Basic Betting Math

Today we have our second guest column from Malcolm Pett of Greyhorse Bot fame.

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Apart from automation I love statistics.

Personally I don’t understand how anyone can even start to follow a system or tips unless they have some basic statistical information.

At the very least you need two pieces of information.

Strike Rate (SR) and Average winning odds (AWO).

Those are the two main ingredients of any system and if they don’t balance these, then there is no profit.

If you have a low SR you need higher AWO.

Or if you have a high AWO then you can get away with a lower SR.

Basic Betting Maths

Here is how to work it out quickly…

Let’s say you know you have a strike rate of 25%

100-25 = 75
75 / 25 = 3.00

Basically the 25 winners have to cover the 75 losers.
And so those 25 runners need average winning odds of 3.00 just to break even.

You are going to need something higher than 3 to really make a profit.

Let’s say your AWO were 7.00

100 / 7 = 14.28
So your strike rate needs to be better than 14.28% before you make a profit.

The two above examples do not take into consideration any cost, like Betfair’s commission.

Your strike rate can also point you in the direction of your longest losing run, which in turn, can help you decide on the size of stake compared to your bank that you should use.

A 13% strike rate points to a possible losing run of 48 or more selections in a row…

Are you ready for that?

Many systems fail just because the AWO goes down. This happens when too many people start following a system especially when it is based around outsiders.

If you are following a system you need to keep an eye on both the above figures.

There will be variations especially during spells without winners or really good winning runs, but overall you should see very small changes.

Take a note of the current SR and AWO the moment you start following any selections which will give you a point of reference for the future.

If you are a real nerd like me then you can even go back over the results and test these two figures at different points in time.

I did this with one service and found that over the last 6 months both figures had been dropping slowly, pointing to a place not too far in the future where there would probably be no profit at all.

At the Grey Horse Bot site we do a lot of “open” system testing and all our selections come with a full set of day by day results.

But we don’t stop there we also have a month by month round up and the full statistics including Return on investment and a graph thrown in for good measure.

My belief is that many people start using systems/tips without even considering the numbers.

Profit looks good on paper but the really important thing is…

… “How does the system make that profit?”

Thank you for reading I really do appreciate it.

Malcolm

You can find out more about Grey Horse Bot here.

Todays Selection
4.00 Catterick – 1pt win Go Far @ 5/1