Gregory Conroy

1 February 2018

TopBetta's GOAT SP - RewardBet is on a Winner Here

Gregory Conroy

1 February 2018

NB: This article is based on an original article from Champion Bets. You can view that here.

While products like ‘Best Tote / SP’ are derived from the traditional Australian totes, both Betfair and TopBetta offer products which are either their own ecosystem or derived from a different pool.

So which is the best WIN OPTION to use for your betting at the present time (Jan 2018)?

To try to get an idea, we took a decent sample of data from the most popular racing in Australia; we looked at all metro racing in Victoria and New South Wales since January 1st. This encompassed 19 meetings (10 in New South Wales and 9 in Victoria):

• Mon 01-Jan-18 – Flemington
• Mon 01-Jan-18 – Randwick
• Wed 03-Jan-18 – Sandown
• Fri 05-Jan-18 – Canterbury
• Sat 06-Jan-18 – Randwick
• Sun 07-Jan-18 – Caulfield
• Wed 10-Jan-18 – Sandown
• Wed 10-Jan-18 – Canterbury
• Sat 13-Jan-18 – Flemington
• Sat 13-Jan-18 – Randwick
• Wed 17-Jan-18 – Caulfield
• Wed 17-Jan-18 – Warwick Farm
• Fri 19-Jan-18 – Canterbury
• Sat 20-Jan-18 – Flemington
• Sat 20-Jan-18 – Randwick
• Fri 26-Jan-18 – Moonee Valley
• Fri 26-Jan-18 – Warwick Farm
• Sat 27-Jan-18 – Caulfield
• Sat 27-Jan-18 – Rosehill

The sample totals 158 races: 82 in New South Wales and 76 in Victoria. We looked at the following tote products and compared the prices paid on the winners in each race:

• NSWTAB

• SuperTAB (Vic tote)

• UBET tote

• Best Tote / SP – tote product widely available with corporate bookmakers

• Betfair SP – taking into account commission rates that are paid on profits (10% for NSW thoroughbred racing, 6% for Victoria).

• GOAT SP – this is TopBetta's derivative of The Global Tote. It pays at the higher of Global Tote or official SP.

• Top Fluc – while not a tote product in the truest sense, the data was available and the bet type is widely available corporate bookies (provided you bet more than 30 minutes before the race).

We assumed a $10 win bet on each winner and compared the returns. The results were as follows:

So there you have it: in both states, TopBetta's GOAT SP reigns supreme.

It delivered significantly better profits than Betfair SP, which in turn was superior to both Top Fluc and Best Tote/SP.

Could this really be the case? Of course.

Both GOAT SP and Betfair SP are low takeout / low commission products; the operators take less, leaving more in the pool for the punters.

One thing that’s noticeable, however, is how much large dividends differ across the products. The odd race where a rank outsider salutes can make a huge difference to the numbers. In our sample, consider these races:

Some races can throw up some massive overlays with GOAT SP! Great if you snag the winner.

There are nine races where outsiders won. Looking at these, it’s pretty clear that both Betfair SP and the Global Tote can produce some extremely large numbers in these instances that can skew the overall figures when using level staking (as we are in this example).

Given these are rare instances when not many punters get the winner (hence the prices!), we re-ran the same analysis, but excluding these nine races. Take two:

The outcome is obviously a much a closer thing:

Even discarding the exceptional overlays on long-shots, the GOAT SP is the best product based on our analysis. Combine it with RewardBet (which features GOAT SP exclusively at the moment) then you are well ahead of the pack!

NB: The difference in NSW is the 10% commission rate on Betfair SP, compared to 6% in Victoria. For NSW Racing, GOAT SP is a far better proposition than Betfair SP, which also lags behind even Best Tote / SP and Top Fluc … the higher fees have really damaged the Betfair exchange product when it comes to NSW.

All-in-all? Based on our sample, the GOAT SP is the way to go.

It’s still a developing product, but at the moment it is King of the Totes and RewardBet customers have access to it!

Gregory Conroy

1 February 2018

Backing Horses Purely on Trainer

Gregory Conroy

1 February 2018

We have looked at Trainers to see how they perform. Below is a table of trainer stats for the past (almost) 4 years [2012-2015]

In order to make the list, a trainer had to have had at least 500 recorded runners over the period and the cut off was Tony McEvoy. Every other trainer performed worse than Tony's figures. The trainer at the bottom of the list of at least 500 runners is also included for comparison.

