Horse racing betting: 3 keys to improving your results

Lots of horse racing punters can find a winner, but very few of them can sustain profits with their betting.

Our team have put together three very simple things that can take your punting to a more serious level, and have a significant impact on your overall long-term results.

Record your bets

If you’re serious about taking your punting to the next level, or at least taking it more seriously, the first step is to start recording all of your bets.

Keeping track of the bets you’ve had can help with several things, such as:

Discipline and accountability – access to a full history of your betting to keep track of all your wins and losses

Finding your niche/edge – by keeping track of all your bets and being able to filter things such as the type of bet or a particular track, you can start to identify patterns in your betting and narrow in on what’s working and what’s not.

For example, your success at a certain track may be significantly more than other tracks, in which case you can focus in on capitalising on bets at that track, or you might find you have no luck at another track, so you can therefore decrease your betting there to limit your damage.

Analysis strengths and weaknesses – Similar to the above, you might also be able to identify certain strengths such as backing horses at a particular price point.

A strength of your betting may be backing horses under $3.00 at the top end of the market which has resulted in positive results, while a weakness may be backing horses at double figure odds, which has overall resulted in significant losses.

Focus on good betting opportunities

We mentioned ‘discipline’ briefly above, which is one of the big struggles for a lot of punters and can often separate those who are able to consistently win from those who lose.

Having the ability to focus in on what you deem good betting opportunities is something that can have a significant positive impact on your results.

This can often be identified from your results recorded in your betting spreadsheet.

A good betting opportunity will often be when a horse’s odds are above the price you’ve assessed it, but not everyone prices up every horse in every race, and that doesn’t mean good opportunities don’t exist for those that don’t price races.

Some punters rely on their gut feel or instinct rather than the more sophisticated numbers.

Whatever it is that you deem a good betting opportunity, try to narrow in your betting when those opportunities present, rather than talk yourself into having a bet that might be there.

It sounds cliché, but focus on the quality bets rather than the quantity of bets.

Find a staking plan that works for you

Another key factor between mug punters and those that are do it more professionally is bankroll management and staking.

Once again, this falls under the discipline umbrella.

If you’ve had a good day on the punt and you’ve found a bet in the last race on the card, it’s not an invitation to double what you’d normally stake.

If we wind it back a step, it’s a good idea to determine what you should be staking on each race to begin with.

This is different for everyone and often depends on your bankroll.

Not everyone follows the same staking plan, and there are many that exist, but finding the one that suits your betting (or that you understand the best) is a good start.

From there, you can regulate your staking on each race, or on each bet.

This can have a profound effect on your betting as it tends to limit the losses and hopefully maximise the profits.

To find out more about some horse racing staking plans, check out our article dissecting some of the options that are out there.