Bets and Pieces

There is little doubt the pursuit of knowledge can literally take a lifetime to learn.

Sometimes even that isn’t enough to achieve the goal. For instance, scientists, working at the cutting edge of knowledge, are, in truth, the people who push forward modernity. Everything has been realised through research and often blind luck.

For most horse racing punters there is little in the way of knowledge. They may feel they have a lot of insight and knowledge but usually that isn’t the case. It’s very much scraping the top of the cream rather than digging a little deeper. Each to their own. As I say: ‘If your betting pays, you don’t need me to tell you anything.’

Considering the vast majority of punters lose money, even on skill-based sports, they have little insight to make their betting pay. Lots of people enjoy horse racing without any real knowledge or interest in trying to improve their lot. However, to beat the bookmakers you need a level of knowledge which goes beyond blind faith. This is why anyone who wants to win money betting need to take this endeavour very seriously. If you bet for fun (which isn’t a good idea) then simply carry on regardless. If that’s costing you money then try and limit this to a minimum.

Psychologists say it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert. This really is scratching the surface. Anyone who would be regarded as an expert would spend years learning, perhaps thousand of pounds investing in themselves or technology.

You can guarantee that the best gamblers (who consistently make money) simply do so because they know more than others. They know their niche. They appreciate that they don’t need to know everything as it is pointless and futile.

I can guarantee they keep their knowledge close to their chest.

The difficulty with understanding a subject is that it takes a long time to learn the basics let alone go beyond that. Once the basics have been learned you need to assess the results and your knowledge pinpointing strength and weakness. It is only through assessment will you be able to learn more. This isn’t something which can be rushed. Pushing too hard or too fast may destroy your previous work.

It is worth noting knowledge comes before money. Meaning you can have all the money in the world, it doesn’t make you a successful or professional gambler. It isn’t as easy as going to the track and betting £10,000 to win £2,000 to make your betting pay. Even, if not more importantly, you need knowledge and skill to make your betting pay. If not, you will soon lose. Don’t be fooled into thinking you only need to bet on odds on shots to make money. It’s far from the truth. You will soon learn a very expensive lesson.

The reason why most people don’t win gambling is because it is recreational. It’s not done in a professional manner. How can an amateur beat the professional? It’s never going to happen. It’s foolish to think otherwise.

Betting shouldn’t be taken lightly. It’s not a laugh, a bit of fun. It can be but most punters are very naive about the gamble. It is and can be a gateway to bigger problems. It’s the reason why people need to gamble responsibly.

If you cannot bet responsibly don’t bet at all.

Year’s ago I decided to enrol for an Hons Degree with The Open University reading Psychology. This was after studying for 3-weeks at Anglia Polytechnic University (know called Ruskin University at Cambridge). This was after, as a mature student, I completed an Access Certificate to Higher Education. Before this point, I basically had no qualifications to my name. My journey into higher education was a baptism of fire. The unknown was scary. I had much to learn. And the books and my tutor helped me over the finishing line.

Some seven years later, as a part-time Open University student I achieved a 2:1 Honours Degree in psychology.

Education is akin to mentorship. Just imagine if I had to study without any books?

I’d been just like Sigmund Freud doing my own research. It would have been cutting edge and revolutionary. However, the likelihood of me getting to the end of that journal would have been just about impossible. Even if I had, someone may have looked at a lifetimes work and considered it worthless.

Being a professional gambler is something similar.

You can either do it the hard way on your own or look for a mentor to help you.

My approach to gambling has been the former and taken 30+ years. I’m sure if I had someone who knew the score or I paid someone an arm and a leg the journey to success would have been about ten time quicker.

I don’t regret learning something unique, an approach which has been tested and tested again but it has still taken far too long. That’s the nature of the beast. No one is going to hand you a pot of gold for no good reason. Not even if you touch their palm with silver.

Most professional gamblers are secretive. Their knowledge has been hard earned. Why are they going to be a good Samaritan and hand you golden ticket just because you smiled at the bloke who sells the chocolate bars. Not being nasty, but most people are selfish and would take without a thought of giving back. In fact, I gave someone three horses and they had an each-way treble and won £2,000. Far from buying me a drink, they were interested in getting more of the good stuff free of charge. To be honest, I’m not sure what they were thinking. Perhaps they thought they were doing me a favour. I can tell you this: ‘They weren’t giving me anything but an insult.’ And they received nothing there after.

So if you want a professional gambler mentor its not going to be cheap. Just think back in the day Dave Nevison was paid £100,000 a year by The Winning Line Tips. That’s £2,000 a week for tips let alone the insight to be a better gambler. As the saying goes: ‘Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed hm for a lifetime.’

Time and knowledge are precious. I know everyone thinks their time is valuable and everyone else’s is worthless and to be taken advantage of for free but it doesn’t work like that. There is generosity and then get ready to put your hand in your pocket.

As it happened, Nevison’s £100,000 deal didn’t work out as well as he and the business partnership hoped.

That’s business.

I have helped a few punter improve their lot by detailing 10 Dark Horses and mentored one or two people. However, learning to be a professional gambler isn’t quite as simple as gaming a GCSE in Drama from your local Further Education Centre. It’s a complex subject and you need not only a good mentor but an A Star student. It isn’t going to happen overnight. As usual in the world of gambling, punters wish to swallow the magic pill, wake up with the insight of Dave Nevison, go to the races and come back with a suitcase full of money.

As yet, that pill doesn’t exist. And if it did, it would cost a fortune.

Which do you want the red or blue pill?

One leads you to living in the world as a professional gambler the other working in McDonald’s.

So should you consider mentorship?

