I'm not going to tell you people don't make a living a professional gamblers, I know a few, but I am going to tell you, that's no way to live. It's straining, it's stressful, its downright soul crushing to ride that wave and risk it all, easier when its just you, harder when a little one depends on you for everything. The Turk took money out of the game years ago. I have a pot, but my race track investments are limited. I love to handicap, but it's been many years since I gambled with any materiality. I work a job that requires seriousness and professionalism, and above all else, fiduciary integrity. Nothing shouts louder "don't tryst me with money" than being the office horse player. The real reason I went cold turkey is I found I just enjoyed the game more without the stress of money, and I kept statistics. Stats, that dirty little word that gives quantifiable data to you about how the game is really treating you. Sometimes people will ask The 'Ol Turk why the Morning Line odds don't add up to 100%. These aren't horse players mind you, just normal people. The easiest and most honest answer for me is that the 30% or so above 100% those odds add up to is the the difference between the game making a living or you making a living. The takeout is just too damn high and it leaves very little room for error in gambling. With the takeout, and Stats, I realized I was skilled enough as a handicapper to carve out a positive ROI, but I had to play and play alot. Not for me. So I used the stats to hone in on where my best ROI came from. It was obvious to me, the low hanging fruit, wasn't what I was good at, but what I was taking a killing on. I was downright atrocious on the Triple Crown prep races and even worse on 2 YOs. I cut those races out of my betting palate. Next, I realized I was really bad on 1 1/2 mile distances any surface as well as 6.5F or less any surfaces. I cut those out. I was really poor at a few tracks and eliminated those. The exercise showed me what I was good at handicapping, but the corollary was I found it also showed me what about horse racing I liked the most: 4 YO and Up, primarily Turf racing. My ROI is pretty good, good enough to bet consistently, not good enough to bet Little Turk's tuition.
I conceived this year's blog theme to be 52 Bets in 52 Weeks, a small sample size of what a handicapper with over 35 years experience can do and document it, good bad or ugly. So far so good as both week's Base Handicaps produced winning results. While I did not place an actual bet in Week 1, I did yesterday. Why? I thought the race was an honest to goodness no brainer. 7 horse field, no scratches, three horse were given no chance by me nor did they get a chance on the tote board. The only downside? The top four were all bet down pretty hard, especially the winner. With a little luck the Win-Place are reversed and the 4-1 finishes over the 2-1, but that's OK. I bet and bet big when I see no brainer's, $10 exacta for $120. Now, my eye after 35 years doing this will or may be different than yours, so in the words of Han Solo, don't get cocky kid and start to see no brainer's everywhere.
Through two Weeks, The Turk has won $71.20 net of my total investment of $152 with a return on investment of 136%. Don't get use to it. I'm still predicting that I'll take a big pile of twenty's and turn it into a smaller pile of twenty's when 2020 is concluded, but also remember the sample size of 52 is pretty small. Actual bets will always be supported by records and when I don't make actual bets we will use the theoretical ones made in the Blog Post as well a $2 Exacta based on my Base Handicap described in the footnotes of my chart below.
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The 'Ol Turk's Twin Spire AccountI'll be back this week with more Turf running from the handicap division. Turk out! |
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