Best Horse Racing Betting Strategies & Systems That Work

Contents

Do Horse Racing Betting Strategies Work?

Well yes, and no, and sometimes, but not always. That sounds glib, but chat to any bettor that enjoys a degree of success and they probably won’t admit to blindly following a system. However I guarantee that over time they have adopted a strategy. I much prefer the word strategy to system, to me system implies blindly following the rules regardless of the outcome. Strategy, on the other hand, suggests a considered plan that can be modified in certain circumstances. Imagine yourself as an Army General or football coach, you’d probably start with a plan based on your principles whilst understanding that those with most success have the ability to adapt as events change.

One thing is for certain, if you adopt a scattergun approach to your betting you are sure to fail, you’ll get lucky once in a while but in the long term you’ll lose money. Therefore it is imperative, if you’re serious about making a profit from betting, that you research and develop a betting style appropriate to your expectations and lifestyle. It’s said that every boat is an adaptation of another boat, don’t try to re-invent the wheel, look into betting strategies (there’s plenty around) that fit with your approach to betting.

Most Profitable Horse Racing System and How I Build a Racing System

Enter “horse race betting strategies” into your search engine and a plethora of links will appear. Let’s be absolutely frank from the start, a foolproof, guaranteed  success system simply does not exist. It’s vital that you read as much as you possibly can and start by sorting the wheat from the chaff, there’s plenty of nonsense that you can disregard immediately. But there are also plenty of ideas that you can mould into a workable plan.

The enjoyment most punters get from backing a winner is when you’ve selected it yourself, the very same applies when putting a system together. In the first instance, be honest about how much time you are prepared to spend in identifying selections based on your system. If you work 9-5 and your selection process involves 3 hours form study a day, it’s probably unrealistic that you’ll have the time to dedicate to it. On the other hand, blindly backing runners that have travelled more than 300 miles is far too simplistic when taken in isolation. But that, possibly combined with certain trainer/jockey combinations, may have some merit. There is plenty of information available to support or debunk your theory.

So in putting together your system, make sure you have the time to implement it and before you begin look at previous races and carry out a dry run or small stakes experiment, making sure the length of time is sufficient enough to be meaningful. And ultimately be honest with yourself: will it suit your betting style and what are the chances of success?

Understanding Horse Racing Betting Systems

I was in hospitality at Royal Ascot a number of years back, a non punter at our table announced he had a system that bookies would not touch. He was going to back a horse in the 1st race to win £10 and if it lost in the 2nd race he was going to back his selection to win £10 plus his stake on the 1st race. He was genuinely excited and I pointed out it was called the Martingale system, most usually used in roulette. He assured me that no bookie would take his bets, so we walked down to the row of on course bookmakers and he enthusiastically explained his cunning plan to a weathered old fellow stood at his pitch.

“I’ll take your bets all day long mate, you see the most I can lose is a tenner, but if you back the first four losers your stakes will be huge and you’ll lose your bottle.”

We walked back to the marquee and my disgruntled companion said:

“Well I’m still going to give it a go”. And he did, for the first three races, whereupon he decided that the champagne and strawberries provided by our host were much better value.

The point being, he hadn’t looked into the potential consequences of how the risk, at some point, would undoubtedly be greater than the return.

Factors to Consider in Choosing a System

Odds Change – Your Selection Process Doesn’t

There are a couple of rules I would recommend that are essential to your success and long term profit. The first is, when assessing a race under no circumstances look at the betting forecast first, this will skew your analysis and inadvertently guide you towards horses at the top of the market. By ignoring the forecast you are immediately examining your own judgement. The SP forecast (known as the tissue) is compiled by people who spend hours every day analysing horse racing, of course they make mistakes but they are experts in their profession based on in depth analysis.

 Once you have studied a race and made your selection(s), assess the price a) that you expect the horse to be and b) at what price you are prepared to back it at. Let’s assume you think a horse has a very solid chance, you think it will be 5/2 and you’re happy to back it at 2/1. You look at www.oddschecker.com or Betfair and the best price is 6/4 or 2.50. Do you still back it? What if it’s evens? Or odds on? It is vital to discipline yourself in line with pitting your wits against the bookies.

Let’s also imagine you fancy a horse and think it will be around 6/1, you check the market and it’s 20/1. Now I would never suggest you shouldn’t back your selection, but re-examine how you arrived at it and why your assessment differs from the odds compilers.

The golden rule is simple, be driven by your selection process and not the betting market.

