Much is made of creating a system, money management, staking etc, all very important. The difference between profit and loss can be decided by a swing in outcomes of only a few percent. There is one factor, seldom mentioned, that can weigh more heavily on the final profit or loss outcome. That is the efficiency of placing a bet.

"It can't be that hard", I hear you say. Sure, work out all your bets early in the day, put them in your bot, set and forget. However there is one category of punter that reacts only to the price triggers and is dependent on placing a bet as late as possible, because that's where all is revealed about the chances or otherwise of a horse winning or losing, just before the Close and usually after the Official Start time.

I'm one such punter and can't use a bot to place these kind of bets. In a way that's good, it's a niche market devoid of all bots and droids. They've already placed their bets unless going In-Play. The downside for me is dealing with inefficiencies in placing my bets.

Take yesterday for example, on paper (as if I was a bot) I would have placed 40 bets, had no accidents and made 1.4 points profit. What happened in reality was I placed 18 bets, no accidents and made 0.8 points profit. Pretty inefficient, hey? I've forsaken 0.6 points (at $500 liability = $300) profit, due to other influences. A massive 40%. You think you've got problems Aussie, with a few percent creep in dividends....lol

What are these influences:
1. Too many systems. I am trying to scan each race for 6 sets of system rules.
2. Not enough time to execute the bets before the Close.
3. Too many races closing within a few minutes of each other, especially if you consider Harness races as well.
4. Distractions, phone rings, someone at the door etc
5. Boredom, on Mon & Tue plenty of time between races but your mindset wanders, you start yawning then get distracted.
6. Mind games, comes into play when you miss a successful bet and the next one's an accident. The bad brain chemistry starts warming up.
7. Becoming protective, once you've made a good profit and it's time to place another bet, you think should I risk it?
8. Fatigue, this sort of betting can wear you down very quickly, you start missing things, making mistakes.
9. Lack of discipline, not sticking to the rules of your system, staking or money management.
10. Self doubt, after a a loss thoughts about is the system right, should I scrap it, start coming into play.

By no means the full list but enough said, it is a battle of the mind and body. Is it worthwhile then? I believe it is because all that's really happening here is you are having less bets and profit/loss but if the systems are profitable and deliver the same or comparable POT despite the inefficiencies and only an analysis of your Betfair account can confirm that, then set yourself an average profit target and increase your staking to deliver same result.

It's Me versus the machine UB, for example: Well done to him for achieving his 100 points. How can you compete against multi botted systems running 24/7? Well you can't, BUT I'd hazard a guess that to achieve that result his bots might have had to place thousands of bets. If your system/s deliver 10 points profit for 100 bets in the same time frame, then don't say to yourself, "I can't compete with that", say to yourself, "How much do I want to make on average each day?", and work with your system and it's inherit inefficiencies to deliver that result. If it means your stake/liability, to deliver that outcome, is outside the realms of your 2% of bank, sobeit! You'll just have to wait a little longer to build the Bank up.