When gambling, it is important to have a little bit of introspection. Consider how you work because this is founded by how you think. It is all too easy to do something without giving it due consideration. I’ve found that punters all too often follow scripts. It’s literally like a script is playing in their mind and they just follow it like an actor saying their lines. This is all good and well if the script, actions, betting is productive and returns a profit. However, if your name is Jack Torrance, staring out the window of the Overlook Hotel, and your notepad says: ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!’ you may need to stop for a moment and reflect.
Now, I don’t know of too many punters who have put an axe through a door (although plenty may have felt like it) but be advised to stop and reflect on your thoughts with reflexivity and ask: ‘What’s going on here?’
Because, my friend, it may be something you don’t want or expect.
One of the best ways of doing this is to keep a journal and simply put pen to paper your thoughts, processes and conclusions. This is actually much more difficult than it seems but becomes easier with practice. The act of writing down your thoughts is proven to be much more powerful than thinking alone.
I have noticed how many times punters follow that same well-trodden path.
You follow that horse off a cliff! You follow that trainer who hasn’t had a winner in a month of Sundays!
You even woke up to find you had an axe in your hand!
It’s part of the human condition. The brain works in mysterious ways in an effort to make our lives simple. At times this literally leads you down the garden path wearing your comfy slippers and a hair shirt.
I’ve had this blind spot with horse races featuring a small field of let’s say 5 or less runners. This is in the two-year-old niche, as I know little about anything else. Often I would see the favourite priced at prohibitive odds. For example it is 1/4f. Now, there is a tendency to start following that destructive script, deep in your grey matter. I can tell you what it is saying: ‘The favourite is going to win so don’t bother thinking about this race and move swiftly on.’
Stop for a moment and write in your journal: ‘F*** the script!’
Because this is a problem and until you have to change it.
You don’t need it.
Here’s my reasoning. If you don’t bet odds on (I don’t) you will never bet on the jolly (favourite) in a million years. So all that horse can do is prevent you from betting. It’s like a big, old, bastard of a brick wall. It’s all pointless. It is a negative because it can only lead to another negative. When gambling, you have the opportunity to bet in the positive which gives you opportunities. You can structure your approach to work in the positive and that is a foundational skill to your thinking.
If you don’t bet in a race because you are scared of the odds on favourite that race is null and void.
However, think for a moment. Have you even looked at the race? You didn’t because you jumped to the conclusion the favourite had already won the race. Well, Jack Torrance, the race hasn’t even started yet!
You remember the positive script: ‘There’s no such thing as a certainty?’
Look at the three horses in opposition to the favourite. What do you think? There’s a 100/1 outsider who realistically is no opposition. The second favourite is unraced and given a fighting chance based on morning gallops and hyperbole. The third favourite has one race under its belt and presently priced 15/1 on Betfair.
There is a chance to nothing going on here.
Why? Because the chances are the second favourite (unraced) will not live up to expectation. It is much more difficult for a debutante to win than the betting always suggests. It’s a statistical fact. The outsider has no hope. Within moments, you realise there is a very good chance this is a two-horse race. The odds on shot is priced 1/3. The horse you have your eye on is 14/1. Now no one is saying that every odds on favourite is going to lose. If you think I’m saying that you are following a negative script.
Remember if you don’t bet on odds on shots but fear the horse is the winner you stopped looking, thinking and considering. You gave the race the briefest glance. That’s your script at work.
By betting on the value in a small field you have a number of options to make money when betting on the exchanges:
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The horse may be substantially backed giving an easy no-lose bet.
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The betting in-running is very volatile and there is a very good chance your horse will touch must shorter odds.
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Unlike the favourite which needs a 75% (if 1/3f) your horses needs to win once in fourteen times to break even.
By all accounts, the majority of times, it is simply a two-horse race. You have many and varied opportunities to make money here.
Each race needs to be viewed on its merits. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. It’s the nature of the beast.
However, stop for a moment and think about those scripts running through your mind. An equal measure of help and hindrance. You have the opportunity to pick between the two. The choice is yours.
The moral of this article isn’t about betting on a 14/1 winner.
It about the next time you look at the race card and you quickly skip the small race with the 1/4f that you have just fallen into a hole that only a psychologist could have dug. He’s peering down at you and saying: ‘It’s OK, Jack. Put the axe down and we can talk things through…’