It’s a sad fact of life that most punters manage their betting on a hand-to-mouth basis. Long term horizons generally do not feature as most of them have never bothered to approach their betting in a business like manner.
By ‘business like’ I am not suggesting putting on a suit and tie and renting an office from which to wager. What I am suggesting is that establishing a line of credit is one of the foremost requirements for punting successfully simply because it does not make sense to tie up betting capital over long periods.
If you evaluate why so many punters ‘fall in’ it is usually because they are ‘chasing’ funds from an earlier loss. The way in which the industry works then conspires to work against recovery by mandating relatively short settling periods – cash up front or weekly being the traditional settling period in racing circles. This results in the punter mindset being that one must ‘get out’ by the end of a given meeting or, at the very latest, by Sunday afternoon.
If you have been following my thread on Super 15 you would have wanted to conduct your activities as follows in order to give yourself the best possible opportunity of winning :
1.) Establish a line of credit. All bookmakers will grant credit to clients in good standing who SETTLE AS AGREED.
2.) Establish how you wish to conduct your participation : eg In any tournament you might agree to settle at the end of the tournament.
3.) Settle as agreed.
By following the simple strategy as detailed above you now have a number of disadvantages and pressures removed.
1.) If you have the odd bad weekend you do not have to do anything stupid in trying to ‘get out’. You have weeks ( and sometimes months ) to ‘get out’.
2.) You are unlikely to change a perfectly workable long term strategy because you are under pressure from short term results.
Here are three suggestions as to how you might address your Super 15 play. PLEASE REMEMBER THESE ARE ONLY SUGGESTIONS and are not intended to distract you from your preferred play.
1.) Exotics : You might wish to have a interest in some ( or all ) of the matches each weekend. This is what I regard as ‘Tote type’ betting as the odds are heavily against you. But you do have the opportunity to win big money for small – something that appeals to all of us.
So try an all to come ( fixed odds ) each week but decide at the beginning of the season how much you are prepared to speculate each weekend on this bet type. The odds on the winning combinations vary from about 40/1 to close to 100/1. So if you speculate each weekend and win it once in the season you should actually make a profit!
2.) Nap bets : Each weekend you are bound to identify a match or matches where you are confident of the outcome. Here I would recommend you wager enough to recover the outlay on your all to come with a small additional profit to reward you for being right for part of the weekend action.
Cautionary : Where you are betting ‘on the nose’ in sport you are going to have to set yourselves a rule as to the shortest price you are prepared to take. Despite the temptations of supposed ‘good things’ I would advise against prices shorter than 1/3 as inevitably a 1/10 shot is going to get rolled ( or draw! ) and do enormous damage to your bank balance and confidence.
3.) But the real money is on the long term outcome for a number of reasons.
You are able to back your fancy on the drift. Although this requires a bit of nerve you will quickly get used to it and the value factor is enormous. For example – Even the most obvious selection seldom only shortens from ante-post. Most sides go through rough patches which will allow you to absolutely clean up at big prices and establish a huge bank of stock.
Although many of you may not be familiar with the technique of ‘laying back’ all bookmakers will be happy to take back from your ‘stock’ providing there is demand for that team. In doing so you should ideally protect your stake or win even if your selection fails to lift the cup.
Given the above let’s critically evaluate betting opportunities in the Super 15 as a couple of teams reached halfway this last weekend :
Let’s start off with teams that probably cannot win :
Lions, Force, Rebels, Blues. ( that’s already 26% of the field that you do not even have to worry about barring a miracle ).
Sides that look unlikely to win :
Cheetahs, Waratahs
Sides that may struggle to win :
Sharks, Crusaders, Brumbies
Sides that are ‘alive’ at present :
Chiefs, Stormers, Bulls, Highlanders, Hurricanes, Reds
Although you might disagree with my assessment you must accept that there are issues which muddy the waters. They are :
1.) The competition is a curious mix of ‘consistency required’ allied to the ability to produce a handful of big games. This is, unfortunately, a by product of the conference system which will allow at least one side to finish favourably based on geographical location rather than ability.
2.) A side that is sitting pretty but has yet to travel can quickly slide down the table if they lose a couple on the road.
3.) The market often over reacts to a result and either drifts the side too much or shortens it too much. For example – The market is slowly coming to the realisation that the Crusaders – despite trading at a ridiculous 5/2 – lag the Chiefs by 8 points and might end up in some difficult away from home playoffs. Conversely the Bulls would probably be a lot shorter if they had already travelled. It’s your call as to how you think they might go but if you believe they are at least as capable as the Crusaders then 11/2 versus 5/2 becomes a no brainer.
4.) Each of the ‘live’ sides excepting the Crusaders have already offered enormous value at some point in the first 8 weeks. It’s for you to mop up when they do. In fact at this point the one side that it has never been worth backing to date is the Crusaders where 7/2 has been the best on offer to date. Their position is particularly vulnerable as with 3 losses already in the book they have little scope for error in the second half of the competition.
5.) Interestingly the market has assessed the Stormers’ loss to the Crusaders quite accurately and drifted them to only 38/10. It WAS an away match and they DID get a loser’s bonus. Quite acceptable for an away match to a highly regarded side.
6.) If you employ the above method of evaluation then 14/1 Highlanders & 28/1 Hurricanes look the picks this week for accumulation purposes.
One performance does not win the Super 15. There are many twists and turns to come. As long as you are backing your side at best odds and trading when they are short you are likely to have a lot of fun and profit accordingly.
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