1986 I think it was I really got sucked in. Bought this load of rubbish after seeing an ad and being sent blurb about life on a tropical island.
They sent me a place betting system with a load of ridiculous, stupid rules. It basically was back a horse for a place if it starts in the booies' ring at 7/4 or shorter. Go all up a few times to improve your odds. Your results will be better if you do your own form to decide which of the horses at 7/4 or shorter you eliminate.
I was a sucker and paid several hundred dollars for that.

Hi Marcus,
The load of rubbish i purchased was $6,400
of place betting crap. Certainly gives the buisness a bad name. I was surprised not to see it on the ******** list.
For information the product is PROTEC 2000
distributed by Harper Menzies & Associates
from Queensland DON'T BOTHER

they fail because they are not based on class/weight ratings.

Darkydog - A system doesn't have to be based on class/weight ratings to be profitable!

As to the question of why purchased systems are not profitable there are a few different reasons (in my opinion):

1. A large number (but by no means all) are simply ********** where the people have developed something with the sole intention of flogging it off to the suckers to get their money.

2. Some systems are developed/sold by people with good intentions who honestly believe they have found a working system but either they don't understand statistics well enough to realise that it will fail in the end or it is developed using a flawed methodology (most commonly designing the system rules to fit past data)

3. A small number of systems do genuinely work but whether they continue to do so will often depend on how many people are using the system. All systems will have a maximum level of betting they can sustain - if this is exceeded then they will start to lose money.

_________________
"Computers can do that????" - Homer Simpson

[ This Message was edited by: quapi on 2003-01-07 20:59 ]

There's another possibility that you guys haven't really addressed. The fact that any "system", which is historically successful, can turn out to be an absolute dud in the future, and usually does.
This is simply because past results can't guarantee any future results, unless there is an underlying connection between the "system" and the horses winning. Invariably there is not, as most of these "systems" are invented by sifting through masses of old race results, trying to find a common thread among the winners.
I can understand why people attempt to sell this crap, but I can't understand why people fall for it.

There is no problem creating a system from past results PROVIDING the parameters and filters you set are based on fundamental principles and research.

For example: 95% of horses cannot carry 69kg and win over 3200m. That is not likely to change in the future unless horses are allowed steriods or the weight scale changes dramatically.

Betting on TAB numbers etc are not fundamental principles, but doing research on the way horses perform in general and the impact of extra distance and weight etc are.

Not all systems are **********. Not all people who provide a service to punters are ******** artists either.
The problem is sorting out the honest and legitimate ones from the thousands out there.

becareful there has never been any legend of the turf to my knowledge who has attained that status on the back of a racing system.on the contrary from don scott to warren block and others they have consistently warned against them.if you want to win over a long period of time then you must use class/weight ratings.all iam trying to do is put people on the right track.

I suggest that a class/weight ratings approach is simply another (of many) systems. The goal is to be able to select horses on which one can obtain a higher price than their real chances of winning the race, ie make a profit. Whether the system is based on weight/class, particular form lines, particular breeding, a preference for one track rather than another is not the issue, only whether over a long period of time they do or do not make a profit.

On the other side of the ledger, the bookies want to do the opposite, offer horses at prices which are under their true chance of winning and therefore ensure that the punter makes a loss and they make a profit. Prior to the running of a race, the difference is simply opinion and the bookie is no more sure that their opinion is right than the punter is.

Some of the greatest winners at the track did not follow class/weight ratings at all. Their methods could better be desribed as a set of rules or axioms which they had determined, probably by trial and error and making losses, that gave them enough winning bets to make a profit. They are or were for their time perfectly valid systems albiet probably peculiar ones so anyone who claims that class/weight ratings are right and everything else is wrong in my opinion miss the main point which is MAKE A PROFIT.

regards

The Phoenix

The Pheonix,

That was my point exactly - Class/Weight ratings is simply one approach but people who believe that it is the ONLY approach are closing their eyes to other possibilities. Someone else mentioned elsewhere on this forum that you need to find your own approach to make a profit in punting - if you just do what everyone else does then you will lose money (like everyone else does!). If everyone is doing class/weight ratings then maybe looking elsewhere is not such a bad idea.

Personally I am currently using two different systems in my betting (and working on or testing several others) - one of them is based on class/weight and one is not.

__________________
"Computers can do that????" - Homer Simpson

An excellent thread and don't disagree with anything anyone has said thus far. However, it is interesting to note the 'How to Win' debate always seems to gravitate toward the selection process.

A long term professional punter on another forum ranked the importance of the selection process third behind STAKING and PSYCHOLOGY.

Yet another wisened old pro signs off his posts with the reminder,

"An average handicapper with superior betting skills will outperform a superior handicapper with average betting skills."

Nevertheless I'm not expecting the topic of most posts to stray too far from selection methodology anytime soon.