Win the love of your bookmaker...

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Geraldine Rich
5 years ago
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1 Win the love of your bookmaker... A guide to romance for racing punters... This unique FREE report from Against the Crowd includes: 15-years-worth of meticulously researched horse racing data... Revealing the secret of the bookmaker's success... With FACTS the bookmaker would prefer you didn't see...

2 Dear Racing Punter, Money can t buy you love? The Beatles sang that money can t buy you love. But they were young. And they were wrong. Money can buy you love if the object of your affections is a bookmaker... If you want to win the undying love of the man who lays your racing bets, you will need to fill his wallet and keep on filling it on a regular basis. Money talks. And nothing whispers sweet nothings quite as poetically as money. Only a steady supply of money (your money) flowing into the bookmaker s coffers will distinguish you from the competition. Only frequent and generous tributes of cash flowing one way (from you to him) will capture his attention, cause his knees to tremble and his heart to flutter... Your goal is to keep the bookmaker interested and to commit him to a longterm betting relationship to keep him hanging on, ever-eager for more proof of your love... And be in no doubt. This game of securing the bookmaker s undying love and affection is one that only the most determined racing punters can win... The road is littered with hundreds and thousands of racing punters the bookmaker has used-up or discarded like dish rags... Only those punters willing to sacrifice their money and their self-respect into the bargain avoid the fate that has befallen so many other erstwhile suitors: limited stakes; removal of offers and bonuses or that dreaded Dear John letter telling them that their business is no longer desired. But, fear not. Here at Against the Crowd, we know how this game works. We know exactly how racing punters can make the bookmaker fall in love with them, cherish them and never let them go. If the bookie s love is your goal, read on for the simple 3-step method you can use to win it. Nick Pullen. Against the Crowd Contrarian Racing Intelligence.

3 Step 1 - Blindly follow handicap favourites They say love is blind. And they might be right. There is certainly no better first step to winning your bookmaker s love than blindly backing outright favourites in handicap races... The table below highlights the fate of outright favourites in every handicap chase run at every track in Britain since the beginning of Track W R SR% P&L ROI% Aintree Ascot Ayr Bangor Carlisle Cartmel Catterick Cheltenham Chepstow Doncaster Exeter Fakenham Ffos Las Fontwell Haydock Hereford Hexham Huntingdon Kelso Kempton Leicester Lingfield Ludlow Market Rasen Musselburgh Newbury Newcastle Newton Abbot Perth Plumpton Sandown Sedgefield Southwell , Stratford Taunton Towcester Uttoxeter Warwick Wetherby Wincanton Worcester

4 This next table shows you the fate of every outright favourite in every handicap hurdle race run in Britain over the same period. Track W R SR% P&L ROI Aintree Ascot Ayr Bangor Carlisle Cartmel Catterick Cheltenham Chepstow Doncaster Exeter Fakenham Ffos Las Fontwell Haydock Hereford Hexham Huntingdon Kelso Kempton Leicester Lingfield Ludlow Market Rasen Musselburgh Newbury Newcastle Newton Abbot Perth Plumpton Sandown Sedgefield Southwell Stratford Taunton Towcester Uttoxeter Warwick Wetherby Wincanton Worcester In handicap chase and hurdle events, the outright favourite wins about 28% of the time. And at some courses, the strategy has delivered a profit. But overall, you d be facing a massive loss of 2,210 points to level stakes.

5 You will win now and again but those wins will not translate to long-term profit. The bulk of your money would have ended up with your bookmaker. And he will love you for your obsession with backing favourites. For extra brownie points, you might try the same trick on the flat too. The following table shows the fate of all outright favourites in turf handicaps run on British tracks since Track W R SR% P&L ROI Ascot Ayr Bath Beverley Brighton Carlisle Catterick Chepstow Chester Doncaster Epsom Ffos Las Goodwood Hamilton Haydock Leicester Lingfield Musselburgh Newbury Newmarket Newmarket (July) Nottingham Pontefract Redcar Ripon Salisbury Sandown Thirsk Wetherby Windsor Yarmouth York We see pockets of resistance where playing outright favourites has proved profitable. But the overwhelming and overall outcome is heavy loss. If you d backed all the outright favourites over the period, your bookie would be sitting on level stakes profits amounting to 2,211.8 points. Imagine how much love your bookie would be feeling for you now! If only you d got started on this quest for the bookmaker s love 15 years ago...

