The majority of punters lose

The number 1 reason why punters lose , is.

They don't know when to stop ,so the discussion is always made for them & that's usually when they have zero money left, therefore , forced to stop.

The Mathematical Boffins might be smart chaps when it comes to theory , but can they pick a little winner in reality.

Here is a test for those who feel that its best to keep on going.

How many favs do you think you will hit out of 8 races.
Pick out the favs you think will win. leave races out if you wish.
Doing that for all venues on the day .

Keep betting the way you think should happen .

And I will bet also ..
but the difference is , I stop at a winner for that venue.
Max 4 outs per venue. Then stop for that venue.
And do the same for all venues on the day.

I can almost guarantee you , that our approach will do better , than the suggested keep ona puntin idea.

Punters have adopted that approach with open arms since the beginning of time & have paid the penalty many times over.

Now we see the myth being perpetuated yet again.

Many plans, break even over time .
I feel they would be in front if they knew when to stop for the day.

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Cheers.

Another approach that is not mentioned much in horse punting & money management , its the use of a ...

Trailing Stop Loss.

This is how it can work.

Lets say we would like to win 3 x initial bet per day.
Lets say it would be great to make say 7 x our initial level stakes bet on a good day = $70 Profit

Betting say $10 units.

Say we set the Trailing Stop Loss at say 7 x $10 = $70

What we do is, we continue betting away & say we have a lucky run & it goes to say $100 & you still wish to keep going because you cant stop because you read somewhere that its best to keep going & going & going.

Our punting takes a turn the other way.

Our P/L balance now drops to $70

The Trailing Stop Loss will kick in if the next bet falls over.
We stop because its Profit is now below the $70 mark.

We have now made $60 profit where usually we would be happy if we hit $30 a day.

Of course the opportunity to win even more is there, if the Profit Bal stays above the $70 mark.
It may go to the $100 mark & stay there.

BetBotPro has this Trailing Stop Loss as one of its options in the program.

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Cheers.

I use BF Bot Manager and it too has a trailing stop loss which I am using with my testing however I'm not sure that you've quite got it right.

A trialing stop loss has to have the loss inputted that you want. In your example a $70 trailing stop loss would only kick in after your $100 profit goes down by $70 to $30 (It is $70 below your highest point).

Of course you can make the stop loss less if you change it during the day but, otherwise your money will go back by the amount you set the trailing stop loss.

Yesterday the bot was about 55c short of $25 (the highest point of the day) before it lost $10 and I finished with $14.45. That's 5 days of $25 profits plus one of $14 betting $5 stakes (if I had of stopped at $25 eralier in the week ).

Thanks Ocho.

Here is another angle.

Bet away as usual but set the number of losses to max 12

Once the 12th loser is hit , we stop.

We will either be in profit or some loss.

If we have a total wipe out, we have only lost 12 units if level stakes betting.

This is not too bad & is recoverable.

One can always go again on the same day or leave it for the following day.

Doing it this way helps to control what we are doing rather than having all our bets out there in never never land.

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Cheers.

If you think it through – what you are doing when you adopt a policy of stopping when you have won a certain amount is saying….

” Today so far I have exceeded my long term average so I will stop now and miss the inevitable flow of losers – which is just around the corner – tomorrow is a new sequence and therefore we will start again- all fresh”

As I said before all it does is delay the inevitable.

Pretty similar to walking into a casino and having 3 straight bets on the RED and then leaving.

Well it may win for 3 months in the casino – but I can assure you over time you will just get the long term average – i.e. house make the profit and you lose 3-4% per spin.

In punting you can’t win over the long term unless you have an edge that makes you better than the others – (that is - the other punters who are betting against your selection). Short term wins are just luck.

Artificial rules like stopping here and starting there are just props which may work for a while but in most cases the overall selections will just find their long term average.

That my friends is a FACT that you can take to the bank.

cheers

Aussie

I always have a problem when folk start comparing horse racing to flipping a coin.

I feel that's a different thing altogether .
e.g. coins dont have variable odds or field sizes.

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Cheers.

The +$25 stop brought in +$31.34 today while letting it ride lost -$33. That brings the 7 days since looking at this "system" to +$170 stopping at $25 (but just using $25 for the first 5 days when, in fact, some days would of made a bit over that) and +$43 with just letting it ride over the last 7 days.

I realize 7 days is nothing in the scheme of things. I also know this will more than likely fall over (maybe whether I just let it ride or stop at the $25/5 units level) but I've got to try something and I'd rather have 7/7 positive days than 4/7.

when you stop and start at artificial intervals you may as well be flipping a coin with THAT element of your decision - that overall decision being to bet on the animal or not.

so what was once straight forward - "well there's my selections that i will wager on" - has now become a 2 part decision -
decision 1 : what are my selections
decision 2 :whether i back them or not becomes dependant on some other random event - like whether i win with with earlier selections

decision 2 IMHO is akin to flipping a coin.
all things being equal why should selection 5 be inferior to selection 2.
by stopping early we are inferring that it is because selection 2 or anything above the stop point must have collected enough to make a profit




Not to be confused with variable odds or field sizes that you mention - totally, totally different discussion and as far as I can recall so far not raised seriously by anybody else in this thread so far.


cheers

aussie

I thought the exercise was the discussion on whether or not one continues after a profit target is reached.

The odds have a lot to do with it.

The higher the odds , the fewer winners needed to reach target or recover losses.

The greater the odds the longer the possible run of outs in between winners.

The flipping of a coin is all about how many winners you will get on a 50/50 chance at even money.

That's why its a different conversation.

The long run of outs is the death of most well intentioned, logical plans.
That's why its usually best to grab the target amount & stop before one hits the long run of outs.
There will be the odd day where everything goes our way and make heaps of money, but there will be very few of those.
If one is going to punt for a living , one cant be working in hope for that big pay day that may or may not eventuate.
Try selling that to the Rent Lady.

Most Professional Punters target a handful of selections say 6 horses for the day.

If they make their target amount say 3% on Bank , they usually stop for the day.

They usually dont bet all 6 horses once profit target is reached.with say 2 horses.
Even though there could have been more winners.

The aim of the game is to hit realistic dollar target amounts on a daily basis, over a month.

Not how many winners one can pick by betting like a machine gun even when in front.
That's how amateur punters lose on a consistent basis.

Remember:
Professional punters usually don't keep betting once target is reached, so why are others advocating the opposite including Maths boffins.
Where at has proven to fail over many decades.

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Cheers.

the original question was:

"What do you guys think (or do)?

Keep it running or basically a stop at a winner type approach/stopping at a defined dollar amount."

so your right on the first part where you say

"I thought the exercise was the discussion on whether or not one continues after a profit target is reached."

It wasn't a question of how you got there etc with odds and ends and strike rates etc. It was a question of what you do when you are there.

Similiar but different

i don't know any actual professional punters - but i know some good punters and they have their selections and they bet them all for the day - focussing on getting value.
they then come back and do it all again next time.
I have heard them say that the punting day never ends.

As I said before dropping off when you are in front is a way of saying

"I expect my average to drop pretty soon so i am getting out now"

Problem is you may go well the rest of that day and the average may drop from the first selection in the next day.

So you would say to yourself "what do we do now Tonto ?"

Anyhow all good fun.


cheers all

aussie




Anyhow everyone's different so i am dropping of.