Value Betting Horses

During last year's Melbourne Cup Spring Carnival a racing commentator noted that "These are great horses" and concluded that "Now is your chance to get great value on whatever you bet in the race."

To put it bluntly, comments like that are absolute nonsense.

How is that possible in a tote market of 120%? It's mathematically impossible. The tote hasn't reduced its take from the pool. However it may be possible that punters could get poor value on any horse they backed on the tote!

Because a horse is a quality galloper and you can get a price in a race that you wouldn't normally get about it, say $5.00 or even longer odds, does not mean that you are then automatically getting "value"?

Whether or not you get "value" is purely in relation to the horse's winning chances in the race. It has absolutely nothing to do with the odds available about the horse in previous races when it might have been clearly the standout horse in those races.

Putting a lot of class horses together in the one race does not mean they suddenly all become value bets. That is just simplistic nonsense and from an intelligent betting point of view just plain wrong.

1. It is absolutely irrelevant whether that horse was at $3.00 or less at its previous starts.

2. It is also absolutely irrelevant whether that horse has a 50% or 100% winning strike rate. You cannot convert a horse's winning strike rate to odds you should obtain about it in its current race.

3. Mind you that hasn't prevented someone years ago from offering punters a cardboard calculator wheel to work out the odds they need to back a horse which was purely based on the horse's winning strike rate! So if a horse has a 50% winning strike rate then you need $2.00 (divide 100 by its strike rate). If a horse has a 25% winning strike rate then you need $4.00. That is complete betting garbage.

If you take $5.00 about a class horse racing against a lot of other class horses you have to correctly evaluate whether that horse should win at least 20% of the time in that field. That is the only way to obtain "value".