Hi Paul/Michal.

Would it be fair to say that if one wanted to make a reasonable income from betting then one would need to bet in Thousands to derive a living income.

i.e If your regular weekly income was nett $1200 weekly then allowing for the cycles in racing then the bank would need to be $80 - 100,000 thousand and probably more to even consider it.
Probably the figures quoted would be in the lower range (I would assume so)

I ask these questions of you as Full time Professionals who know what your talking about.

Cheers
darky

Hi Darky,

The quick answer is no, you don't need that much. But you would need to have a decent bank. It's more about turning the bank over, that generates the required money without having (wasting) a large sum on standby.

In fact the greater the turnover the smaller the bank reserve needs to be, if you have 75 'carefully crafted' selections per year then yes you need to bet in high thousands to make a profit providing that what you are betting on is actually profitable to begin with. If you are having 3 or so bets a day then the turn over ensures that the bets size can remain relatively small, this is then manageable in terms of actually getting on and getting through bad patches quickly.

Outside of that; proportional staking is the hallmark of a professional punter, betting to collect more on horses with a greater chance of winning makes sense and it also increases the turnover.

What most people assume is that a professional punter is someone that lays thousands on the line with each bet .... you know the usual stereotype. Sure punters like that do exist .... BUT

In reality there are many professional punters that only bet in hundreds and low thousands. Really anyone can become a professional punter. All you need is a profitable method; you also need to know the risks involved and then you just need the turnover, consistency in application, discipline, ability to obtain at least a reasonable dividend and record keeping. Also having a realistic expectation helps, if you are willing to risk a $100 then your reward will still be proportionally the same as the person that risks $100,000 but wont be the same in terms of real dollars.

You can start doing all of the above with just a $10 bet and only betting in your spare time! Then once the basics are mastered the bets go up naturally, with much less stress because you win the bank and hone your skills at the same time. Then betting with a $100,000 bank wont seem such an scary task. If you can't manage a $10 bet then you most certainly wont manage a $1000 bet. The problem is that most people don't do any of this and then wonder why they are hunting for the next grail every month!

Kind regards

__________________
Michal - Ratings2Win Pty Ltd
R2W Axis - Axis is Australia's leading horse racing software and database;
with sophisticated form analysis tools and accurate horse performance ratings for TAB meetings.
http://www.ratings2win.com.au/

I would do this as an example

if you wanted to make $1200 a week and you were able to make 10% P.O.T then you need to turnover $12,000 a week, say you were to have 25 bets in that week then each bet would meed to be $480 and if you decided that 2% of your bank was a comfortable amount to bet then you would need a bank of $24,000, this does not take in to account any compounding of the bank just basic maths.

__________________
One Drive

"If the corporates are treating you poorly , just go elsewhere."
"If they need you , they will soon find out."
"If you need them , you will soon find out." --moeee
_______________________________________________

Here is my last 7 days betting.

Turned over $3600 /Profit $290 /POT 8 %

Some times losses but over 500 bets the POT is 5.3 %.

My question is .
Is this POT sufficent to keep going?

The largest Draw Down has been $1600 or sixteen losses straight (As paul predicted in one of his posts) He was spot on.

Your advice would be very much appreciated.

The POT is based on Level stakes but have switched to 1/4 Kelly.

Cheers
darky

Your maths are correct except for 1 thing. you didn't take into account the potential drawdown. drawdown + weekly income = massive stress at a 2% bet size.

Once the bank is gone that is it ... you can't/shouldn't bet on credit.

Agree i didn't take in to account a few different things but was just showing how you don't need a 80k bank, drawdown is something i need to look in to big time.

__________________
One Drive

"If the corporates are treating you poorly , just go elsewhere."
"If they need you , they will soon find out."
"If you need them , you will soon find out." --moeee
_______________________________________________

That is exactly the right thing UB. Knowing the risk ie. draw down on the Bank over a large enough sample is imperative in order to structure the nature of ones investments.

The stress comes from ones inability to handle the loses past a certain point. Everyone has this point, it just depends on where it is. There is no shame in having a high risk threshold, it just means that the punter needs to take this into account.

