drgilbert4 said:
Horse racing and sports betting are MOSTLY luck. There are a select few people who make a living with these things, but they are very few and very far between.
It isn't MOSTLY luck.
The key to making money form horse racing is information.
What you are trying to do is spot where the bookie has got the price wrong. It means that a expert horse race better cant just pick any race and pick the winner, 95% of races the bookie will have got the price correct but the expert is looking for those few races where he knows something the bookie dosent.
For instance, hore racing works on a handicap system which means every time a horse wins a race extra weight is added to the saddle. Every time a horse loses weight is removed. Its pretty common for horses to not be pushed for a few races so the weight comes down. The horse gets a bad rep with the punters and the price goes up. Then when the trainers feel their horse has a significant advantage over the field they push the horse.
An expert researches the trainers, can he see patterns with previous horses, i.e. can he predict the trainers stratagy?
Whats the ground like, will it suit this horse.
Has he seen this horse without a handicap?
How do the punters feel about this horse? How much is the price a reflection of the outcome vs balancing the books?
Has anything strange happened with the prices on other horses in the same race. One tactic is to bet on the favourite to push out the prices of the underdogs (so the bookies can balance the books) then to suddenly drop a ton of money on the intended horse.
Whats the vibe before the race? Does the jockey look excited or does he look like a man who has been told not to push the horse?
There is an entire sub culture surrounding horse racing.
I was a bookie a long time ago and there are some people who really do their research and are "in the know"
They look for bets where they feel they have a more favourable change of winning than the price given and they bet, not just on one race but an entire basket of races. In the LR if you do this correctly you can make money.
Just because the majority of people do not approach horse racing like this does not mean that its mostly luck. It just means that the vast majority of people do it badly.
