Why Long Shots Can Show a Better Return With Fewer Winners
A low strike rate at big odds can return more than a high strike rate at short odds, and small samples do not prove much.
Recorded June 2025 for 🔥 10.8% ROI in 2 Weeks! Breaking Down The King Zone Official Tips. Any figures mentioned are from that time.
Why Long Shots Can Show a Better Return With Fewer Winners
Most punters judge a set of bets by how often it wins. That is the wrong measure. I track a few different groups of selections, and the group with the worst strike rate is the one showing the best return on turnover. Six winners from 74 bets is only 8 per cent, yet that group is showing a 28 per cent return. The group winning far more often is showing 16.6 per cent. The difference is not skill or timing. It is the odds. That is the whole point, and it is worth sitting with for a minute before you write off a bet type because it loses more often than it wins.
Odds do the heavy lifting
Look at the good roughies. Seventy-four bets, six winners, 68 losers. On the face of it that looks like a bad run. But the return sits at 28 per cent, because when those six do win, they pay enough to carry all the losers and then some. Compare that to the backs, where there have been 146 bets and a strike rate of 16.6 per cent on turnover. More winners, smaller return. When you bet the short end of the market you win more often, and you feel better while you are doing it, but you may or may not end up with more profit. The maths does not care how often you win. It cares what you are paid when you do.
Variance is the trade-off
There is a cost to betting longer odds, and the cost is variance. Backing horses at big odds means long stretches of nothing. Sixty-eight losers in a group of 74 is not a small number of losing bets, and you have to be able to sit through that without changing what you are doing. Short-priced betting smooths that out. You get less variance and a more even ride, just not necessarily a better bottom line. Neither approach is wrong. You just need to know which one you are running and what it will feel like along the way.
Small samples lie
The other half of this is sample size. There have been 53 golden bullets for 14 winners, and that group is currently losing. Fifty-three bets tells you almost nothing. I expect those to lift, and my betting is they will. In the same way, I expect the 28 per cent on the good roughies to come down a bit, because that number is built on six winners. Three times as many backs have been recorded as golden bullets, so the backs number carries more weight, and I would be over the moon if that 16 per cent held. Anything above 10 per cent and I am happy. The overall figure sits at 10 per cent, with the selections at 11 per cent, and I think the overall number goes up once the golden bullets come back to where they should be.
So use return on turnover, not strike rate, when you judge a bet type. Then give it enough bets to mean something before you decide anything at all.
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From the full video: 🔥 10.8% ROI in 2 Weeks! Breaking Down The King Zone Official Tips
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