Q&A With Horse Racing Punter Simon

Introduction - This below is based on an email discussion with a client of ours called Simon. He had just completed his first Annual subscription. After a year of Full Membership here would he be happy to renew or would he be running for the hills?

Q - Thanks for your swift keenness to renew for another year Simon. If I look back over time I can see that you have been in and around the service for about a decade now. Over that time you popped in for multiple Saturdays. Then there were also lots of short term stints of full membership. These I note usually coincided with short term discount deals and offer we ran for major meetings. Then out of the blue about a year ago you committed to an annual sub. Was there any reason for this shift in sentiment from you?

A - Yes I have had respect for Guy's analysis work for many years now. However I never felt I had the spare time to do it justice. Historically pinching value intro deal periods for more major meetings suited me just fine. About a year ago however I took retirement. I then had a lot more free time to pursue the things I was interested in doing. An annual sub made more personal sense to me then.

Q - So like a crazy fool you forked out cash for an annual sub last year. Why on earth would you want to fall into the same idiot trap and repeat the same reckless action again this year?

A - Well over the course of the last year I made a profit of about £3200 from Guy's advice. About £600 of that was on Betfair. The other £2600 was at Bet365. 365 is the only bookie account I had left that was usable. Before focussing on Guy I had done a fair bit of matched betting. Whilst that matched betting profitable for while, the bookies were quick enough to spot it and I lost a lot of accounts. The figures above would no doubt have been higher had I not pre burned out so many accounts.

Q - The style and nature of the service here provides clients with a lot of personal choice as to how they use it. Some highly selective sorts might very patiently wait for the rare Account Bets. Others will choose to supplement that with horses from Guy's top of the message zone conclusions. Others will increase turnover frequency by also taking on the more numerous Profile & Preview horses. Each client I guess will have personal preference as to how far down a daily message they go to seek a potential punt. To achieve the figures above, what was your own preference as to the sections of the message you used?

A - I usually just bet everything from Account bets to Profile & Preview horses.

Q - It would be conventional wisdom within the service that Account Bets would merit increased stakes compared to say lower down Profile & Preview analysis. Do you for staking purposes choose to do any such grading or do you just level stakes everything?

A - I have been doing £50 on the Account Bets. I estimate about £700 of my total profit has come from them. For the Profile & Preview selections I bet less. I understand that when Guy cites his £ figures in his message it is more about ratios to allocate to each horse when he has more than one in a race to cover. However £10 stake per Profile & Preview race I actually felt about right for me. I have however more recently started to put a bit more on horses he appears sweet on in the top of his message. Not much more. Perhaps £15 total instead of £10.

I do however have one unique twist of my own design. Often Guy will cover extra horses in a race. Sort of insurance horses I guess. These may have a low stake say £1 or £2 for example. Typically should the insurance horse win then usually the bet overall will just breakeven. My own personal twist is to set a £4 minimum stake for myself on such horses. So yes sometimes I do stake a little bit more than £10 total in a Profile & Preview race. I have had lots of wins at 7/8/9-1 on these insurance horses. With my increased stake they transform the default break even in the race scenario into a decent profit for me. I guess about £1500 of my total profit came from top of message and Profile & Preview betting. So compared to Account Bets, lots more frequent bets but at smaller stakes.

Q - That is a semi interesting idea about increasing stakes on the insurance horses. If one was of the mind to do so, I guess an individual could extrapolate it further into a dutching strategy when Guy covers more than one in a race. Is your own £4 minimum stake approach one you would recommend to others?

A - I can neither recommend it or nor not recommend it over Guy's default style. For me it was simply rooted originally in personal taste. Sticking on a real world money £1 of insurance to break even did not seem worth the effort. I just preferred the idea of putting a bit more on the insurance horse. That way I had set myself up to win something semi decent irrespective of which covered horse won. After a year of doing it, it is a case of "If it ain't broke don't fix it."

Q - Do you keep any formal records of your bets. A spreadsheet perhaps?

A - No. I have never bothered with such stuff. I only have the two spots I bet at. 365 and Betfair. I do make a bit extra with my own personal football betting but all racing stuff over the past year has been rooted in Guy's advice. Thus with filtering account history by sport, it is easy enough to see what profit was a result of Guy's advice.

Q - What do you intend to do with the extra money you made over the last year?

A - Now retired I have to be somewhat careful with my cash. I plan to take a portion of my profits and add them to my stocks and shares ISA. Gains that are tax free are better than gains that are taxed. I might treat myself to something small. I am also currently pondering the idea of keeping a portion as an increase of betting bank. An increased bank could then justify slightly higher stakes for the year to come. If all goes to plan the same effort would then produce more £ profit next year. The beauty of compounding. But I don't know. I am comfortable at my current levels as I know I’m not going to lose much and it feels I am in total control but £3K in a year is not to be sneezed at. For me it is not just about the winnings alone. I enjoy watching the races live or watching them over on Sporting Life later.

Q - Any final comments you wish to make?

A - A good thing I have found is that I very very rarely have to put money into my 365/Betfair accounts as it is very rarely that there is a losing run long enough to deplete my account to zero. As it happens of late there has been a bit of a dip. Had I been talking to you a few weeks ago my profit figures would have been higher. But I guess a bit of up and down is par for the course. The long term trajectory has been good. It’s a great service and apart from another bloke I followed who I followed some years ago (we made great money for 18 months or so but it went pear shaped eventually) this is the first service I have subscribed to that has actually made me money and after all that is the whole point!!! One thing I would be interested in finding out more about is how other clients use the service for themselves.

---

Editors Note: After this original interview went out, a selection of other clients kindly chipped in with some additional insights of their own. These I have collated for you at Horse Racing Punter Interview Part 2