Verbosities

Secret Six: Playing Through A Cold Streak

Series originally published 10/24/05 - 10/29/05 at OJ

Six Secrets of Successful Bettors : Winning Insights into Playing the Horses by Frank Scatoni and Peter Thomas Fornatale, covers more than just horse racing. There’s a gambler’s mentality that’s important to cultivate, and the authors are able to cull a great deal of input from their interviewees on this topic alone. Chapter six, "It’s One Long Game," features a good look at putting what’s behind you, well, behind you. From the book:

"You have to be able to keep your wits about you. You have to keep making good plays. You have to stay cool when things are going bad. Like I said, if I’m having a bad day and I look at the rest of the card and see something I really like later on, I’ll take it easy until then and try and make a big hit there. Today is not the end of the world. If I lose today, I come back tomorrow."

Horse racing to us is recreational, poker is more serious in this regard, and you see poor losers dotting the landscape at every online site. You’ve got to learn to take a losing day, or a brutal beat as well as possible. Yes, the beat may have just cost you a lot of money, but if you’re consistently making good decisions and playing the odds, ultimately these swings will go in your favor. Poisoning your mentality leads to pressing, tilt, or worse.

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Secret Five: Cutting Through The Crap

Series originally published 10/24/05 - 10/29/05 at OJ

When playing blackjack, there’s a generally accepted way to play a soft seventeen against a dealer’s four. When gambling horses, there is no one right way to dissect the data. In the book Six Secrets of Successful Bettors : Winning Insights into Playing the Horses by Frank Scatoni and Peter Thomas Fornatale, chapter five is all about knowing your strengths and weaknesses as a gambler, and how to exploit those assets appropriately. From the chapter "Woulda… Coulda… Shoulda… Doesn’t Get It Done:"

"Learning to handicap is an evolutionary process–everyone begins as a neophyte. The general progression is you start out knowing nothing and then you learn everything–and then you cull out the things that are not important. But there’s a lot of trial and error."

Some people have these little gambling truths that they’ve learned throughout the years. "Never bet against Brett Favre in-division," would be an example. Horse racing throws a lot of data at you, and unless you’re learning what’s working for you (in our case, identifying overlays on second- and third-priced horses on the board) and ditching what’s not (trifectas, they were killing our bankroll), you’re not doing anything more than throwing aimless dollars into your hobby. Get better.

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Secret Four: You Guess, You Lose

Series originally published 10/24/05 - 10/29/05 at OJ

Since there’s a total of six secrets published in Six Secrets of Successful Bettors : Winning Insights into Playing the Horses by Frank Scatoni and Peter Thomas Fornatale, and since there are only five days in a week, you’re getting your Wednesday Bonus Secret at half price today. Congrats. If we’re supposed to only play winning propositions, how do you find these props and play them properly? From the chapter "If I Only Knew How To Bet:"

"A lousy handicapper, who bets on hopeless horses or takes the worst of prices, has no shot. A decent handicapper who makes idiotic bets won’t do much better… The truth is that only a small number of people are 20 percent better than the market in order to beat the takeout, and that just gets you even. It’s a tough, tough game to win."

If you find yourself losing big on wild four-team parlays with your bookie, you take it down a notch and single a few teams, right? The object is to win, not collect uncashable tickets. Same theory here. You can be right on the winner, but if you’re looking to play nothing but Superfectas, you’re going to wait a long time between winning tickets. Play smart, make bets you can feel confident in, and be content to take "just" 3-1 on your money when that price is actually an overlay.

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Secret Three: Finding Value

Series originally published 10/24/05 - 10/29/05 at OJ

Probably the most important lesson from Six Secrets of Successful Bettors : Winning Insights into Playing the Horses by Frank Scatoni and Peter Thomas Fornatale is what could be called the "Fundamental Theory of Horse Betting." Quoting Cary Fotias from the book in regards to the concept of value, "You should never play unless you’re getting the best of it." From the chapter "The Never-Ending Quest For Value:"

"Always put a price on a horse’s head–and only bet when you’re getting a couple of odds levels better. If you can’t put a price on a horse’s head, you have little chance of winning at this game. Everything comes back to the odds. Just because a horse is on a great pattern line doesn’t mean he should automatically be bet. The price must still be right."

Putting it another way, if we told let you bet a quarter on the roll of a dice, but only paid you a dollar when your number hit, are you getting value? What if we paid you two dollars? Winning the dollar is ultimately a losing proposition, but getting two bucks as the prize puts you way out ahead in the long run.

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Secret Two: Think Differently

Series originally published 10/24/05 - 10/29/05 at OJ

More horse racing wisdom to digest today from Six Secrets of Successful Bettors : Winning Insights into Playing the Horses by Frank Scatoni and Peter Thomas Fornatale. Every day this week we’ll pull a quote from the book, doing our best to gear you up for Breeders’ Cup Saturday. From the chapter "The Information Edge:"

"The… most important step is to look at the race as a betting proposition. Only now do I look at the morning line and the DRF analysis and consensus picks. What I am of course hoping is that I have seen the race differently from the way the public is likely to–there’s going to be an odds-on favorite I think is vulnerable, or I thought there was a standout in what others find an impossible event."

If it’s apparent that the favorite would win this race 100 times out of 100, then you should play the favorite at any price. Most races aren’t as clear, and the process of finding value - getting 6-1 on a horse that should win 25 times out of 100 - is absolutely crucial.

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Six Secrets Series: First Secret? You're Wrong

Series originally published 10/24/05 - 10/29/05 at OJ

One of the ways we get fired up for the looming Breeders Cup card is to pick up one of our favorite books and re-read, looking for that little extra wisdom that can hopefully tip the scales in our direction. That book is Six Secrets of Successful Bettors : Winning Insights into Playing the Horses by Frank Scatoni and Peter Thomas Fornatale, and every day this week we’ll pull a quote from the book and give you something to chew on before the big day hits. From the chapter "A Hard Way To Make An Easy Living:"

"I have a Ten commandments of racing, and one of them is, if most people do it at a racetrack, then it’s wrong! If you do the opposite, you have a better chance. Most people bet less if the odds go up, and when they go down they bet more. Wrong! Most players who get ahead tend to wrap up, and most players who are losing press. Wrong! Every natural instinct you have, regardless of your IQ, is wrong at the racetrack."