Handicapping Training Website

[przytula]

Hello,

Let me start off by thanking PA for granting me permission to post this thread. Thank you, Sir!

I've been playing around with the idea of starting a handicapping training site and wanted to hear some opinions.

I currently work for a popular poker training site and have a solid understanding of how such a site would function and operate. I just don't know if a handicapping site would draw enough interest to be profitable.

Basically, the target starting out would be five videos per week. Each video would be approximately 30 minutes in length.

The site would cover mostly Thoroughbred with some harness sprinkled in. But I would try to mix in content on topics such as money management and psychology that should appeal to any horse player.

As far as instructors, that is one of the challenges. With my current job, we actively seek new instructors all the time and vet them to the best of our ability. I would do the same for this site.

So here are my primary questions:

1. Would a handicapping training site appeal to you?

2. Would $35/month seem reasonable to you if the content was solid?

3. Is there and/or was there ever a site doing this? I haven't been able to find one.

I would also love to hear any additional thoughts you'd care to share.

Again, let me stress that this is an idea that's in the beginning stages. This would be a pretty big undertaking. My biggest fear is investing the time and money only to find out that there's not much interest.

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts!

-lee

[ultracapper]

I think getting paying customers would be a real challenge without a very powerful syllabus. Horseplayers, experienced or novice, are going to really want to know what they're getting for their dollars.

[Stillriledup]

I agree with UC on the paying customers,there's a LOT of free content out there, so what you sell has to be something so good that it can't be gotten for free, that's the challenge.

[DeltaLover]

I have voted NO.

I am well aware that similar sites exist for poker and based on what I have heard some of them are really good and also attract a lot of customers.

I do not think the concept of a training site is going to work equally well for horse (or sports) betting, assuming of course that we are talking about mutual pools, as is the case for Northern America.

A poker hand can be easily described using standard concepts, that cover not only the action of the hand but the type of the opponents, given the available information. Based on this description, we can make a lot of research and discover the correct ways to play, so we will be able to quickly make up our minds when we will find ourselves in similar situations in the past. The mathematical part of this game, makes things even more suitable for analysis; there exist many simulators that can quickly estimate range over range calculations and provide accurate and reproducible information, that will be acceptable as correct by the majority of the pros.

Horse betting, is completely different.

The data are available to everyone before the race and also everyone can make a bet in any race he likes to. This means, that there is very little left for an educational site, since what counts way more, is a service that will advice for the actual betting of current events.

Of course, what I anticipate to be the most important problem with this kind of an approach, is that it will be very easy for its clients, to detect that it not really able to beat the game (if this was not the case, then the service provider would had been better off keeping for himself of course)...

More than this, verifying a specific handicapping idea, does not appear to be a simple task. Judging from my experience, talking with many players in person and even more of them here in PA, it is impossible to arrive to a universal conclusion, even for the most trivial things, that can be proved by applying simple statistics to well defined data and processes. It seems to be that among horse bettors, there are way more contradictory theories and even worse than this, it is also impossible to even agree in the proper methodology to resolve opposite approaches.

To get back to the original question of this thread, the only way somebody could convince me to subscribe to this kind of a service, would be, to prove to me with objective criteria that he is able to beat the game for a substantial ROI and also provide me his insides about how he is doing it.

[proximity]

Originally Posted by przytula

3. Is there and/or was there ever a site doing this? I haven't been able to find one.

-lee

i agree with delta that it's just different than poker.

in book form though i think quinn kinda tried to do this with the abc's of thoroughbred handicapping.

lee? you don't play at horseshoe baltimore do you??

[mrroyboy]

I know who you are. I am
a long time member of CR. I love your videos. Funny and educational.
If you can do the same for horseracing I think it would be great. I don't think $35 per month would be too much.

[PhantomOnTour]

Doesn't Dave Schwartz kind of do this already?

I know he has lots of instructional/tutorial videos...maybe those are just for using his products?
Not sure if he offers straight tutorials on pace, speed, class etc.

