I’m
fully aware that the closure/restriction of bookmaker accounts, is making it
more and more difficult for a number of you to play this ‘game’…
The
bottom line is that bookmakers do not want to take bets from winning punters.
In
fact, despite what their PR machines might say, they don’t even want to play
with punters who adopt a defined method (one which would give them a fair chance
of winning in the long run).
What
they actually want, is adrenalin fuelled risk takers, with little self control –
and I would hope (and indeed am pretty sure), that non of us fall into that
category…
As a
consequence, all of the conventional bookmakers will eventually refuse to play
ball with us.
It
might take some longer than others to get round to withdrawing their ‘service’ –
and we might be able to fool them for a while by setting up accounts in family
members names – but ultimately, they will catch up with us and stop our fun (and
profits !).
So
how do we overcome the issue…?
Well, a lot of the problem is brought on by the
bookmakers themselves.
They
offer competitive odds and concessions, to attract our business – but if we use
our heads, shop around and shift things in our favour, the bookmakers margins
are too small for them to be able to operate profitably.
If
bookmakers only offered SP betting, very few of us would have accounts that were
restricted or closed…
Ofcourse, one or two still would – those who are able to
generate a profit at SP – and that is why, if we are successful in the long
term, we will all have to move to the exchanges.
The
exchanges don’t close winning accounts – instead they just charge more
commission ! (but that is a cross that we have little choice other than to bear
!)
So
now we’ve established what we need to achieve (be profitable at BSP) – the
question is whether TVB tips can achieve this…
Historically, I’ve tipped horses whose odds were greater
than I perceived their chances of winning (ie. ‘value bets’ !).
I
will continue to do that – but more and more, I will look for horses whose
chances I expect the market to under-estimate (horses from less fashionable
stables, or with less ‘sexy’ profiles).
I
think I have enough experience to be able to identify the horses that will be
backed – and generally, I will look to avoid them (whilst still putting us on
horses that have decent chances of winning).
This
is something that I tried to do last season – and I will look to build on it
further this season.
That’s not to say that I won’t, unintentionally, hit on a
few steamers (I never expected Indian Voyage to be backed as it was last
February, for example !) – but generally, I would hope to tip horses that
weren’t going to crash in price.
As a
consequence, I think I will give the service the best possible chance of being
profitable at BSP.
In
fairness, it was profitable (just !) at BSP last season (to a level stake, after
5% commission) – and indeed the season before. But the profitability in the
2012-13 season was all down to Jadalni – and we can’t really count on one of
those every season !
If
you do choose to follow the tips at BSP (and I would choose BSP over SP
regardless – even allowing for the commission) then it should be possible to use
the market to help you decide which tips to back/ignore (as you can place the
bets close to the off when this additional piece of key information will be
available).
However, general guidelines to help increase
profitability, are not actually that easy to come up with…
My
initial feeling was that a comparison between the price advised when the tip was
issued and the BSP would help – but unfortunately, I don’t think that ratio can
be used to create a simple rule.
The
data below shows details of the tips from last season (excluding the Cheltenham
and Aintree festivals), comparing the BSP to price available when the tip was
issued.
Tips
included on the first data row, had a BSP at least 30% shorter than the advised
price: whilst on the second row, they had a BSP at least 10% shorter than the
advised price etc.
BSP v Advised price Number of bets Pts profit ROI
30%
less 100
37 37%
10%
less 146
16 11%
The
same 172
30 17%
10%
greater 199
23 11%
30%
greater 253
26 10%
All
tips 276
3 1%
Based purely on ROI, the obvious conclusion to draw is
that you should stick to tips that drop in price by at least 30% - however, I
would be very wary about drawing conclusions from a sample size of just
100…
I
would be more inclined to trust the 253 tips where the BSP was no more than 30%
greater than the advised price.
This
only yielded a 10% ROI - but the larger sample size would give me much more
confidence in the figure.
One
thing that can probably be deduced from these figures, it is that tips with a
BSP greater than 30% bigger than the advised price, should be avoided (though
there are even exceptions to this !)
The
limited conclusions that I did reach from my analysis of the figures were as
follows:
-
The more speculative a tip – the more its chance will be indicated by the market
(speculative ‘steamers’ are much more likely to win: speculative ‘drifters’ will
invariably lose)
-
Price movements close to the off are far more important that price movements in
the morning (and price movements should really be assessed from a point when the
price is stable – not the advised price).
-
The strength of a market (the market over-round will help with this) needs to be
considered when assessing the significance of a price movement.
The
bottom line is, if you are going to back at BSP and filter the bets (so not back
all of the tips), then you need a good understanding of the nature of tips
(speculative/solid) and an ability to accurately read a market (which is
generally more difficult than it might appear !).
So
that is just about it on this subject - for now...
I
know some of you intend to follow the tips at BSP – some with and some without,
filtering and I am committed to monitoring and reporting on this
area.
I
will certainly be doing my best to help make the TVB tips profitable at BSP (by
trying avoid market springers) – but as the price then becomes a variable out of
my control – and as it is a critical variable, then this will present quite a
challenge.
Still, I’ve always liked one of those J
TVB.