The first thing that stands out is that in theory, it is possible to make a profit based solely on following particular Trainers.

You need to be a little careful though because some of the profits might have come from a single winner and also even our data is not 100% accurate because while it comes from official sources the Australian data is incomplete – sometimes a Trainer is not listed for a runner for example.

What the table shows though is some trainers have significantly better results than others.

And there is one name in that list being Gaye Waterhouse that is very interesting. Despite training a very large number of runners and despite the theory that her horses are overbet, ie undervalue, they perform with a significant edge over a random selection.

In terms of improving your selections, we can only suggest that the ranking arises from a few of factors.

Better Trainers often have better horses. So success breeds success
There are Trainer myths out there which need to be challenged such as Gaye Waterhouse horses are significantly overbet. The figures suggest this is not the case or if it is the case then her horses are even better than assumed.
Don’t back bad trainers for the win. And really bad trainers are really bad betting propositions.
Flavor of the year trainers – Waller for example – perform ok – better than bad trainers – but not well enough to be profitable. So be selective. Try and figure out which of his runners are best suited because often he will have more than one horse in a race but only one which is really suited. That is the horse you want to be on.

[Note this table is a few years old, but the principles above still hold true]

Gregory Conroy

1 February 2018

The "Good Oil" on Racing Systems

Gregory Conroy

1 February 2018

Besides reliable tips and ratings, “Systems” are the second most important item on a Punter’s Wish List.

So the general principles to use are:-

Must have a reasonable time period of information. Months of data is a minimum. Preferably somewhere between 3 and 5 years.
Don’t go back much more than the 5 years. Racing is constantly evolving and to delve too far back you are no longer necessarily comparing race types/classes/distances/tracks/weights with racing being run under the current rules.
Don’t include rules which don’t have a very logical basis. If it sounds improbable, for example – horses only dropping in distance by 800m unless there is a specific reason and justification – it may be a poor ‘rule’.
Do specialize. So concentrate on a type of race or state or distance range or class of race. Maidens surprisingly, can be very profitable!
Do use logical rules.
Do use good quality information and data for your analysis.
Be wary of special tracks or conditions. The Flemington Straight and Night Races at Moonee Valley are problematic for me, personally.

For our RewardBet customers, here is an example of a very simple but profitable system.

Focus on Country or Provincial Races – we are trying to find horses that are overpriced and the markets in the city are very, very efficient. The Country and Provincial races are also, in general, not as pressured in the running.
Distance range of 1300m to 1500m. Personally I believe that 1400m races are the most truly run races in Australia. And that little bit of extra distance allows some recovery from a bad jump or bad luck in running.
Horses with 3 to 6 starts this campaign. Not many horses come into enough fitness with only 1 or 2 races although some stables are better at this than others.
Horses that last ran 14 days maximum. Again these are likely to be fit having had a few races this campaign and coming back to the races fairly quickly. Just going back to Metro Races, they are run harder and while horses do backup and win, and I win a lot of money on them, the recent runs are very important in terms of fitness.
Horses that are top rated from a good rating (service). Note this rating will not make a level stakes profit on its own.

You can’t get much simpler than that.

Here are the results.

2,293 Selections.
$2,584 Return.
12.7% POT (Profit on Turnover) (and up to 18% with better prices)

And graphically it looks like:

So that is 420 units of profit over almost 4 years with what are a very simple set of rules. Concentrating on better trainers will improve that out of sight.

While products like ‘Best Tote / SP’ are derived from the traditional Australian totes, both Betfair and TopBetta offer products which are either their own ecosystem or derived from a different pool.

So which is the best WIN OPTION to use for your betting at the present time (Jan 2018)?

To try to get an idea, we took a decent sample of data from the most popular racing in Australia; we looked at all metro racing in Victoria and New South Wales since January 1st. This encompassed 19 meetings (10 in New South Wales and 9 in Victoria):

The sample totals 158 races: 82 in New South Wales and 76 in Victoria. We looked at the following tote products and compared the prices paid on the winners in each race:

• NSWTAB

• SuperTAB (Vic tote)

• UBET tote

• Best Tote / SP – tote product widely available with corporate bookmakers

• Betfair SP – taking into account commission rates that are paid on profits (10% for NSW thoroughbred racing, 6% for Victoria).

• GOAT SP – this is TopBetta's derivative of The Global Tote. It pays at the higher of Global Tote or official SP.

