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[Franco Santiago]

This is a great thread. Thanks to the OP for his honesty.


You will all probably laugh at my story, and I would have cared some years ago, but now, I feel as though your opinion is none of my business, so here goes:



My story is different. I lost every year for the past 35 years until April of 2021. And what did I do differently? I stopped trying to be selective about the races. I now bet doubles, pick 3s, p4s, and p5s without discretion. If a race starts with a P5, I bet the P5. If I lose the first leg, I bet the next longest horizontal, like the P4, and so on and so forth. I started betting every race at every track, except for those obscure tracks that run two days a year with $2,500 purses. And what do you know? I have been winning consistently ever since. I only made one other change: I changed my definition of a contender. I expanded it and it caused me to have about 1/2 of a contender more per race. That half a contender has resulted in three things: more cost per race, more cashing of tickets, and (this is important!) more cashing of tickets that pay large enough to cover lots of losses and lots of losing streaks, and once in a while enabling me to hit a home run. A "home run" is when my top 2 or 3 selections win consecutively and pay hugely, and thereby cause the horizontals to explode. I rarely "single" a race. Not my style, and I don't care that the "experts" say it's necessary or desired.



My question for most people that say they had a "good year" is "how many bets did you make that year?" 500? 1,000? Because 500 and 1000 bets in a year in this game is hardly the "long run"...meaning that it shouldn't be a surprise to see things go south or fall apart the next year or for months at a time.



Will my own success continue? I believe it will, but I am well prepared monetarily and mentally to withstand MONTHS of lousy results to find out. That's just the way it is with horse racing. It's a game of handicapping and betting skill, but boy oh boy is there a lot of luck in the short run.



As with most games of skill where the skill is borne in the long run and lots of good and bad luck affect the short run (like football and poker), the team or individual that makes the fewest mistakes is (usually) the winner. It's not NECESSARILY about doing things spectacularly...it's about making less mistakes than your opponent (and yes, every time we enter into a parimutuel pool, we are opponents of each other). And of course, in games where it's all skill (like chess or a basketball free-throw shooting contest), it's ALL about not making mistakes and far more about the process.


My humble advice:


1. Review with a fine tooth comb your contender selection process and model. Slight changes to your process or algorithm can make a huge difference. You might be eliminating your profit before you even construct your bet. That is what I was doing. This is a HUGE mistake.



2. Don't believe all the old sayings. Most were made up by losers. For example, have you ever heard the saying, "Save for a rainy day"? Well, do you know what you get when you save for a rainy day? You get a bunch of fkg rainy days, that's what. "Pick your spots". <=== this is hogwash. How many juicy winners are you giving up by picking your spots? If you don't know the answer to this, then why are you picking your spots? Stop it.



3. Figure out a bankroll you will need. Then double it or triple it. Then be willing to risk it. Step out. Jerry Jones overpaid for the Dallas Cowboys. They called him and Jimmy Johnson "Jedd and Jethro" when they took over the Cowboys. 10 billion dollars later, who is Jedd and who is Jethro? Not Jimmy, and definitely NOT Jerry. If you lose your bankroll, so what? You did your best, but you can't win if you are "playing cheap" by not throwing in the extra horse that *might" pay boxcars or, conversely, including the morning line favorite because you are afraid of losing.



4. Make sure the type of bet you are betting is one where there is an inefficient pool. The win pool is not inefficient. It is EXTREMELY smart. AMAZINGLY smart. If you think you can beat the win, place, or show pool for 2,500 races or more, be my guest. I cannot. So I don't even try.



5. Stop complaining about jockey rides, trainers doping horses, the odds changing mid-race, and in general, how players keep getting screwed by track management. These thoughts are toxic and they won't serve you well. In fact, they will affect your judgment, and when your judgment is affected by negative thoughts, do you know what happens? Yep, you get a bunch of rainy days. :-).



That's it for me. Good luck all. It's a great game, it's our passion and it is WORTH doing. Have fun and enjoy it now because it doesn't have to last forever.


Best,


Franco