Darky, one of the things that have brought many a punter down is forcing the issue. Betting with scared money is deadly. Having a target in mind is great and working towards it is excellent, forcing the issue and betting more then what is comfortable just to make the next 'income' will generaly end up with the punter in a tail spin betting on the UK dogs at 3am just to get out!

If your POT is 5% and you can maintain that, then you are way in front of most punters. If your bank isn't enough at this stage high enough to bet with a stake that corresponds to your wanted income while being in a comfort zone that you can manage, the answer isn't to bet up, its to build. Punting is a business, a long term proposition.

The only other thing I would add is that I would like to see more then just 500 bets in a sample to analyse the risk in terms of draw-down and so on. But that is just me. In regards to whether the POT is sufficient, it is, but that isnt the point, POT (results) is a product of strike rate and prices. You can't effect the divs outside of trying to get the best you can, the thing that you can controll is the performance of your selection method or the strike rate. Your performance and whether you can sustain it is what you have to ask, and no one other then you can answer that.

Kind regards

__________________
Michal - Ratings2Win Pty Ltd
R2W Axis - Axis is Australia's leading horse racing software and database;
with sophisticated form analysis tools and accurate horse performance ratings for TAB meetings.
http://www.ratings2win.com.au/

The $10,000 is loose money I can afford to lose but the main objective is to compound over 5 years.

My risk thresh hold is quite high and have mentioned previously betting Kelly to 4 % of bank which I,m comfortable with ($400)

I note your comments in a previous post of risk threshold of 2 or 3 % and as you say one can lower it if it becomes "Hairy".

I also note your comments on reasessing over a longer bet number which I shall do.

May I say that its indeed a pleasure to get quality help from someone who has been there.
Hope you dont mind me dropping a question or 2 as I go along this path.

Cheers
darky

Hi Darky,

No we don't mind, ask all you like, hopefully your questions and answers and comments in this thread will help others.

I noted that your runs of outs corresponded to Paul's 'prediction'. It isn't that hard to predict when you are working with maths. A certain strike rate will produce certain numbers in terms of runs of outs and other probabilities. These figures, no matter how unattractive, are mathematical law and those that think they don't apply to them are in for a shock.

As far as the bets sample size of your method, the greater the number the more likely you are to know its actual performance level. To give example look at our daily Recent winning highlights. Our IR rating has an over all strike rate of about 26.9% over 50,000 races (top pick), however looking at the beginning of this month we had some low days (Moee pointed out one of them) and the last few days they been in the high 30s and 40+ today. What Im saying is that the method will even out at the 26.9% given a large enough sample because that is its underlying performance point. There is no question in my mind about that and I have the confidence that the rating will do just that, and it does every time. In fact if we have a few bad days you can bet that the next few will be well above average it has to happen in order to level out at our performance point.

What you have to do is establish what your underlying performance point is, and the only way to do that is with a large enough sample. The confidence that this will give you will be invaluable when you are looking at an extended run of outs and wonder if something is broken or what the problem is. We all go through those emotions. The tendency is to tweak! Add a few filters, or more rules and change the mechanics, there by changing everything including your confidence level in the method and the risk that you are willing to endure. Usually this is followed by a further few tweaking sessions before the whole system is thrown out and a new grail is sought. That's the way most punters work.

With a large enough sample you will have the confidence to say "well that is within normal and while Im not excited about it it will return to its underlying performance eventually".

Kind regards

__________________
Michal - Ratings2Win Pty Ltd
R2W Axis - Axis is Australia's leading horse racing software and database;
with sophisticated form analysis tools and accurate horse performance ratings for TAB meetings.
http://www.ratings2win.com.au/

Yes.Tweaking, adding new filters etc etc been there.
Never improved things and after a few losses went straight into the rubbish bin.
Then the journey of buying the newest super dooper betting system from the Commercial System Sellers which were even worse than the one I threw in the bin.
All of course backfitted to the start of a big winner with POT figures of 98 % and claiming to turn $300 into $168,000 betting 3 % of the bank with a drawdown of 4 losses.

It was jolly good fun but expensive.

Cheers
darky