"How Do You Analyse Your Losing Bets?"

Kingsley on SEN radio with racing.com. Segment courtesy of SEN x racing.com.

People ask how I go back and analyse losing bets. The honest answer is that I do not look at them on their own. I look at the winning bets and the losing bets together, as a whole, and I try to work out where I lost. Not which horse lost, but which part of my betting is not pulling its weight. That means cutting the record into sections and checking each one. It is the least exciting part of punting and it is also where most of the useful information sits.

Look at sections, not single bets

I have been through good runs and bad runs. In both, I go back over the bets and break them up. First-up horses are one section. Price ranges are another. Odds-on favourites are another. Then I ask a simple question of each group. Am I as profitable here as I am everywhere else. If the answer is no, that is where I start digging.

Sometimes the problem is not the selection at all, it is the stake. I might find I am overstaking horses over even money, for example. The bets themselves are fine but the money going on them is out of line with the edge. That is a fixable thing, and I would never have seen it by looking at individual losers and telling myself I was unlucky.

Favourites and overlays

One section I keep coming back to is odds-on favourites. There is not as much value in favourites now as there used to be. So I go back and look at how I have gone on them specifically. If the numbers say I am not getting paid there, then I need to be harsher. I need a bigger overlay before I am willing to back one of those horses.

That is the point of the exercise. It is not about deciding favourites are bad. It is about setting a higher bar for one part of the market because the record tells me the old bar is too low.

When you bet is part of the analysis

The other thing I put a lot of effort into is when I bet. That gets analysed the same way. Do I bet as soon as the market comes out with a smaller stake. Do I wait until nine in the morning when minimum bet kicks in. Do I skip the bookies altogether and bet on Betfair. Or do I hold off until about ten minutes to go.

Those are four different ways of getting a bet on and they do not all suit the same type of bet. So I try to work out which type of bet belongs in which bracket. Some selections are worth taking early at a smaller stake. Others are better left until later. Working that out is as much a part of the edge as picking the horse.

If you keep a record, start cutting it up. First-up runs, price bands, favourites, and the time of day you got the bet on. Look for the section that is dragging, then change the rule that covers it rather than the individual bet.

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