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Why Betting Decision Changes As Money Diminishes?

By Smart-still-poor-punter | 18-Mar-2019

Hi Friends,

When the mass shooting took place at Christchurch last week, horse racing was among the many sports that were cancelled for the week-end. First, let us all join in mourning the killings of several innocent people in the shoot out.

Now, please allow me to move to the topic 'Why betting decision changes as money diminishes?'

I had often found punters (including myself) changing their decision on bets once they start losing. Despite working overnight to unearth your fancied horses, you tend to change your decisions once you find that your selections are not coming right. Unfortunately, you will find that they come correct when you starting changing your choice. Why so?

Is it a question of not believing oneself more than other sources? It must be so, at least partly. Why I say this is because punters (I mean a majority of them) tend to go with the public once their fancies start biting the dust. While you think you are the boss when your pickings turn positive, you slowly begin to lose faith on yourself once they respond negatively.

Rather than believing in yourself, you start posing faith on others around you and sometimes even the bookies, who keep changing the odds to confuse the crowd. This often happens when you lose a bet or two. You even don't hesitate to look into Bol's yellow paper or listen to what the groundnut seller or paanwalla predicts, isn't it?

That is why it's said that you must stick to your decision so that you don't have to blame others even if you end up losing. 

Your views and experience, if any, please...

Post Your reply

20 Replies

Raghavan said ...

20-Mar-2019

The horse on which anyone places his bets as per third person's recommendation may win,.finish in place, board out.  The same is the story of playing one's own choice and not bothering about the market trend/public mood. 

SSPP

A punter who has a string of failures takes the tip from an outsider.  His earlier choices have failed; so he has no confidence in his own selection and bets according to the idea of 3rd person.  That also failed means no body can help.  You are telling that he should bet on his own choice! 

You see, betting one's own choice is always preferable.  But, it is absolutely not foolishness if one asks a friend or a stranger.  You are arguing that the third person's choice had a miserable show, whereas his own fancied horse scored.  Such situations (own choice winning and some body other's choice failing) may be very rare.  

The right course to be adopted is to stop betting for the day when 3/4 bets have failed earlier.  But, that is ruled out in this case.  He wants to salvage whole/part of loss and is not at all confident about his own choice.  So he asks another man.  That another man may be his friend or stranger.  He will be smiling if that bet clicks; or goes home with one more loss.  

A D said ...

20-Mar-2019

Sir, do continue with your good topics. It's worth reading.

Those who do not like it, may skip reading it.

These are the topics a punters needs to learn or know, in horse racing.

Awaiting your further topics.

Deepak said ...

19-Mar-2019

Sharamajii good one 

Thank you 

Ask said ...

19-Mar-2019

Punter requires 3 qualities

1) good selection process

2) patience

3)ability to punt reasonable amount.

Good selection process.  punter must have his own unique selection process in place.such process should steer clear of obvious parameters such as timing,top jockey,money finish in last races etc etc.

Hari said ...

19-Mar-2019

Please not again ...take it is its racing. One will loose only when they take it as serious career I can see that you are very much effected by this it's high time for you keep everything related to racing away. I know your posting for good cause but this is not the platform. 

S C Sharma said ...

19-Mar-2019

In continuation of your post I would like to mention it is very difficult for punters to reamain firm upon bets selected. Their game plan always took turns according to odds fluctuations and according to their loss and profit. More so after loosing first bet, chasing starts and punters  decides to recover the loss immediately in next race itself and he changes his decided plan and take diversion.

Mostly in last race I observed punters play according to their recovery. Even he likes a favourite or second favourite,  he plays some other horse to recover the losses. After loosing 80 to 90 percent of his total budget he will commit unforced error to play as per the recovery in mind. He won’t accept that there is another day. Very few punters strictly follow their budget and game plan and irrespective of loss and profit they will focus what they decided and planned. First budget, than game plan, than patience not to deviate and play decided or selected bet only — combination of all such make the punter successful and he not only enjoys his racing but he makes a habit of remaining in profit. 

If you wait for right horses, you will get the reward. Some times they  also fails but not every time and overall  this habit will fetch you reasonably good profit. 

Wishing everyone good luck and success.

Godzilla said ...

19-Mar-2019

sspp

Come on man. Enjoy Racing. Attend and be low key player. It seems you are getting disturbed by withdrawing yourself from Races, Thats the reason, for the time to time articles from your end.

We are not going to live long. Whatever short life you have in balance, attend Races, gamble, drink couple of pegs and go home. Tomorrow never comes in most of the cases.

Ylrao said ...

19-Mar-2019

@ SSPU

Your diehard attiude to present articles regarding racing is definitely impressive for younger genartions,who just came into racing.

Many of your questions in your write-ups ,answers are also there too,as i was involed in this trade as punter,close to 50 years.

As you said,many punters leave their choices and go desperately for peanut saleswala,for small punters human psycology plays great rule in that moment,call it mind game,but big punters who play 50k,100k,300k or 500k. dont change,they play what they want play and be out of betting for that day.

But let me tell you one thing,i havent seen single person winning in the races in all these years.MOST OF THEM ARE OWNERS,not that they won some 15 or 20 lacks on  oneday,speaking in totality,they are big losseres IN THE LONG RUN as i assoiated with them,so these guy never change their mind.

Let me also tell you,older generation, they dont want come out  fromas they are already addicted,and new geneartion still feel ,that  there is some money in raceing assoiciated with thrill ,egoism that particular selection passed on that given day,which is myth.

Sps said ...

