Relatively new to the forum, so Hi to all.

My punting journey began mid 70’s when I was 9 years old & got a job at the Fannie Bay Racecourse on Saturday mornings - cleaning, stocking fridges, general dogs body. After I knocked off around midday I would hang around & began to get an idea of what dear old dad had been up to every Saturday – he was a penciller for one of the local bookies as well as a mad punter like most other there.

I instantly fell in love with the place, the horses, the bookies ring, the whole atmosphere of the place on a Saturday arvo, & one day got hold of a racebook & started trying to work out the winner of the next. After having a look at them in the stalls getting saddled up, my extensive experience & wisdom led me to select the only grey & it duly went out & won. Only problem of course was I had nothing on it. I struggled with this problem for a couple of weeks & eventually worked up the courage to enter the bookies ring, make sure the old man wasn’t around & tug on the shirt of unsuspecting punter & asked ‘excuse me mate, could you put a dollar on so&so for me?’ After getting told to ‘p.off’ & tried again a bit later & the kind soul layed the bet & even collected for me when I took the winning ticket back to him 10 minutes later.

My $1.00 had become $3.50 & I was hooked. It wasn’t until my mid 20’s that I really started punting seriously & have been doing so ever since. System development is still a never ending journey for me & while most efforts go nowhere, the very very occasional gem can be found. Much the same as Chrome Prince expresses, my main day to day punting is usually a dreary affair & nothing like I envisioned it would be when I was young fella. That said, I still great a great amount of enjoyment out of the carnivals each year & finding that winner (or loser) that’s most others didn’t will always make me smile.

I assume like many here, Betfair has completely changed my punting, adding a whole new dimension which has taken plenty of work to get handle on it all.

Like any pursuit, you will not succeed unless you put in the hard yards & this is one game that can break your heart very quickly & very often if you allow it, so to any newbies I would say – head down, bum up, don’t whinge or cry foul, do a lot of reading & study as there's plenty to be learnt from the past, it’s a tough game & you will get shafted on a regular basis, so be prepared to lose a lot before you can get your head around it all & consistently make a $, & if that doesn’t sound like fun theres plenty of 9-5 jobs out there.