Handicapping Strategies

Each racehorse is allocated an official rating that has a numerical value based on it’s performances on the track, taking into account the finishing positions of the other runners. Set by the British Horseracing Authority (BHA), the figures are allocated every Monday. Now of course these figures are not infallible, if they were bookmakers wouldn’t exist as the horse with the highest rating would win every race. 

For many years organisations such as Timeform and Raceform have published their own ratings, and the Racing Post displays both the horse’s official and Racing Post rating. The rating is based on the horse’s performance under optimum conditions whether that is 5 furlongs on fast ground at Bath or 3 miles on heavy ground at Towcester. This is where skill and experience comes in, establishing if a horse is ready to run to it’s best given the circumstances of fitness, going, distance, draw and trainer form. 

The ratings published daily on the Race Advisor should be researched extensively as a start point to finding the most likely winners of a race. You can view the VDW ratings research here.

Value Betting Techniques

Probably the most discussed and misunderstood concept in all forms of betting, not just horse racing, is value. Ask yourself this: “When attempting to establish the outcome of a horse race, am I trying to find the most likely winner or a horse that is overpriced?”

Well what a stupid question, you say to yourself, I’m looking for the winner. If only it was that straightforward. You see bookmakers price a race to ensure they show a profit regardless of the outcome, and although they’ll lose on plenty of races they show a profit in the long term because the odds are in their favour. As a punter you must adopt that attitude in reverse and avoid backing horses regardless of the price. In the long term your ability as a punter, reflected in your return on investment (ROI), will be down to understanding when value is available, ie when the price is higher than it’s actual chance.

There is an absolute guarantee that if you are backing horses regardless of the price you will lose money in the long run. The value betting topic is discussed in far more detail here and is the cornerstone of every successful punters strategy.

Statistical Analysis Methods

Open a browser window and type in “horse racing statistics”. That will keep you going for a few hours. The Racing Post has a whole section called Signposts that is dedicated to stats. 

When approaching betting with a systematic approach, be honest with yourself in terms of the type of punter you are. Take into account your betting style, including your anticipated strike rate and profit expectations. If your system throws up 3 bets a week at an average price of evens, decide if that is sufficient to pique your interest. On the other hand if a strategy demands hours of analysis but will produce a positive ROI based on high volume, do you have the time and energy to dedicate to it?

The key point is, stats and information are readily available, immerse yourself in the subject and become an expert, there are no shortcuts.

Follow In-Form Trainers

This particular topic fascinates me, as a young lad Folkestone was my local course and we knew that during the flat season the jockey/trainer combination of Guy Harwood and Greville Starkey had a fantastic strike rate. It’s common knowledge that Henderson gets his horses to peak at Cheltenham and Mark Johnson had a soft spot for Goodwood. That is/was all information readily available.

A subject that is not as discernible is that of trainers that are in and out of form, and more importantly how to identify trends. Trainers, like the rest of us, are creatures of habits, and to me one of the most worthwhile approaches is getting to know a trainer’s modus operandi. What is their success rate with 2 year olds or novice hurdlers? Does their overall win percentage vary much from their first time out strike rate? Do they book certain jockeys for their fancied runners and similarly how do their runners fare when ridden by apprentices or claimers?

All of this information is there to be researched and I would strongly recommend becoming familiar with a couple of medium sized stables that have been established for a number of years. I guarantee you’ll see patterns emerging.

The stats of hot and cold trainers is published in the Racing Post daily and should be used as a tool rather than a finite decision, horses run in and out of form all the time for a magnitude of reasons.

Each Way Betting

Let’s have a look at each way betting in terms of potential profit or pay out based on the price of the selection. Before placing an each way bet it is imperative that you check the terms as they vary from bookie to bookie and depend on the number of runners and type of race.

For the benefit of this exercise let’s assume an 8 runner race where the terms are ⅕ of the odds and you are betting £10 e/w, a total of £20. By betting each way you are placing two bets: £10 to win at 5/1 and £10 to finish in the top three at evens. The horse wins, your total return is £80, £60 from the win bet and £20 from the place. If it finishes 2nd or 3rd the return is £20, your total stake. Out of the frame you lose £20.

Now carry out a hypothetical calculation: if you placed this bet 100 times, how many times do you expect your selection to win? How many times do you expect it to place? What is your return based on your expectations?

Now calculate, using the exact same strike rate, your return based on having £20 to win at 5/1 100 times.

This will throw up some interesting figures dependent on your anticipated strike rate, so carry out the exact same calculations based on 10/1 or 8/1. You will now have an idea of how and when to implement a potentially profitable each way strategy.

