Betting Articles
Multiples Madness
It was a funny old weekend, though I was finding it hard to laugh at 4pm on Saturday.
I decided to have a hefty swing at the Scoop6 because of the rollover and managed to find 3 winners. Stupidly the 3 I missed were Poungach, Sizing Europe and Deep Purple, 2 of them favourites and, worse than that, all 3 of them included in my original perms.
Unfortunately my original perms ran to about 4k in stakes which just wasn't a feasible option! I narrowed it down to a manageable size bet and, in the process, discarded the winning ticket. Sickening but par for the course with these things! I've come close a few times with the Scoop6 but never managed to have it away.
The Scoop6 on rollover weeks offers some real value but you do need to play to some pretty hefty stakes to give yourself a realistic chance of landing the prize. I know some of the big pros have a real go at it on the rollover weeks, often playing £20k+ of tickets. Patrick Veitch has landed it a couple of times I seem to recall from his autobiography.
The whole debacle got me thinking about the widely perceived notion that multiples are mug bets. In most instances they are but there are, however, ways in which we can turn the odds in our favour and get a little value with these “mug” bets - along with a small chance of a huge payout.
I’m not sure that any books offer it now (maybe some of the independents) but for a short, glorious time a few years ago, Betfred were generous (stupid) enough to offer 4 times the odds on one winner in a Lucky 15! With such a concession, even blindly sticking favourites in your bet offered a long term expectation of around 1% profit on turnover. With a little nous at picking value, it could be made into a very profitable bet indeed!
Even now, with the Betfred concession of 3 times the odds one winner, it doesn’t take a great deal of skill to turn the odds in our favour. I’ve always managed to turn a profit (not on every bet but over the long term, obviously) by sticking 4 each way steals into a Lucky 15. To be honest, using each way steal bets in multiples of any ilk (doubles, trebles etc) is a profitable strategy but, be warned, the fiddlers will hate you! You have to make your own judgement call as to whether the profit achievable is worth the additional grief of closed/restricted accounts.
If you don’t know how to identify a decent each way steal bet, read my post on the subject from earlier this year.
A friend of mine (The Number Cruncher in fact, who has appeared in previous posts) makes his Lucky 15's pay in the long term by using the 3 times the odds concession. He identifies the races each day which have the best long term favourite stats and then puts the favourites from those races into his Lucky 15. He won't include races with a favourites strike rate of below 45%. Obviously with those criteria, he won't have a bet every day but on the days he does, it performs well. Most bets breaks even and every now and then he gets a decent payout.
The prize will likely be one month’s subscription to my Morning Value Service which is rolling along nicely, showing a profit of more than 100 points since the launch 4 months ago. I’ll also chuck in a couple of decent horse racing books from my shelves. If anybody has any suggestions as to a good way to run the competition, please feel free to leave a comment.
Watch this space
I’ll be back with more news tomorrow.
Kieran
I decided to have a hefty swing at the Scoop6 because of the rollover and managed to find 3 winners. Stupidly the 3 I missed were Poungach, Sizing Europe and Deep Purple, 2 of them favourites and, worse than that, all 3 of them included in my original perms.
Unfortunately my original perms ran to about 4k in stakes which just wasn't a feasible option! I narrowed it down to a manageable size bet and, in the process, discarded the winning ticket. Sickening but par for the course with these things! I've come close a few times with the Scoop6 but never managed to have it away.
The Scoop6 on rollover weeks offers some real value but you do need to play to some pretty hefty stakes to give yourself a realistic chance of landing the prize. I know some of the big pros have a real go at it on the rollover weeks, often playing £20k+ of tickets. Patrick Veitch has landed it a couple of times I seem to recall from his autobiography.
The whole debacle got me thinking about the widely perceived notion that multiples are mug bets. In most instances they are but there are, however, ways in which we can turn the odds in our favour and get a little value with these “mug” bets - along with a small chance of a huge payout.
I’m not sure that any books offer it now (maybe some of the independents) but for a short, glorious time a few years ago, Betfred were generous (stupid) enough to offer 4 times the odds on one winner in a Lucky 15! With such a concession, even blindly sticking favourites in your bet offered a long term expectation of around 1% profit on turnover. With a little nous at picking value, it could be made into a very profitable bet indeed!
Even now, with the Betfred concession of 3 times the odds one winner, it doesn’t take a great deal of skill to turn the odds in our favour. I’ve always managed to turn a profit (not on every bet but over the long term, obviously) by sticking 4 each way steals into a Lucky 15. To be honest, using each way steal bets in multiples of any ilk (doubles, trebles etc) is a profitable strategy but, be warned, the fiddlers will hate you! You have to make your own judgement call as to whether the profit achievable is worth the additional grief of closed/restricted accounts.
If you don’t know how to identify a decent each way steal bet, read my post on the subject from earlier this year.
A friend of mine (The Number Cruncher in fact, who has appeared in previous posts) makes his Lucky 15's pay in the long term by using the 3 times the odds concession. He identifies the races each day which have the best long term favourite stats and then puts the favourites from those races into his Lucky 15. He won't include races with a favourites strike rate of below 45%. Obviously with those criteria, he won't have a bet every day but on the days he does, it performs well. Most bets breaks even and every now and then he gets a decent payout.
*****************************
In the run up to Christmas, I’m thinking of having a tipping competition for readers of the blog. It will likely entail making a pick in a couple of the big Saturday races between now and Christmas with the winner taking home a decent prize supplied by me. I’m just trying to work out the logistics of how people will post up their tips and register for the competition. Once I have sorted that out (probably before the end of the week) I will be back with more details.The prize will likely be one month’s subscription to my Morning Value Service which is rolling along nicely, showing a profit of more than 100 points since the launch 4 months ago. I’ll also chuck in a couple of decent horse racing books from my shelves. If anybody has any suggestions as to a good way to run the competition, please feel free to leave a comment.
Watch this space
I’ll be back with more news tomorrow.
Kieran
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