Can making a profit be any easier?

Back in March we developed a betting system here at the Race Advisor. There were some suggestions made by a reader and today I thought I would revisit this system and see where we go with some of the suggestions made.

The biggest suggestion was to look at favourites only and those who had odds of 3/1 or higher available, so that is exactly what I am going to do. We are looking at all weather races which are class 6 or lower.

Without the price restriction we get the following results from racing data going back to 2009.

Profit	Wins	Losses	Bets	SR	ROI
-143.67	499	1151	1650	30.24%	-8.71%

If we only bet on those runners that are priced 3/1 and higher we get the following results.

Profit	Wins	Losses	Bets	SR	ROI
-68.72	122	505	627	19.46%	-10.96%

As you can see we drop by almost 1000 bets, the strike rate decreases because we are focussing on higher priced horses and, more importantly, our ROI drops.

This means that we are going to need to find a different way to filter these selections in order to increase are ROI.

Runners	Profit	Wins	Losses	Bets	SR	ROI
<=10	-60.04	281	512	793	35%	-8%
>10	-83.63	218	639	857	25%	-10%

The above table shows the results broken down by number of runners. The ROI increases slightly for races with 10 or less runners which would be expected but we still lose a lot of runners for a small increase in ROI.

What I would like to do is to use filters that require some manual analysis. By incorporating these I hope that we will be able to find some good value for these favourites.

To start I shall look at runners whose last good race was at a higher class than today’s race. A good race does not mean one where the horse won the race, just where its performance was of a good level against the competition. Class is not solely based on the standard class levels but rather the quality of the horses in the race.

In order to find this information, look for the last race where the horse came within two lengths of the winner. Open up the details for this race and make a quick assessment of the runners in the race by looking at their previous form. The question to ask yourself is ‘Does this race look like it had better horses in than the race we are reviewing?’ if so then you would have a favourite contender.

By doing this you will get results similar to:

Profit	Wins	Losses	Bets	SR	ROI
-25.2	226	490	716	31.56%	-3.52%

While this strategy definitely requires more time and effort than a standard system, you can see immediately that although we are cutting out a similar amount of bets as we did for races with 10 or less runners, we have made a drastic increase in the ROI performance.

If we choose our next filter carefully then we may be able to bring this strategy into profitability. We already have a good strike rate, what is important is to increase the profitability and so we want to look for a piece of information that may make the general public think that the horse isn’t as good as it is.

This information will give us the runners with higher odds and hopefully find some value. What easier way to find this than by only betting on those runners who did not perform well in their last race?

This information is also relatively easy to find. I do not mean that the runner cannot have won their last race; if they won but won poorly then this is also sufficient.

Open the runner’s last race and take a look at the in-race and post-race commentary. If there are any comments that suggest the horse should have performed better that is all we need to make it a contender under the new filter.

Profit	Wins	Losses	Bets	SR	ROI
8.82	86	187	273	31.50%	3.23%

As you can see we are now into a small profit of 8.82 units and 3.23% ROI. With just a little bit of extra time we have found a way to filter the favourites in all weather, class 6 races. Can finding profit be any simpler?

This is just the beginning, since you are already looking at the form then you will almost certainly be able to improve on these results by taking into account the form of the other runners in the race to see if there are any major threats. If there looks to be a major threat to the favourite then do not bet it.

Let’s have a quick re-cap of the strategy:

1)      Find the favourite in All Weather Class 6 races

2)      Check to see if there last good race was of a better quality than today’s race, if so move to the next step otherwise remove runner as a contender

3)      Check to see if they performed poorer than expected in their last race, if so then you have a selection

You can discuss your ideas for developing this strategy in the forum.

Of course if you don’t want to spend the time analysing this information then you can take a look at ProRatings where there are ratings that rate all areas of a horse’s performance.