Bj, not sure why you would envy me for, when I envy everyone else on this forum. I cannot do ratings, video watch/times etc.
I do remember Sportz’s newspaper methods, and one of mine is still his today Inside/Outside – except I only look at the last two runs.
I also remember, when first finding this site, and backing Williams tips each day, then I thought what he does not put his selections here, What will I do.
I love to bet each day to, I am sick of loosing, sick of putting money into my betting account, sick of “buying” tips and going no where. But I am also only a small bettor
What I wanted to do, was to be able to pick up the newspaper and make a selection from that.
When I finally came to realize that I may not have a bet each day, I would say " there is always tomorrow or the next”.
Then when I found my selections, I would place my bets before the first race. This works two ways for me. Firstly I found if I “looked around” before doing so, it would sway me to go with popular belief, no one had picked my selection so therefor it could not win. And Secondly I would not have to look at the price when placing the bet, if it was to high, once again I would say it won’t win.
I also came to realize that the newspaper favourite is maybe not the tab favourite, and this is where the good returns comes in. Once I put all this is to practice, things turned around for me.
Partypooper, I only had one bet today “One of a Kind”. It’s the favourite in my paper. Only paid $1.70 for the win, but I won and I’m happy.
This method is showing a 47% strike & 43% pot, using the courier mail, but if you stuck to the maidens...54%pot

Feather, what ever you do do NOT let any of us put you off!! If you have found a method that wins for you ,.... GO FOR IT!!

I am not knocking the Pre-Post fav. approach on the contrary, I believe there is a LOT of merit there. In fact it is only a "twist" away from my own winning method!!

Just one thing though, you MUST be betting at either top tote OR best fluctuation, if not, change RIGHT NOW!!

Hi Feather,

You are doing one of the smartest things a punter can do, and that is being very selective about your bets and the races you bet on. You obviously don't need a bet in every race or even a bet every day. Betting on poor races [collectively, unbeatable races long term] is the widest road to the poor house in this game.

Just want to say "Hear, Hear" to partypooper's post.

Your one bet yesterday paying $1.70 paid $2.00 on Austote. Depending just when you put your money on, the least it would have returned you is $1.90 (they take up to 5% commission on winners depending on the above). Not much different? On a $100 bet it is an extra $20.00 in your pocket at least!! That's a massive difference. Remember that the big players, so they say, only work overall on a much narrower margin than that 'extra'.

I, too, find mucking around with 'best fluc', etc. rather confusing. But you don't have to go to great lengths to find a better return than just one tote or whatever. (And I only give the Austote example for the sake of illustration --- Makybe Diva started at $5.50 there. Their site with screen size adjustments is a bit of a pain. You get used to it. And they don't operate on all meetings, but....) and there are plenty of other options.

(1) I bet if we pulled 20,000 mug punters out of the tab and asked them to form a market on each and every race and then combined and averaged their markets they would be completly outperformed by this so called "office boy".

Majorities are good for things like elections but if one wants to increase their POT they need an angle that takes advantage when the majority get it wrong.

(2)Yes they are really ratings but as they have been turned into prices they have every right to be called ummmm prices.............

Hi Crash,

What type of races do you think are collectively unbeatable?

Unbeatable races are races with too much depth or too little such as when there is an odds-on favorite [If I bet on the thing it will loose and if I bet against it, it will win]. Betting in say 50 [name your number] of these races over a year will show a [big?] loss, so 'collectively' they are unbeatable races.

Also, we are all looking for value [or should be] on what we believe can win a race. Often it just isn't there. If our overall win strike rate is 1 in 4, we better make sure our winning prices [averaged out] are better than 3/1 or all our bets are in unbeatable races.

There are plenty of races and prices to choose from.

The starting price is the combined opinion of everybody that has laid a bet on that race.
If you were to take the favourite of every race and back it, you would return ~90% of your money back over time. Now when you consider the tab have a takeout of 14.5%, then in a 100% market, favourites would return about 104%.
This to me is the best form of ratings available. Actual start prices versus projected prices wins hands down.

Computer ratings don't take everything into account. They simply don't know. Do they know how well the horse trained, or how the horses diet is, or that it is getting set for a big race in 2 weeks time? I can guarantee it doesn't know how the horse looks on race day.
The question is who does know this? The punter. The money.

Somebody wins every race, every day. There is no such thing as an unbeatable race.
I bet to a system, and have gambled on over 7500 races since mid April this year. There is nothing anywhere in my results that suggest certain types of races over others.

Someone wins tatslotto every day, but from an individual basis [which was obviously my point], some 'bets' are in unbeatable races due to depth and poor odds. Tattslotto is an example of a 'race' [admittedly of a different kind] with extreme depth that for [almost] all of us, will remain an unbeatable race.

Everyone has their unbeatable races. I've had the Tri. in the Melb. Cup [box 3] and the winner a few times but after 35yrs. of punting on it, I'm way behind because it is an unbeatable race for me. How many of us who have been in this game for awhile are in front betting on the Melb. Cup ? The Caulfield Cup ? The Cox Plate ? Maiden races ? Hurdles ? etc. Having a few wins in poor betting races, doesn't put you in front of their game. For most people, there are plenty of unbeatable races that will remain unbeatable.

Naturally I expect BJ and Dale to be in front in all of the above races [with 1st. devision Tattslotto wins too] :-)