Hi Stebbo,
I am very much like u, where i find studying the form tedious but love spending many hours designing and trying out new systems. I have been working on greyhound betting systems in my spare time since i was about 16 (im now 22) and I have a mechanical system fully operational at the moment and 1 more i hope to start January 1st. They certainly do work. My main place betting system for the calender year has had:

bets: 248
wins: 172
av: $1.72 (STAB)
total: $48.68 (for $1 unit)
POT: about 19.6%

It went slightly better last year, the average was around $1.76. I bet over 4 accounts (STAB, NSW, UNI, AIS) and I outlay about $500 on each bet. Obviously I could never share this system as I pretty much bet the maximum without affecting my dividends too much. The system has never returned a loss after 23 months of operation and also a year of trial results.

So in my experience mechanical systems can most definetly work.

Who said I was stupid enough to buy them ?

Darky,

Well I'm not going to GIVE you the Bridge. What a nerve!!!

You wrote
"For about 95% of punter's, turnover comes from capital [any capital], not just betting banks which can and often are just topped up from capital. I take your point as meaning what it says for your situation.

Absolutely, I have never topped up my original punting bank since day 1. If it ever runs out I pack up my bags and give punting away.

You wrote
"Your total outlay and total return % [all systems combined] displays a more meaningful figure. I think you stated elsewhere your overall SR was 20 point something % ? Average price returned ?"

The average price is a little meaningless here, because of different sized stakes etc, but I can tell you that the first full year I made 6% POT, and the second I made just on 2% POT from horse racing. This year the horse racing POT is around 5%.



Sorry, I can't agree. I think handicappers can easily fall over, and that's just as bad. People become stale and set in their ways. Racing changes, and if handicappers don't keep up with the changes then they fall behind. [Score 0-0] :-)



Again, totally disagree. There are a number of statistical calculations that can be made to determine if a system is going through an expected run of outs or has gone pear shaped. Particularly if you have long term stats on the system, you can determine whether the current trend is expected or not expected. Chi-Squared testing and rolling bet sequences are two of my favorite statistical tests. [Score remains 0-0].

Furthermore, I don't believe you can do this with handicapping. There is no way to tell if a current run of outs is due to luck, or due to your handicapping method falling over. I know of two excellent "handicappers" (by your definition) that have had horrible runs recently, and I suspect that this is because what they were doing is no longer relevant to current racing trends. It will be far more difficult for them to rethink their ways than for me to determine the system has crapped out and chuck it [Score 1-0].

Lastly, the emotional thing is a very powerful factor in punting. It is easy for me to remain unemotional about my systems. A handicapper has the added problem of poring over the form for ages, and then having all of his work thrown in his face by his/her horse not winning. If this happens long enough then the vast majority of handicappers will most likely change something about the way they are going about their selections. In many cases, they may change their ways purely due to a statistically likely bad run when there was nothing wrong with what they were doing. Ouch! (score 2-0)

serve returned and driven long to the baseline

:-)

Cheers,
Chris.

__________________
Permanence is an illusion

Chrome,

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I think you last point [not rule, but point] is a lot of unsubstantiated crock and your first rule even more so, instigated by system sellers: 'we have tested this system over thousands of past races and our 70% POT stands up to scrutiny".

But I'll agree to disagree if you like on your assertions. The onus of proof is on you of course, as it is your claim [statement actually]. Special pleading won't do the job either:-)

You wrote.

"Criteria for a winning mechanical system....
1. Must be tested over thousands of bets
2. Must have very few rules
3. The profit must come from more than a couple of longshots.
Get all three points and you have a winning mechanical system" End Quote.


Re: Rule 1: A mathematical result based on a past paradigm of events is not equal to a mathematical result for a future paradigm of events
where large numbers of variables are in voled in both results [if we could test thousands of future bets with the same rules].
Racing is one such area where those large numbers of variables are present.
Actually [as any Uni. maths student would tell you, the greater the test number of bets, years, whatever, the greater the different outcome will be to the eventual future result. The greater the variables, the more extreme the error. So you may as well test over the last 20 races.

"The more an incorrect myth is repeated [rule 1], the more it will be believed by more and more people regardless. Even if even the world's leading mathematicians would disagree" [not sure who said that, but I have always remembered it].

I await your proof :-)

Cheers Chrome.

Hi Darky,

yes, most of the systems I'm currently running are my own creations or have been given to me by friends.

However, one of the two "gems" I mentioned above was compliments of your friendly systems sellers. It also happened to be one of their freebies, and went great guns for about 16 months, then went pear shaped. I baled out when it's "downtime" (time since it's previous bank high) extended past 4 times as long as any previous downtime.

I still ended up with a great profit for the system... 417 bets for 34% S/R and a 21.1% POT. I still keep track of that one and hope that it may one day bounce back, as it was a license to print money when it was running hot.

However, I'm not holding my breath. Knowing the rules for the system, I feel fairly certain that the nature of racing has changed whereby many of the horses that this system used to select will no longer be candidates, and there goes the profits. (The S/R is still a healthy 30%, but there's no value in the horses being selected).

And for the record, this one was purely mechanical.

Cheers,
Chris.

__________________
Permanence is an illusion

Please stop making value judgements about other posters such as calling them "gullible" etc. or ridiculing what has been posted in all genuineness by calling it "unsubstantiated crock" etc.

That is how threads turn into slanging matches.

Carefully read and UNDERSTAND the Forum Terms of Use.

Acceptance of those Terms and abiding by them is a condition for being permitted to make use of this free service.

Crash,

I'm not out to prove anything, as it's quite obvious that the proof you require lies in the future and you will not be satisfied that even future bets are proof enough ;-)

"Unsubstantiated crock" is a little harsh.

Unsubstantiated to whom, to you?

I have substantiated this for myself and a few other forum members offline, and that's good enough for me.

I never mentioned thousands of past races, that means nothing - I said thousands of bets, which is an entirely different thing.

Show me 70% POT over thousands of bets, and I'll send you the cheque tomorrow!

Basic statistical law refutes your particular claims, the more data you have, the better the reliability. Not the reverse.

It is how one uses the data, that makes or breaks a system, not the data itself.

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Hi Crash,

I tend to agree with you about the "thousands of bets" rule. Not a single one of my current systems has been tested over "thousands of bets". Hell, the "gem" system I outlined above was based on an observation over a couple of dozen races.

However, I must agree with Lindsay on the "profits must come from more than a handful of longshots". I wonder how many systems will appear in the not too distant future based around Summer Nation's win the other day at Ascot. I can just see them "Fitness First Up" or "First Up Franchise" will be the names. Rules will consist of
1. Must be first up from a spell
2. Must be a Metro track (midweeks acceptable)
3. Must be the only maiden in a non-maiden race.
4. Good tracks only.

Of course, a $100 winner will help any system out, and all you need to do is to devise a rule which picks it and one more and you have a system capable of sucking a lot of people in.

The problem comes when following them in real time... It might be another two years, if ever, for the next $100 winner to come along, and if it comes along at all, there could be 100 people on it and it doesn't pay $100, but more like $20, and there goes the system's profit.

Cheers,
Chris.

PS running the above rules (which I just made up thinking I was being stupid) through my database gives 447 bets, S/R of 5.6% (just 25 winners) and PROFIT of 76 units or 17.0% POT. Wow!

PPS. I'm claiming the copyright on this one :-)

PPPS. I'm calling it "First Up Foolishness"

__________________
Permanence is an illusion