Hi Party,

It was my experiences correctly playing blackjack that was a real eye opener for horse racing betting when it came to understanding possible losing runs - even for very high strike rate selections. When playing blackjack, each hand played can also be compared to a bet on a horse with a very high expectancy of winning.

One staggering figure which a friend of mine told me - he is now one of this country's foremost blackjack players - was that just playing a maximum bet of 1% bank for blackjack when the count was very good for the player gave a very realistic chance of losing the entire bank after so many thousands of hands were played. When he is back in Australia in a few weeks I can get the exact figures.

Punters often don't get to make the number of bets to really experience the statistical deviations which are actually par for the course over thousands and thousands of bets. Invariably if there is a minor losing run, punters alter things, assuming the selections are no good. In fact their selections might be fine.

When playing blackjack, counting cards accurately, there were times I had a good advantage over the house, but didn't win anywhere near 50% of the hands played. On a near level game with lower stakes where I should have won close to 50% of the hands, I've had runs winning just 20 or 30 out of 100 hands. Apply that to high strike rate horse selections and you can see what may happen - and if it does, that does not necessarily mean that anything was wrong with the selections.

Cheers, Neil