[acorn54]

i think mike pizzolla also sells training videos on handicapping also.

[thaskalos]

I voted yes. I had been a long-time, very satisfied subscriber to a poker training site...and I only stopped subscribing because of the changed gambling laws. I would gladly pay $35 (or more) a month to be able to watch over the shoulder of a competent player...as he dissects a race, and explains his thinking process, in a step by step format. I have been playing this game seriously for over 30 years...but I am not yet too old to learn a new thing or two.

My suggestion is to choose your instructors carefully...and to insist on practical, usable handicapping and betting analysis...and not the vague, overly-theoretical type that so often clutters the pages of horseracing online forums everywhere. Handicapping theories are a dime a dozen...and the same can be said of all the "data" that everybody talks about. What's missing is a rational, intelligent way of merging theory and practice...so the observer could see how the expert player plies his trade...and how he converts his handicapping opinions into betting decisions at the betting window.

If I were you...I would fund an ADW account just for the purpose of this new business venture...and I would handicap and wager in real time...keeping the site's bet logs as proof that I am actually placing the wagers that my handicapping analysis has pre-selected. The wagers could be tiny in size...but they must be made before-hand...and they must be representative of the thinking process which preceded them. Keep everything visible and above-board...and never offer excuses for the many losing days that you are sure to encounter. Building credibility is the key.

I hope you follow through with your idea...and I wish you luck.

[Capper Al]

Good luck. The audience will be a tough sell. You'll need definitive instruction to teach for a subject matter that isn't definitive.

[DeltaLover]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

If I were you...I would fund an ADW account just for the purpose of this new business venture...and I would handicap and wager in real time...keeping the site's bet logs as proof that I am actually placing the wagers that my handicapping analysis has pre-selected.

I ain’t happening any time soon Thask... He, who might posses the ability to show a positive betting return, will not have any interest in exposing his practices to the wide public; doing so, will quickly function against his edge, turning him to a loser in a matter of a few months.

[przytula]

Originally Posted by mrroyboy

I know who you are. I am
a long time member of CR. I love your videos. Funny and educational.

Thanks, mrroyboy! I appreciate that a lot.

Originally Posted by proximity

lee? you don't play at horseshoe baltimore do you??

Different lee. I'm in Syracuse

[barn32]

Originally Posted by DeltaLover

I ain’t happening any time soon Thask... He, who might posses the ability to show a positive betting return, will not have any interest in exposing his practices to the wide public; doing so, will quickly function against his edge, turning him to a loser in a matter of a few months.

The exact same thing could be said for poker, yet those idiots are giving away the store and teaching people things that literally take years to learn at the table.

It's a complete mystery to me why successful poker players would teach others the tricks of the trade. But they do--a lot of them.

Back when I was cutting my eye teeth on the game nobody told nobody nothin.

The first rule of poker is that you never educate the competition.

But that truck has already left the yard.

Of course a horse racing training site would be successful. Why wouldn't it be if successful horse players are doing the training.

[egreen]

Why don't you try to incorporate a handicapping training section into the poker site you're already working for? That would be far less expensive to launch and you could test the waters with an audience that has a similar demographic and interests. There are plenty of synergies between racing and poker and I'm assuming the site's clientele are already conditioned to paying for instructional content. Horseplayers already know where to find loads of free handicapping info.

[DeltaLover]

Originally Posted by barn32

The exact same thing could be said for poker, yet those idiots are giving away the store and teaching people things that literally take years to learn at the table.

It's a complete mystery to me why successful poker players would teach others the tricks of the trade. But they do--a lot of them.

Back when I was cutting my eye teeth on the game nobody told nobody nothin.

The first rule of poker is that you never educate the competition.

But that truck has already left the yard.

Of course a horse racing training site would be successful. Why wouldn't it be if successful horse players are doing the training.

There are similarities but it is not the exact same thing as you say here.

The difference occurs in the fact that in poker you can always choose your competition while in horse racing (at least when it comes to mutual betting) you do not have this option.