Types of Horse Racing Systems (or) Adapt/combine with the ‘Comprehensive Guide’ approach

Go to ebay or Amazon and search in the book section for horse racing strategies, you’ll be spoilt for choice. To be honest most of them will be worthwhile (dependent on price, think value!) if only to expand your knowledge and at the same time discard the obvious nonsense. You’ll need to invest some money but as in every other walk of life, knowledge is power and blindly hoping a strategy will produce a profit is for the birds.

An interesting author is Ken Osterman who has written plenty of books about systematic betting in a number of sports. The real pleasure is derived from adapting and combining existing strategies with your own. Analyze other people’s approaches and massage them using your own information, you’ll be pleasantly surprised at what you find. Don’t follow hunches, the results of previous races provide real evidence of whether or not your strategy has legs. 

Will the widest drawn runner at Chester show a profit? Have a look at the last ten years results, you might be onto a good thing. After all most punters wouldn’t dream of backing a horse drawn wide at Chester – perhaps there’s value in doing so. You certainly won’t make money by simply following what everyone else is backing.

Betting Systems Unleashed – Your Comprehensive Guide

Dutching Horse Racing Betting Strategy/System Explained

Dutching, or coupling, is where more than one horse is backed in a race, thus maximising the chances of winning, albeit to some reducing the potential profits. It’s really a form of reverse bookmaking where you hedge your bets across two or more runners. Its covered in great detail here and is something all serious punters must look into.

80-20 Horse Racing Betting Strategy/System Explained

This is a system that might take many of you by surprise, where 80% of your stake is placed on the horse to place and 20% to win, so if you want to bet £10 its £8 place and £2 win. The obvious site to use for this is Betfair where on every race you can bet place only on the first 2,3 or 4 depending the number of runners. However you can also bet place only on the Tote, the issue here is you won’t know the price you have obtained.

So a 5/1 winner (assuming ⅕ of the odds as previous) pays £8 for the place and £10 for the win, a return of £28 to your £10 stake meaning a profit of £18. The horse placing returns £16 meaning a profit of £6.

If your selection is 2/1 and wins your return is £8 at 0.4/1 or 1.4 on Betfair which is £3.20 plus £2 at 2/1 which is £4 plus your stakes returned. If the horse places your overall profit is £1.20. 

As unusual as this strategy seems there is no reason why it shouldn’t show a profit, with the usual caveat that you must have a consistent and successful selection process. 

Laying The Favorite Horse Racing Betting System Explained

Ask any punter if you can make money from blindly backing favourites and you’ll get the same response – no chance, despite the fact the favourite wins around 35% of all races. In that case, surely by laying the favourite on Betfair you can’t fail to make money? If only.

That’s not to say you can’t make money backing or laying some favourites, but expecting to simply back or lay without any form study or awareness is unrealistic.

First of all let’s look at what laying is, the subject is covered here https://raceadvisor.co.uk/what-is-back-and-lay-in-betting/ and in order to lay a horse and effectively act as the bookmaker you’ll need to open a Betfair account.

Laying favourites successfully will require knowledge of the form book with the ability to identify favourites that are shorter than they should be. Thinking of backing Mullins or O’Brien? So is everybody else and consequently their horses are very often overbacked and therefore go off at prohibitive odds. Throughout the course of a season none of the top jockeys and trainers achieve a level stakes profit, meaning if you place £10 at SP on all of their runners you will lose money. Especially at the big meetings where casual punters follow the names they recognise, don’t be afraid to take on favourites when the price is shorter than it should be, purely because of connections.

Don’t be afraid to lay favourites, especially those connected with the big stables, but ensure you do your research.

Pick 3 Horse Racing Betting Strategy Explained

The Pick 3 bet is effectively a treble using more than one horse in 3 races using permutations. So if you back one horse in each race you have 1 line: 1 x 1 x 1 = 1 bet. Let’s imagine you fancy 2 horses in each race, it becomes 2 x 2 x 2 = 8 bets. In either scenario if you pick all three winners at 2/1 the payout is the equivalent of 26/1. In the first example you’ve staked £1 for a return of £27 and in the second you’ve staked £8 for the same return, odds of just under 5/2. 

The example we’ve used has three winners at 2/1, but it’s perfectly reasonable to expect much higher odds if you have identified races where the favourite could be underpriced and vulnerable, meaning others in the race are overpriced.