6 Step 2 Smash into handicap topweights Back in the 1980s when I was a younger man, a fellow betting shop aficionado furnished me with some advice. Always back topweights in handicaps, son... I can only assume in hindsight that he was looking for love with the bookmaker. His strategy was one designed to enrich the layer... The following tables highlights the fate of topweights in all handicap chases run in Britain since Track W R SR% P&L ROI Aintree Ascot Ayr Bangor Carlisle Cartmel Catterick Cheltenham Chepstow Doncaster Exeter Fakenham Ffos Las Fontwell Haydock Hereford Hexham Huntingdon Kelso Kempton Leicester Lingfield Ludlow Market Rasen Musselburgh Newbury Newcastle Newton Abbot Perth Plumpton Sandown Sedgefield Southwell Stratford Taunton Towcester Uttoxeter Warwick Wetherby Wincanton Worcester

7 This next table shows you the fate of every topweight in every handicap hurdle race run in Britain over the same period. Track W R SR% P&L ROI Aintree Ascot Ayr Bangor Carlisle Cartmel Catterick Cheltenham Chepstow Doncaster Exeter Fakenham Ffos Las Fontwell Haydock Hereford Hexham Huntingdon Kelso Kempton Leicester Lingfield Ludlow Market Rasen Musselburgh Newbury Newcastle Newton Abbot Perth Plumpton Sandown Sedgefield Southwell Stratford Taunton Towcester Uttoxeter Warwick Wetherby Wincanton Worcester Again, you re looking at massive losses 3, points across both codes. Contributing money to the bookmaker on that scale is going to get you noticed for all the right reasons. You re certainly not going to have your account closed. More likely the bookie is going to want to take you to Paris for dinner, a show and then up to the hotel room for a nightcap. Game on...

8 And why stop there when you could be backing topweights in turf flat handicaps too? When it comes to winning love, there can be no half measures. Enough is never enough. In for a penny, in for a pound... The following table highlights the fate of all topweights in every flat handicap run in Britain since Track W R SR% P&L ROI Ascot Ayr Bath Beverley Brighton Carlisle Catterick Chepstow Chester Doncaster Epsom Ffos Las Goodwood Hamilton Haydock Leicester Lingfield Musselburgh Newbury Newmarket Newmarket (July) Nottingham Pontefract Redcar Ripon Salisbury Sandown Thirsk Wetherby Windsor Yarmouth York Backing topweights in flat handicaps over the period would have succeeded in transferring a whopping 5,022.4 points of your money into the bookmaker s sack money he might have grown fat off. If I d heeded that advice given to me so long ago, I might now be basking in a lovely civil partnership with my bookmaker sleeping in silk sheets, dining on roast swan and with access to the Aston Martin every other day.

9 Step 3 Back household names in handicaps Something else you might try in the never-ending battle to win the love and devotion of your bookmaker always back household names in handicaps. Household names like Nicky Henderson top jumps trainer and 4-time champion trainer... If you d backed all his runners in handicap chases since 2002 you d have lost points. And if you d done the same thing in handicap hurdle races your losses would amount to an additional points. If you re serious about wooing the bookie, then every little helps the cause. And your money is always better in his pocket than yours. With that thinking in mind, you could also treat the bookmaker by backing all handicap runners saddled by Paul Nicholls 10-time champion trainer. In chases you d have lost points. In hurdles you d have lost an additional points. That s easy money for the bookmaker. And if you bet like that over the longterm, he s going to be delighted every time you walk into the betting shop or log into your online account. You are on the road to winning his undying love. Same with Richard Johnson champion jump jockey. Backing all his handicap chase and hurdle rides since 2002 would have produced another glaring loss (contribution to your bookmaker) of points. And what a pity A P McCoy decided to hang up the saddle. He won everything everything except profit for handicap punters. His handicap losses from 2002 onwards amounted to points when backed to level stakes. It s a similar story on the flat too. Frankie Dettori s handicap losses total points. Backing Ryan Moore would have you down to the tune of 700 points. Yes, there s no doubt about it. When you re looking for love with your bookmaker, regularly backing household names in handicaps races will certainly get you noticed. You might even get a diary at Christmas the ultimate token of the bookmaker s love.

