Getting the Best out of Horse Racing Tipsters
Most of us at some time or another will have been given a racing tip. Assuming the kind soul who shared it with us hasn't made it all up for effect, the tip will typically have come from somebody else, who knows somebody else who, if we follow the food chain back far enough, will be privy to a piece of knowledge or information that has the potential to reverse the house edge in our favour and hopefully win us some much-needed cash.
The observant reader will have noted that I referred to the "house edge". Everything else being equal, the house edge is the bottom line in betting. It is the built-in, essentially unfair advantage that the bookmaker has over the bettor with all else being equal. It is the reason why, without an advantage of his own with which to counter it, the punter will always eventually lose.
So in essence the person offering the tip needs to have either some kind of insider information, or else the knowledge that comes with experience and expertise to gain the edge over the sportsbook as opposed to it over him.
With the advent of Internet betting the wider betting public was introduced to what was for most of us a new source of information - professional betting tipsters. Or more precisely, in most cases at least, horse racing tipsters.
Where the serious gambler once depended on Racing Post tips or some similar form of "in house" expertise to impart wisdom, there was now a plethora of experts from which to choose. Which is useful, of course, just so long as we were able to identify those with genuine information to share and to separate them from those whose only interest was to separate us from our money.
Tipsters come to us from a variety of stables, if you'll pardon the pun. Some have, or claim to have, connections with the industry, with the associated inference that they possess some form of insider knowledge. Some have a background in horse racing or other sports themselves, providing us with a reasonable expectation that they would understand how the industry works from the inside. Others are simply individuals who have made it their business to thoroughly research their subject, quite reasonably lending them the edge over those who haven't.
All in all though the tipster's background, fascinating though it may be, matters less than his or her track record. At the end of the day, it is the tipster's horse racing systems and success or lack of it over a sustained period that should be the determining factor in whether or not we should respect the authority of the advice we receive.
The observant reader will have noted that I referred to the "house edge". Everything else being equal, the house edge is the bottom line in betting. It is the built-in, essentially unfair advantage that the bookmaker has over the bettor with all else being equal. It is the reason why, without an advantage of his own with which to counter it, the punter will always eventually lose.
So in essence the person offering the tip needs to have either some kind of insider information, or else the knowledge that comes with experience and expertise to gain the edge over the sportsbook as opposed to it over him.
With the advent of Internet betting the wider betting public was introduced to what was for most of us a new source of information - professional betting tipsters. Or more precisely, in most cases at least, horse racing tipsters.
Where the serious gambler once depended on Racing Post tips or some similar form of "in house" expertise to impart wisdom, there was now a plethora of experts from which to choose. Which is useful, of course, just so long as we were able to identify those with genuine information to share and to separate them from those whose only interest was to separate us from our money.
Tipsters come to us from a variety of stables, if you'll pardon the pun. Some have, or claim to have, connections with the industry, with the associated inference that they possess some form of insider knowledge. Some have a background in horse racing or other sports themselves, providing us with a reasonable expectation that they would understand how the industry works from the inside. Others are simply individuals who have made it their business to thoroughly research their subject, quite reasonably lending them the edge over those who haven't.
All in all though the tipster's background, fascinating though it may be, matters less than his or her track record. At the end of the day, it is the tipster's horse racing systems and success or lack of it over a sustained period that should be the determining factor in whether or not we should respect the authority of the advice we receive.
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