If you want to gain wise understanding and move forward with professionalism it is a prudent option. It won’t be cheap but you get what you pay for. You have to ask yourself if you simply want to pay for horse racing tips or gain true understanding that build knowledge on a strong foundation.

The choice is yours.

I’ve been blogging for over 10-years. I have a few horse racing niche sites. Many have achieved several million page views. However, I can’t say I’ve had an ultimately successful website that has hit the headlines. Well, I say that but once or twice High Class Equine was mentioned in the local press and I’ve written for horse racing magazines. Also, back in the day, my brother had a couple of articles published in The Weekender: Systems, a popular read from Nick Mordin. The story to be told is that blogging has always been a passion and helped me meet some very interesting people.

All gamblers.

I’ve met many and varied people. A few who were on the edge of being unhinged. One I will not mention by name loved to swear as much as he did pick winners. He was a character always with a sob story in an endeavour to borrow money. In the end I just unfriended him on Facebook and he never contacted me again. Some people are best to be avoided and don’t add to your life. There’s enough to think about gambling let alone considering other people’s problems. That may seem a touch uncaring but its not. A real friend doesn’t ask for money even if they are struggling for cash. Gamblers, especially, know the score.

To be fair, most people I have worked with or who have followed my website have been kind and generous.

For Instance, I used to be good friends with Mark who run the website Patient Speculation. He eventually found an investor and set up another website which sadly didn’t take off. I bought the old website from him for a couple of hundred pounds (a token offer in ways) and I still run it to this day. It has made me good money over the years. I am still in contact with Mark although we have never met in person. His local course is Leicester so it would be good to venture there some day. That’s the thing about meeting fellow racing fans, it’s always a day to remember and worthy of the time.

Perhaps one of the best people I have ever met is Jerry Banks, a professional gambler from Lowestoft. This Suffolk man is knowledgable, kind and generous. It’s funny how we must have conversed for years before saying ‘let’s meet for a day’s racing at Great Yarmouth’. Now we have regular meet-ups and it’s a real occasion meeting at the pub before racing, go to the course, a bet or two, then go somewhere to have a decent meal and go home. It is a bit of a gathering with me bringing along a few people and Jerry often brings his friend Mark.

Jerry has some brilliant stories about the good old days of betting at independent bookmakers at Lowestoft where he’d see a few regulars turn up with a plastic shopping bag full with money. It’s crazy to think in those days a bookmaker were willing to take a good bet rather than today’s ‘turf accountants’ who limit punters to betting a quid.

Last year while at Great Yarmouth I met one of the subscribers to my mailing list, Richard, who lives nearer to Beverley than most. I said: ‘Let’s meet at 3pm at the finishing line.’ I see an unfamiliar face, walked up and said: ‘Richard?’ We had a good chat for half an hour and went our separate ways. It was lovely to meet-up in person and just have a good, old-fashioned chat about horse racing and life. It’s surprising what you can learn about someone in a short conversation.

Going racing has always been a family and friends affair. That combined with a visit to the Grosvenor Casino it really is a beautiful time. Some of us win and some of us lose but we all go home happier for having a day out.

If you run a blog, a social media page or a mailing list try to have an in-person meet-up and you will be pleasantly surprised how it adds to your day if not your life.

I wonder who I will meet next?

It could be you!

My love of horse racing was inspired by my late father, Colin, who enjoyed summer holidays at Great Yarmouth. We used to stay on the Ladbroke’s caravan park at Caister-on-sea. Such wonderful times. To this day we head to this Norfolk racecourse as merry pilgrimage in memory of family and friends who are sadly no longer with us.

I’m sure many readers who have found this article on the search engines answered: Yes, you bet!’

Even though this book was published back in 1992 by Aesculus Press Limited it is still one of the best reads for budding gamblers. Such was its success that Betting For A Living was a best seller. I think the definition of a best seller is offloading at least 5,000 books in one week, which is no mean feat in the horse racing world with a small niche market.

Betting For A Living had at least six reprint from 1992 – 96.

I have one copy, so I was part of the success story.

Betting For A Living is a big old stamp of a book with over 300 pages.

The dusk cover is prominently duck egg blue in colour, Betting For A Living in black capitalised text, Nick Mordin written, underlined in fonts coloured in racing green. A couple of betting tickets (so much better than the modern receipts now given on course) and rent book filled with cash. The cover was designed by Iona Stern and Kevin Macmillan. Layout by Legend Design, Bristol.

It has been a long time since I read this book and there have been many changes within both horse racing and technology. Certainly the advancement of betting exchange the biggest aspect for consideration. However, I am sure the fundamentals of reading form, finding your approach and working with discipline are the basic foundation for any would-be gambler. I intend to read this publication over the next few weeks. I look forward to it. There may well be a few articles written off the back of it too.

Betting For A Living features 15 chapters in the first part and the second part a Journal: Turning Theory into Practice.

The book is a true testament to the passion of Nick Mordin’s work. It details why he wrote the book, what the book is about, how to predict how a race will be run, why different horses win at different courses (especially the all-weather), how to analyse the effect of the draw, how distance effects horses, assessing the look of the horse, assessing horses by their class, listening to trainer comments and their trainer methods, horse fitness, how weight affects horses, betting with value, maximising your winnings and how much to bet, how to use systems, which factor suit a particular horse, how to watch a race and more.

Part two details a journal following six months of using the method at the races.

I particularly like the forward written by Mordin himself which is humorous and can only be described as ‘racing fever’.

The aim of the book was for Mordin to digest as much information as he could and write a publication to help punters make their betting pay. Not only would he write a best selling book but apply his wisdom to betting on course. In fact, this is exactly what he did during the winter 1992/93. He did exactly what he proposed making over £1000 a month betting in his spare time at weekend and bank holidays.

A great read for all those who love their horse racing.