets and poor value bets. If they backed the remaining and were very good at obtaining prices in excess of the SP and TAB then they could grind out a 5% profit.

I don't have a great deal of respect for newspaper tipsters as far as being 'serious punters' but i think the criticism is a little harsh.

We should remember that firstly they are asked to tip in every race and I'm sure no one would consider betting in every race, and secondly, they have to submit tips in very tight time frames on a Thursday to make he print runs for Fridays papers. This is still 48 hours before the race with little time after final fields to actually study the form.

It's easy to be critical...I'd love to see one of these critics do their own tips for EVERY race by 5pm Thursday and put $50 on each of them...I don't think you would be laughing then...just much poorer.