Get used to calculating perms, for example 2 x 3 x 4 = 24 lines or bets. If you find 3 winners at 4/1 the return to £1 is £125. Therefore in placing this type of bet decide whether its easier to perm 24 horses at 4/1 each or find one 4/1 winner, the odds are almost identical.

However at the big meetings in competitive handicaps you might very well identify two or more runners that have a chance of winning at big prices, the chances of success are reflected in the odds but the potential return on investment is very high. As with other strategies this system involves lots of form study, patience and an acceptance of a low strike rate. 

Show Bet Horse Racing Betting System Explained

A “show” bet is what we would call in the UK place only, you are backing a horse to “show” or “place”, usually to finish in the first three but occasionally the first 2 or 4 depending on the number of runners. This bet can be placed on the exchanges such as Betfair or Matchroom or on the Tote.

The 80/20 strategy we discussed earlier is a version of a show bet with a win portion incorporated. Familiarise yourself with each way terms and and you can potentially use the place only markets for regular profits. Concentrate on horses that are consistent and predictable that may not win too often but frequently “show” or run into a place.

Trifecta Horse Racing Betting Strategy Explained

A trifecta bet, available with the Tote, means picking which horses you think will come first, second, and third in a race, in the correct order. Hang on, I hear you say, it’s hard enough finding the winner let the alone the first three, but the odds are rewarded accordingly. The full details of what it entails and the perms and costs available are available here.

Similar to the Pick 43 strategy, this is a bet with a potential large payout and will probably not form part of your regular betting activity, but in specific circumstances can be approached with an open mind. Dutching is where more than one horse is backed in a race, there’s no reason why perming three or more horses in a Trifecta shouldn’t be considered as an alternative or supplement to this strategy. 

Horse Betting Strategy #3: The Yankee Strategy

A Yankee is a popular bet involving 4 selections and 11 bets: 6 doubles, 4 trebles and a 4 horse accumulator, so a £1 Yankee costs £11. You can place an e/w yankee which is 22 bets.  A Lucky 15 is similar with the addition of 4 singles. The disadvantage of a Yankee is if any of the 4 selections lose then 7 of the 11 bets are immediately lost, leaving 3 doubles and a treble, and if only one of the 4 wins the entire bet is lost, regardless of the price. 

This is a potentially profitable bet if you can find 4 “bankers”, short priced favourites that you may not wish to back individually, if 3 of the 4 selections win you have 3 doubles and a treble up, if all 4 win  then all 11 components within the bet pay out.

As with all multiple bets this is ideal for those hoping for a decent payout from a relatively small stake There are any number of this type of bet available such as a Patent, Trixie or Heinz 57,  but consider why bookies are keen for you to place bets of this type. The margins they make are greatest on multiples, and smallest on win singles, always bear that in mind.

Implementing Your Chosen Horse Racing System

We’ve probably missed a few systems out, in fact that’s an understatement as over the years hundreds have been tried out and most have a degree of success for a while but lose in the long term. It’s not a case of “how long does it take for my system to work”, but more “how long will it take to fail?”. That’s not to say that a systematic, or strategic approach to betting doesn’t work, it is absolutely essential to have a plan but don’t be absolutely rigid in your thinking.

Before implementing a system that you think has a chance of working be sure to research past results and then conduct a “live” trial using small stakes. Don’t be afraid to tinker and adapt and most importantly don’t set unrealistic targets in terms of achievable profits and input required. And consider the adage about boats, they are all adaptations of a previous one, look into a system that appeals and add your own ideas, the greatest sense of achievement in betting is backing your own judgement. 

Final Thoughts

If you ever think you’ve learned all there is to know about betting it’s time to give up. Follow the golden rules: watch lots of racing (you’ll see things 99% of punters don’t), be willing to learn and adapt and be realistic about expectations. Relying on one strategy is narrowing your options, running 5 or 6 concurrently is too time consuming.

If I were to give one piece of advice to a new punter it would be to follow a couple of stables, trainers, like the rest of us, are creatures of habit and patterns develop. Over time you’ll establish when to back and/or lay a particular runner and develop an affinity similar to following a football team.

I also plan to experiment to small stakes with the 80/20 approach, I think this could be meaningful if looking at short to mid range selections.

Above anything else a successful system will succeed or fail based purely on your selection process, concentrate on the basics of identifying horses that have a decent chance of winning at a backable price. Blindly backing odds on favourites is the road to the poorhouse, as is picking 33/1 chances in Trifectas. Use the raceadvisor site regularly, the fastest horse wins the race and ratings point you in that direction, its as good a place as any to start.