You would be surprised just how often this is overlooked by punters, and getting it wrong can be financial suicide.
A popular question that I am asked when members join my service, is ?how much should I bet on each horse?? Another one is ?can I realistically earn ?500 per week by using your horse racing tipster service??
Before I go into a little detail here, let me first explain that this is completely the wrong way to go about it.
Why? Well, the answers to those questions all depend on your personal circumstances, and as I would have no idea what your personal finances were (nor would I want to as that is your business of course), I would be unable to give you an accurate answer.
Before I discuss the money side of things in detail, I would first like to explain about how I do things, and how this may help you decide how to start betting on horse racing in a structured, focused and professional manner.
You Must Look For Value
This may indeed mean a change in philosophy for many punters. I've seen many a person in the local bookies purely backing favourite after favourite. Please promise me something, do not do this.
Favourites generally win less than a third of the time, and this statistic couple with the prices that you'd receive from betting on favourites, does not make it a long term viable proposition.
The key is to know when to bet on a particular horse, and so therefore, know when its price represents good value for your bet, right? Correct.
Now this is of course a little harder than it sounds, but it is by now means impossible and it is why there are thousands of professional punters out there, making a killing.
What You Should Not Do
Imagine that you walk into a car dealership to purchase a basic family saloon car. You'd have an idea of what you wanted to spend versus what the likely cost of the car is, wouldn't you?
So would you be shocked if the salesman approached you, explaining that the Ford Mondeo you were looking at would cost you ?250,000? Of course you would. The car is clearly over priced and I imagine that you'd instantly walk away without purchasing the car.
Well, strangely enough this is not dissimilar to betting on horse racing, as many punters will simply take any old price on a horse, just because they think it will win.
So you can now see that this would be a huge mistake. Making a profit from betting on horse racing, whether you are choosing the horses yourself or using a horse racing tipster service, is achieved by looking at value priced horses.
To use the car analogy once again, it would be a bit like acquiring a brand new top of the range Ferrari, for the price of a Ford Mondeo.
Now, of course this is an extreme example but I hope it illustrates what we try and achieve here. By doing this, you will profit in the long term, as you're getting an increased value for your bets.
In Conclusion
So the lesson here is to only ever bet on a horse when you know that have value on your side. If you do not, then the best thing to do is to just let the horse run. Developing this habit does take a little work, so do not be disappointed if you find it difficult to being with.
But with practice, or by following someone who may be an expert in the field of betting on horses, you can soon develop this most crucial of betting habits.
In the next article in this series, I will discuss how to assess a suitable betting bank for your exploits.
In this article, I will look at something that encapsulates everything that I have spoken about so far, and so it rounds of this series of articles quite nicely.
The Correct Attitude Is Important When Betting On Horses
It's something that I teach my members because I really do feel that this is important. If you seriously want be successful and make good, consistent money from betting on horse racing, you have treat your betting like a business.
If betting on horse racing for you is just a hobby where you don't care too much for the end results, then your hobby will almost certainly come at a cost.
I've already mentioned in previous articles about losing money through bad habits and this is frustrating for a lot of punters, because they do not actually realize that they are doing what they are doing.
Fortunately, that's where horse racing tipsters like myself can help, as we are well aware of the bad habits that need to be avoided, and that having discipline is vitally important to succeeding.
Why Is Discipline Important?
Well, let's go back to the analogy of treating your betting on horses like a business. If you operate your own business, you'd keep records of transactions, expenses and file all your receipts for your accountant each month.
You would also have a business plan for both the short term and the long term, and you'd also allocate funds for particular aspects of your business.
Now whilst betting on horses is not as complicated as running your own business, I hope you can see that by just applying a bit of discipline and structure to your betting, that you will treat it more seriously, and therefore (hopefully) you will be more successful with it.
In the second article in this series I discussed creating a betting bank so that you allocate a certain amount for your betting. This is essential, and it will eliminate the temptation to dip into savings, or the using of your credit card.
How Well Are You Doing?
Would you believe that if you were to ask ten punters this question, and try and get them to tell you specifically how they're doing, they probably couldn't tell you. How scary is that?
You need to know how well (or not) you are doing on a weekly basis, otherwise, how else do you know whether your racing tipster or betting system is working?
If you have no idea how you are faring, how can you possibly progress to earning more money by (slowly) increasing your stakes?
And this is of course no more difficult that getting an exercise book and noting down your bets each week, including how much you wagered, what the price of the horse was and where the meeting was ? as a bare minimum. The more technical of you could do this using a spreadsheet or other application of course.
Try Before You Buy
Another thing that I suggest to punters is to ?paper-trade? a horse racing tipster or betting system, before actually committing any money to it. You may also find services such as mine that offer free trial periods too, and so this way you are not laying out any money at all.
This would be the same as running a feasibility study for your business, as you wouldn't just launch a business and hope for the best. What this should do is allow you some time to assess whether your given source of horse racing tips is suitable for you, and whether or not it is reliable.
As we've discussed, if you do find yourself losing money on your selections, you should never be tempted to chase your losses. You should not increase your stakes to try and cover what you have lost, as you could find yourself with an even bigger hole in your betting bank.
And that concludes this series of articles focused on betting on horse racing and managing your money. I do hope that you have found these articles a useful resource and that you now feel more prepared for improving your chances when betting on horses, as you now know what you should be doing and what you need to avoid.
Cliff Thurston has sinced written about articles on various topics from Fitness, Marketing and Writing. Cliff Thurston is the owner of Grosvenor Racing Club, a successful . For more information and. Cliff Thurston's top article generates over 9900 views. to your Favourites.