So basically, Dr Ron, you're betting the public's view against the view of some individual who disagrees with the public. Sounds like a plan. I would say "Long may the public get it right" but I suppose my preferred method would rather they get it wrong so I'll just wish you good luck. :-)

KV

I am totally with you Dr.Ron.
The stats say: If you were to back every favourite on the tote, you would return 90% of your investment.
Betting on the tote which will pay out 85% means that in a 100% market, you would make money backing the favourite.
You should return $85, yet you return $90. If that is not the best free, and easiest ratings system, I don't know what is....

My opinion....

Both points of view are right - but only to a point.

a) The public's "ratings" probably do outperform any ratings service with regard to strike rate. The TAB market is the most effective filter to determine a horse's chances, but that does not equate to winning. Otherwise we'd all be losing so much % and that would be that.
There needs to be a way of finding out when the public has it right or just a little wrong. Or when the public overbets a favourite and others become value.

b) There was the point made regarding ratings, that the tote is more often right than any ratings service. I agree, but it's not about the number of winners, it's about value.
A good reliable ratings service will not boast "we picked more winners than the public". It will find value bets or overlays and identify where the public have overbet (confidence, hype etc) or underlay. A good ratings service will also have one or two horses in their top 3 that the public has ignored largely which win for one reason or another.

This is not an ad for propun, but correcting the misconception of value versus strike rate.

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Chrome, maybe I have just been unlucky with the services I have subscribed to in the past. I wasnt meaning to sound like I was having a go at Neil, he has a jjob to do just like the rest of us, I was just trying to make the point that the public are pretty good at whatt hey do considering the drawbacks their up against regarding take outs ecetera.

Good luck and good punting to all.

Kenny Victor, it dosent matter what route we take to get there as long as we all end up in the black.

To really gain any value from a Rating Service it needs to provide probabilities for each runner.

One thing about this whole idea that is important. Is the whole concept of overlay "accuracy" comes into play. For example, let's say I create a partition consisting of a group of runners that I/Rating Service say all have a winning probability within some fairly narrow range, say a couple of points around 25%. We can look at the crowd odds on those runners and come up with the crowd's version of a probability expectation for those runners.

The issue is, mine /or the Rating Service methods don't have to be EXACTLY accurate to be VALUABLE. If the crowd gives a runner a 15% chance of winning, and I/Rating Service give him a 25% chance of winning, if his ACTUAL probability is anything greater than the crowd's 15% peg, then I've found an overlay. I don't need him to actually get to my 25% estimate to have done something worthwhile. If he's higher than 15% AT ALL, then I'm doing the job. Obviously the more accurate my/Rating Service estimates are, the better, but all I have to do is push past the crowd probability on my side, and I've won.

The core concept is in identifying overlays. And an overlay can be 1 cent potential profit. After all, if I think a runner is a 20% overlay and I bet on him, and he turns out to only give me a 10% profit, then I've STILL made a nice profit, even though I didn't achieve my 20% estimated target!

Surely the accuracy of the ratings service's assessment of a horses chances are paramount. In your example you have a bit of room to move and if they assess a horse at 25% and they are 5% out you are still betting on a horse that is 5% better than the public's 15%. I would think it's more likely you will be looking at differences that are less than this and a (say) 5% swing either way will tip a correct overlay into an actual underlay or vice versa. If you allow a hefty margin for error on the part of your ratings service you will be cutting your number of bets down a lot.

KV

Quote from Chrome: "A good reliable ratings service will not boast "we picked more winners than the public". It will find value bets or overlays and identify where the public have over-bet (confidence, hype etc) or underlay".

...and just how does a rating service recognize and supply 'overlays' to subscribers when that info cannot be known except minutes before a race?

I used to get my ratings Sat. morning and whether the public is going to back the selections into underlay or overlay [if the rating service also supplies a price for a selection which they usually don't] is unknown to anybody at that time. No rating service or anyone knows what price a horse is going to jump at.

The ratings service does not supply the overlay, the ratings service supplies the prices and it is up to the subscribers to obtain the best price and recognize the overlas via odds.

No prices supplied? Well how can you possibly bet overlays - find one that does.

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Why not have a go at creating your own price market ,then bet all the selections in the race that are paying greater than your selection 1 min. till jump time.

What one will find ,doing this process , is that the TAB Shortest price Fav is now seen as your enemy , because they have a habbit of getting up when you don`t want then to , just beating your horse when your horse was leading ,
with 50 metres to go.

SIMPLE VALUE RATING METHOD
(This has been brought up before on this forum)
1)Target the top 4-5 ranked horses in the newspaper pre-post.
(these make up 75% of all winners)
You could also use the Pro Puns top 5 selections ,which are FREE.

2)Only target races where all 4-5 ranked pre-post horses ,have had at least 1+ career wins, with at least 2+ career starts. Otherwise , no bet that race.

Also , if there are any resumers in your 4-5 ranked selections , no bet that race.

We are trying to craete an Apples with Apples environment & resumers are Oranges which can create an upset result out of our control ,that`s why we delete these races all together.

3)Divide it`s career wins into its career starts , this will give us the odds it has to be ,before we place a bet , once the TAB price is known.
e.g. 3 wins over 10 career starts =3/1 ($4.00)
5 wins over 36 starts 7.2/1 ($8.20)
The TAB has to pay more than these prices before one bets on them, so as to get the overs. That`s why they are called overs.

4) Target races where field size is between 10-15 runners, so as to work with bigger prices.

5) Bet the Overs selections , same amount on each .

What we are to do here ,is trying to create a Book against the Bookmaker .
We have the advantage that we can Cherry pick the races that will suit us for value and leave the others because we dont have to bet in every race like he has to.


May The Punt Be With You.

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Cheers.

Bhagwan, do you know of anyone using this approach? If so, are they having any success.
It seems straight forward enough to me, and I like to keep things simple.

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Jose'.