Review Winter 2016
The Month In Review – August 2016
What a shocker! 55 Units Bet and only 35.31 Units returned, a loss of almost 20 units. Over winter 2016 almost 50% of the bank was wiped out. There is no hiding from it, it was a disaster and it hurt. Before winter I was wondering if perhaps, I should take a break over winter. Previous July figures haven’t been good. June and August have been mixed over the years. June started well, but then the East Coast Low hit and with record rains, the profits dried up. 2016 has been the wettest winter on record, and it has produced my biggest losses.
I have spoken to some other punters about this winter and reviewed my bets. Apart from some unknown track biases, which were unknown until after the races, there were no errors that I could find in the selections.
One pro, who has been doing this 2005, advised that August 2016 has been the worst performer by a huge margin out of the 136 months that he has been punting professionally. It has been so bad that it has to be a statistical anomaly, quite possibly a once in ten year event, in his opinion.
The figures and stats for all of this year's racing (around 11,000 races) show that August has been a shocker of a month for both favourites and the highest rated horses. Favourites and top rated horses have won a lot less races during August 2016, than in other months. In fact these type of selections have averaged around 17-18% Strike Rate.
In August we had 46 bets for 8 winners (S/R 17%), which is the S/R showing for highly rated horses in August 2016 and well below our expected Strike Rate. We had 130 bets for the Winter of 2016 and won 31 of those (S/R 24%) and placed in 73 of those races (56%).
My other betting has been reasonably successful, which makes you wonder if I should move from Horse Racing to Matched betting. But with bookmakers quick to ban punters who use their promotions exclusively, it is necessary to have bets other than promotional bets, in order to keep the accounts open. Plus with Matched Betting, there is a ceiling regarding the amount that can be won. Promotions are generally in the $50 range. If I get a $50 bonus bet, I can generally convert around 70% of that to cash (Daily Profit suggest 80%, but I haven’t to be able to achieve that level). So the Daily Profit Matched Betting is profitable, but has a ceiling to the total amount that can be won, and can lead to your account being limited, if you are only Match Betting on Promotions.
Recently I have tried the VIP service at Daily Profit, which is the pure gambling side of the service, with mixed success. The NRL service has achieved great results (but was poor in 2015). The AFL bets were great in 2015 but poor in 2016. Super Rugby was hopeless. I have had success with limited NHL and NFL, but poor results with other American sports. All in all, it has been marginally profitable for me, and I believe it is worth continuing but restricting bets to NRL, AFL (Head to Head), NFL and possibly NHL.
Posted: Fri, September 02, 2016
