Sharks Guide to Beating the Bookies In 2013

If you are planning on making a profit from your betting in 2013 then you will know that you need to get disciplined and organised. 

Here are my top 10 things to work on first. 

Each is worthy of a longer individual blog, but there are plenty of betting school articles now available on these subjects, I have listed a few below.

How To Find Winners - 101 Tips

In Running Betting Basics

Horse Racing Form Reading Made Easy

but to help with your New Years Resolutions I'll list them here first. 

Keep in mind this is focused on betting horses.

1) Set Aside a Betting Bank

Your betting money should be separate from all other monies. 

Open up a different bank account and put your betting bank there and then transfer in and out of that account to your bookmakers/exchanges. 

If you haven't got a separate betting bank, then save one up before you start betting in 2013. 

You should not be mixing personal money and betting money. Not if you want to take betting seriously and make a profit from it.

If you aren't doing this already it will be a nice new clean start for you and will leave you in no doubt come the end of the year if you have won or lost from your betting. 

It gives you a clear opportunity to decide how much you want to spend on betting, what you can afford to lose. 

If it runs out you will have to save up a new betting account. Never bet more than you can afford to lose.

2) Set Realistic Profit Targets

The amount of your betting bank and the time you have for betting/number of bets you plan will affect the profit targets you set. 

As will your staking plan, the amount you are happy to risk per bet and so on. Be realistic. 

You aren't going to turn £100 into £100,000! But don't set it too low either so it isn't worth working hard for. 

Do you really want to spend 20 hours a week studying form to make £100 a month? 

I'll look at this more in further blog posts. 

10-20% on turnover is probably a realistic return to aim at.

3) Record All Bets

You have heard this hundreds of times. Do it. 

You will learn a lot if you haven't done this before.

I suggest recording lots of information about the bet you make including some brief notes on why you made the bet, the odds you were looking for, why it was a value bet etc.

Don't fill your records with excuses about why the bets lost though!! And never miss anything out. 

You will learn more from the losing bets than the winning ones so include them. All of them!

4) Prepare Yourself to Back Losers (lots of them!!)

However good you are at finding winners you will back more losers than winners, unless you are purely betting odds on (if that's the case good luck to you!).

If you can't take backing more losers than winners then betting for profit isn't for you. 

Get this clear in your head now. 

You will back lots of losers. 

You don't need to profit on every race.

If you are value betting then the odds of the winners will account for the losers.

If you are a trader maybe this doesn't apply, but trading isn't really betting is it? It's far too easy!

5) Decide on a Sensible Staking Plan Which Suits Your Betting

I used to be a great fan of level stakes betting.

All the systems I researched and methods I read about were focused on producing a profit to level stakes. 

Early on in my betting career this worked great for me as I was betting fairly low stakes and it encouraged me to find bigger priced winners. 

I had a lot of fun and gained a lot of satisfaction with those 10/1-20/1 winners.

But as my stakes have increased, not only is it hard to get bets on at the best odds, I have looked for more consistent winners. 

I AM prepared to back losers!! But the number you have to back when betting at those odds to level stakes can be very high and to larger stakes, there is a big risk of killing off even the most healthy of betting banks.

Since I changed to the take out system, where each bet is made to win a certain % of my betting bank I have had a lot of success and it's a staking plan which really suits my betting style. 

More on this another day.

6) Specialise

You cannot hope to bet in every race, every day. You will not have the time to study all the races for long enough to find good enough bets. 

I always used to allow myself an hour per race. 

So if I had just 2 hours spare to study the next day's races I would pick just 2 races out which I fancied or looked the right type of race. 

You can do it that way but it would be better to specialise in a type of race or follow a stable. At the moment I concentrate on higher class chases. This suits me well as often you know the likely runners some days in advance of a race and therefore have more time to study each horse. 

The same horses often run so you can spend time studying the horses and understanding their preferences. 

I also enjoy watching these races and learning more about these horses and because this includes higher grade novice chases I have the excitement of trying to spot the future stars.

But whether you choose 2-year-old maidens, novice hurdlers or exposed staying handicappers, narrow down the races you study and learn all about the area you specialise in. 

You will be far more likely to find great bets if you do.

What will you specialise in during 2013?

7) Stop Having Fun!

Fun bets? What? 

There is no fun in losing money. 

You need to find a way to deal with these. If you can't cut them out completely then set aside a separate bank for them. But preference would be to stop them altogether.

Otherwise, you will claim that losing bets were just fun bets but the odd winning fun bet will be added into your profit/loss. 

Be honest. Do you want to have fun and lose or will your fun come from making money from betting during 2013?

8) Invest In The Tools and The Time

You can't do this by cutting corners. 

You need the right form books/access to videos etc to do this properly. 

These will vary depending on what you specialise in. 

You can't consistently find great bets by spending a few minutes studying some cut down form.

9) Have A Clear Idea About How You Assess Value

We all know that the way to make money from betting is to find better odds on a selection than their chances of winning. Easy.

But taken literally that means that almost every horse in every race is either good or bad value. 

You cant back or lay almost every runner. Unless you want to cop out and take the easy option of becoming a trader. 

So how will you choose? 

You need to think this through and decide what a good bet is in your mind. 

Look back over your records if you have records and be truthful about the good and bad bets. 

I'll cover this more later and reveal a simple strategy that has served me well.

10) Learn to Cut Out The Bad Bets

We can all back winners, it really isn't that hard. 

But some of us can avoid backing losers more than others. 

That in my opinion is a big difference between making money and losing money. 

Cut out those bad bets. 

Don't rush into placing a bet if you haven't had long enough to study the race. 

Don't bet at odds lower than you should do because you have spent ages finding a horse you think will win but can't quite get the odds you want.

Don't be afraid to ask for the odds you want on the exchanges and risk not placing the bet if you dont get the right odds.

Be prepared to study races and not bet. Be prepared to go days, even weeks without making a bet! You can do it!

You have probably heard these all before; there isn't anything new here is there? 

Some you might do well, some you might have thought about, others you may have started and stopped? JUST DO IT! 

If you want to finish 2013 in profit from the bookies then get disciplined and follow these rules NOW!

Happy New Year