19-Mar-2019

When Selection based on your time tested method is not working, Stop betting for few days but keep on making your home work and check the results. You will find afterr few days it will again start working.

It is always phase wise and racing centre wise too.

Name Withheld said ...

18-Mar-2019

 Very good point! In my experience one starts playing the odds when one starts losing. Some try and increase the bet and choose a short priced favourite over their original selection. And if they have lost most of their funds, they select a longer odds horse rather than stick to their earlier choice, which may not be at lucrative odds. 

The biggest issue many punters face, is looking at profit or loss in a single day and when chips are down they get desperate to break even, in the process further the damage. 

It is futile to preach, but if punters can budget themselves and look at profit and loss in monthly or season wise, then they can either come out plus or limit the damage. 

Most races should give you 2/3 contenders and if race has just one contender, based on your study then the chances are the odds would be meager to back that horse. And if you have too many probable winners, then it's best to leave out such races. 

Ideally you should pick 2-3 races on which you would gamble most of you daily kitty, if you are unable to sit out for the rest of the races, then try and place small bets. 

I spend enough time chatting with racing fans and ask them the reason why they like a particular horse, without disrespecting anyone, most responses I get aren't logical, even though many of the choices do pass. 

The top reason punters back a horse, is the jockey! Followed by odds and then track work. 

Very rarely I hear punters speak about relative handicapping, or referring to incidents like "in" interference met, equipment change and so on. 

I hope punters take the time to educate themselves, before investing hard earned money. And please don't follow anyone blindly. 

Baskar S said ...

18-Mar-2019

Yes, I agree with your opinion.

Even if we have fixed what to play the day before itself, while playing by seeing odds or by having a look on selection and fleeting glance, or by yellow paper with horrible selections

I changed my game plan and ended losing first two bets, after that to make over, i have to play much safer and go by playing win on favourites. That too will lose by head/nose/neck.

Since losing money always make panic, and decisions changes and again ended losing money.

Anand Basappa said ...

18-Mar-2019

Hi

Very good analysis, I do agree with your argument that the fancied horses don't perform to the extent that we fancied.

first and foremost

1) Do you own that horse?

2) Do you know what it takes to maintain a horse in the race course?  i.e., the kind of money a horse owner has to shell out to ensure his horse is fit as a fiddle (may come close to 1 lakh INR/month)

3) He would have spent a lot of money and his intention would be to recover that money as this is an investment and would not like to take the loss as an answer

He is the person who will not give you any info about his horse, but will back his horse irrespective of the odds (as it is at longer odds and the probability of getting his money/investment is very high) and his horse wins.

4) Other horses get backed to deceive you and also to make sure you don't back the same horse as the bookmakers will suffer a huge loss if you happen to do so.

5) Now ho makes any horse a favourite and why does it lose is a question which is debatable

That's all

Venu said ...

18-Mar-2019

Very true.  It keeps happening to me quite frequently and finally I end up losing.  It seems the bookie ring is haunted / cursed by the number of  innocent losers from the yester years.  Otherwise, how is it that from home we make up our mind to play a certain horse and end up playing something else.  

Ashok said ...

18-Mar-2019

Exactly what you are telling is right.Once we come to the conclusion of selecting the horses, we should play accordingly.. loss or gain..Definitely we should not have the second thought.

Rrajesh said ...

18-Mar-2019

in my 25 years of racing ...i have always lost when i play big but when i play small i always win big or lose small

when i play big and lose 2 bets ..i tend to play bigger or play high odds horses to try to recover

you are absolutely right that when you lose your thinking goes wrong

Prinit said ...

18-Mar-2019

Completely agree with you! Other than work wise commitments this is one reason why I place my bets before the first race starts for all the races. 

 

I have also succumbed to the pressure of the odds and changed my bet at the last minute! 

Killing Time said ...

18-Mar-2019

Guys I am going to post comments on 22 or 25 march stay tuned for it

Thanks killing time 

Kk Lanka said ...

18-Mar-2019

It is not about belief, it is about not having confidence when your first few choices fails.  The fundamental reason is, not having 'Trust worthy source'.  

If one understands that he is living in 'uncertain universe' (racing world), he should know the difference between probability vs certainity.  Punter should learn to think in terms of probabilities, not certainities.  When you have a trust worthy system which has a good process to identify the runner's probability to a cetain level of confidence, you will never look at others in the race course, even after initial failures.  

The easiest way to come out of this problem is to STOP betting after 2 or 3 continuous failures.  Lets do better home work for tomorrow as racing is almost everyday affair.

 

Buddy said ...

18-Mar-2019

SSPP -  This is a not so difficult issue to counter , its easy but you do need confidence in your racing to implement it cannot be confused.

How much you want to risk in the day fix that then plan your betting for the three or four horses you like .

Say you want to bet on 4 horses total risk 10 grand[excluding tax] decide the amount before you step in - my style would be 3 + 3 + 4 for the first three horses -all lose you got to move out and not bother about the 4th horse - even if one of rge first 3 win you have money for the last horse...this is the right way -  risk for the full day should be fixed and if you lose forget it - fight another day .

All said and done that will work if you know how to select the right races/horses to back ....paddock looks do matter can't go just by book study otherwise.... Lagad will clean you up!

Aswin Patel said ...

18-Mar-2019

The real question is . Why do you REDUCE your bet as the odds go UP and  INCREASE your bet as the odds go DOWN. The horse does not know its odds. It would run in the same manner irrespective of its ODDS.

A punter's success depends on money management also , not only strike rate.