• Top Fluc – while not a tote product in the truest sense, the data was available and the bet type is widely available corporate bookies (provided you bet more than 30 minutes before the race).

We assumed a $10 win bet on each winner and compared the returns. The results were as follows:

So there you have it: in both states, TopBetta's GOAT SP reigns supreme.

It delivered significantly better profits than Betfair SP, which in turn was superior to both Top Fluc and Best Tote/SP.

Could this really be the case? Of course.

Both GOAT SP and Betfair SP are low takeout / low commission products; the operators take less, leaving more in the pool for the punters.

One thing that’s noticeable, however, is how much large dividends differ across the products. The odd race where a rank outsider salutes can make a huge difference to the numbers. In our sample, consider these races:

There are nine races where outsiders won. Looking at these, it’s pretty clear that both Betfair SP and the Global Tote can produce some extremely large numbers in these instances that can skew the overall figures when using level staking (as we are in this example).

Given these are rare instances when not many punters get the winner (hence the prices!), we re-ran the same analysis, but excluding these nine races. Take two:

The outcome is obviously a much a closer thing:

All-in-all? Based on our sample, the GOAT SP is the way to go.

It’s still a developing product, but at the moment it is King of the Totes and RewardBet customers have access to it!

We have looked at Trainers to see how they perform. Below is a table of trainer stats for the past (almost) 4 years [2012-2015]

In order to make the list, a trainer had to have had at least 500 recorded runners over the period and the cut off was Tony McEvoy. Every other trainer performed worse than Tony's figures. The trainer at the bottom of the list of at least 500 runners is also included for comparison.

The first thing that stands out is that in theory, it is possible to make a profit based solely on following particular Trainers.

You need to be a little careful though because some of the profits might have come from a single winner and also even our data is not 100% accurate because while it comes from official sources the Australian data is incomplete – sometimes a Trainer is not listed for a runner for example.

What the table shows though is some trainers have significantly better results than others.

And there is one name in that list being Gaye Waterhouse that is very interesting. Despite training a very large number of runners and despite the theory that her horses are overbet, ie undervalue, they perform with a significant edge over a random selection.

In terms of improving your selections, we can only suggest that the ranking arises from a few of factors.

Better Trainers often have better horses. So success breeds success

There are Trainer myths out there which need to be challenged such as Gaye Waterhouse horses are significantly overbet. The figures suggest this is not the case or if it is the case then her horses are even better than assumed.

Don’t back bad trainers for the win. And really bad trainers are really bad betting propositions.

Besides reliable tips and ratings, “Systems” are the second most important item on a Punter’s Wish List.

So the general principles to use are:-

Must have a reasonable time period of information. Months of data is a minimum. Preferably somewhere between 3 and 5 years.

Don’t go back much more than the 5 years. Racing is constantly evolving and to delve too far back you are no longer necessarily comparing race types/classes/distances/tracks/weights with racing being run under the current rules.

Don’t include rules which don’t have a very logical basis. If it sounds improbable, for example – horses only dropping in distance by 800m unless there is a specific reason and justification – it may be a poor ‘rule’.

Do specialize. So concentrate on a type of race or state or distance range or class of race. Maidens surprisingly, can be very profitable!

Do use logical rules.

Do use good quality information and data for your analysis.

Be wary of special tracks or conditions. The Flemington Straight and Night Races at Moonee Valley are problematic for me, personally.

For our RewardBet customers, here is an example of a very simple but profitable system.

Focus on Country or Provincial Races – we are trying to find horses that are overpriced and the markets in the city are very, very efficient. The Country and Provincial races are also, in general, not as pressured in the running.

Distance range of 1300m to 1500m. Personally I believe that 1400m races are the most truly run races in Australia. And that little bit of extra distance allows some recovery from a bad jump or bad luck in running.

Horses with 3 to 6 starts this campaign. Not many horses come into enough fitness with only 1 or 2 races although some stables are better at this than others.

Horses that are top rated from a good rating (service). Note this rating will not make a level stakes profit on its own.

You can’t get much simpler than that.

Here are the results.

2,293 Selections.

$2,584 Return.

12.7% POT (Profit on Turnover) (and up to 18% with better prices)

And graphically it looks like:

So that is 420 units of profit over almost 4 years with what are a very simple set of rules. Concentrating on better trainers will improve that out of sight.

And there are lots and lots of profitable angles exactly like this one.