10 And, if you re NOT looking for love with the bookie... At Against the Crowd we are not looking for love with the bookmaker. We never were. And we never will be. When we talk about seeking love with the bookmaker, we are being facetious... We are in the racing game to smash the bookmaker to pieces if we can. We don t want him to love us. We are happy for the opposite to be the case. Here at Against the Crowd, we don t play handicaps just to funnel our hardearned cash into the bookmaker s already-overflowing trough. At Against the Crowd, we have no intention of backing favourites or topweights blindly or of over-backing household names simply because they happen to be household names. At Against the Crowd we play to win. We play for profit. The toughest races on the programme... We certainly don t avoid handicap races considered the toughest races on the programme. Far from it. We embrace handicap races. They are the area in which we specialize and focus all our analytical and betting attention. Handicap races are frequently referred to as benefit races for the bookmaker. But that so-called received wisdom completely misses the point. Racing punters like us have one gigantic initial advantage over the bookmakers. The bookies must play in every race. If there is a race to be run on a British track, the bookmaker is almost honourbound to price it up, form a market and to lay bets.

11 It would be a peculiar bookmaker that refused to do so. I certainly can t remember the last time that scenario or one even remotely like it unfolded. A bookie who doesn t want to put up a market for a horse race is a bookmaker who will soon be out of business. The bookmaker must play. But we punters can play when we choose to. We punters are free to pick and choose in which races we play... We can look at any day s cards and we can take a view on the races we want to play in and the races we want to leave alone. We can choose to play in races where we feel we have an edge or an advantage. We can stick to the races where our opinions are strongest. We can confine our bets to those races where we think we know something solid. We punters can pick and choose where we play. It surprises some people to learn that I choose to play the handicap events but there are good reasons for doing so... Playing the handicaps. If you were to ask me what s my favourite kind of horse race to bet in then I would have to be honest and tell you that I like the big-field valuable handicaps be they on the flat, over the hurdles or over the fences. I can guarantee you that you won t find too many punters saying the same thing. The truth is that my preferences go very much against the grain. Most punters and pundits would tell you I m round the twist. A lot of punters run a mile from that specific type of betting heat. Handicaps are considered something of a lottery. Well-matched horses all with similar levels of ability belting round a track punctuated by fences and

12 hurdles present an impenetrable puzzle as far as most punters are concerned. A lot of punters will tell you that the outcome is down to pure luck. Others will tell you that the horses take turns to win. Another group will assure you that anybody betting on the outcome in such races might do well to burn their money before the race starts. Handicaps are seen by many as benefit races races run purely for the benefit of the bookmaker. And I can t argue with the fact that the bookies are awfully keen to sponsor such races and to put up valuable prize pots. They certainly don t show such largesse for nothing. Such races must prove profitable covering the cost of the sponsorship effort and more besides or the bookie wouldn t be putting his hand in his pocket in the first place. And I must concede something else. Handicaps especially the big-field events offer the bookmaker an opportunity to bet to over-round percentages so big (increasing the notional profit the bookie makes on the race if he can balance his book) your toes curl up. But even with all those arguments made and accepted nothing will shake me from my view that the big handicaps are the best races a punter can be betting in. Go where the bookie gets it wrong most often. I get the argument about the tough nature of the puzzle such races present. Of course, I do. I ve been in and around this game for the last 25 years. And one of the first lessons you learn is that it isn t easy for the punter to find a winner in a big handicap. Such races are intensely competitive and hard to call. But there s a logical extension to that observation a potent reality that also demands to be taken into consideration:

13 If the big handicaps are hard races to call for punters, they are also difficult for the bookmaker to get right. Or, put another way, given the nature of the race, it is easy for the bookmaker to get something wrong in a big handicap. And for me that s a scenario that very much suits the way I play the racebetting game because I very much want to be playing in areas where the bookmaker (and the market I am betting against) is making mistakes most frequently. As a dyed-in-the-wool value-seeking punter my objective is always to be seeking out and betting the horses about which the bookmaker is offering the wrong price a price that under-estimates a horse s true chances of winning an individual race. And in some handicaps I m thinking about the big-field events here there is an awful lot the bookie must get right. Which means there are also plenty of opportunities for him to get something wrong. to get an opinion about a horse wrong. to overlook a horse. to under-estimate one. to over-estimate another. to go to market with a set of prices that aren t quite right. There s this view that the bookie is somehow all-seeing and all-knowing. That his range of resources and tools financial, human and technological somehow render him infallible. Let me assure you of one thing. The bookmaker is not infallible. His racing traders are men with two arms and two legs and a brain. Just like me and you. Some are better than others. Some know more than others. Some are more committed to their jobs than others. Some are hungover. Some have bad days. Some are looking for other jobs and couldn t care less.

14 Some have their minds focused on the redhead in customer service rather than on the Ladbrokes Trophy at Newbury or the Welsh Grand National at Chepstow. All are fallible. And all of them can get it wrong. I worked for a bookmaker for a few years. I didn t see any clairvoyants working on the racing desk. There were no miracle workers. There were no products of genetic experiments with their over-sized brains wired up to super-computers. There were just men. Men of varying class and quality. They drove to work. They drove home again at night. In between times they did the job sometimes well, sometimes not so well. They had bits of information. They had their tools. They had their own ways of looking at races and figuring things out. But if you think the bookmaker s office is some hallowed environ for whizz-kids and out-and-out geniuses then you are labouring under a big delusion. The bookmaker and his minions are men. Nothing more. Nothing less. Men with opinions and thoughts. Opinions and thoughts which like are our own are often wrong. And the bookmaker s men were wrong most frequently as logic dictates in the races which are hardest to solve (whichever side of the bookmaking divide you occupy) the handicaps. It is in that environment that horses would most frequently out-perform big prices. On that basis alone, the handicaps are exactly the races where I want to be focusing my attention. Such horses might not be easy to find. But the point is that they are there to be found. What s the point in looking at a 7-runner novice chase where one of the first two in the market wins 6 and a half times out of ten? What s the point in looking at a 5-runner novice chase where the long odds-on shot is head and shoulders above the opposition in terms of class where you ve got to hope he falls to get him beaten?

15 What s the point in playing in races where the small-field ensures the prices are so tight there s hardly any value to be found in any one single runner? As a punter you want to be playing in races where the bookmaker is most prone to get a price completely wrong. The handicaps races are that fruitful area. What is tough for the punter is for tough for the bookie. I m not saying such races are easy targets. What I am saying is that handicaps offer the best and most-regular opportunities to find those wrong prices prices that underestimate an individual horse s true chances of winning. That s why my Against the Crowd service focuses almost exclusively on targeting value-bets in handicaps races on the flat and over the jumps... We don t back favourites. Instead we always oppose them. We don t back topweights blind. We only back topweights when there is a very good reason to do so. And it s the same with household names be it trainers or jockeys. We only back their horses when we find compelling evidence that it s the right thing to do. We seek out value. We try to identify the right horse trading at the wrong price. That s our modus operandi at Against the Crowd. We re not going to win any love from the bookmakers betting the handicaps the way we do. Quite the opposite. But we can live with that. There will be no tears at bedtime. Our goal is longterm profit nothing more nothing less. As for love, the bookmaker can keep it. Let him save it for someone who has earned it with his slavish devotion to losing money by blindly backing favourites, topweights and household names in handicap races down the years. That racing punter deserves it. Take the next step...

16 As I say, here at Against the Crowd our attention is certainly not to win the love of the bookmaker. In fact, we aim to smash the bookmaker as often as we can. We do this by: NEVER blindly backing favourites, topweights and big names... ONLY targeting the races where the bookies get it wrong most often... ALWAYS seeking out value identifying the right horses trading at the wrong prices... I do this once in a week in my Against the Crowd EXTRA service, which you will receive free every Friday as a thank you for signing up to receive this report. And if you like what you see... My full Against the Crowd service runs all through the week, all year round. It s a members-only club that grants access to all my race advice and analysis. You are welcome to step inside and take a look around, with a Free Trial... Find out more about Against the Crowd and help yourself to a 14-day Free Trial on the link below: Nick Pullen Against the Crowd Oxfordshire Press 2017

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