Handicapping And Making A Betting Line For Horse Betting Articles | Horse Betting

By: Richard Bleuze

It is more than 95% of all horse bettors do not make a betting line for themselves, and that includes some of the successful players.  It is, then, a topic worthy of study.  Anything the crowd doesn’t use or know we definitely need to know and possibly use.

How does a betting line relate to the morning line of a horsetrack?

The morning line is one handicapper's opinion of how that handicapper believes the crowd will bet the race.  He then puts up numbers that he hopes will encourage more betting.  This person is usually completely wrong! 

Why you may ask?  Well, there are a couple of reasons in my opinion.  They are:  Sometimes this person is simply not that good at what they do.  In addition, the necessity of coming up with this line for every race 48 hours in advance is extremely tough to do.  Remember, this is only a prediction of how horse bettors will bet and not how the horses will run.  For this reason, you should only use a morning line as a guide only!

The morning line is skewed from reality to begin with, yet it will act as a false piper to the crowd who will load up on the favorite horse while more or less ignoring the others who should be much more highly regarded in the betting.  Those horse bettors who have considered other factors pre-race, and who have also crafted a decent betting line, won’t be swayed or lured by the potentially false favorite.  Their lines will lead them to value betting, regardless of the outcome of this particular race and profits over the long run.

Value betting what does it really mean?

Most so-called horse bettors that use value betting call any horse that goes off a couple of odds ticks over their betting line number an overlay.  Technically it is overlaid to their line, but is it really a value bet?

Let’s say your line makes a horse 7-5 to win and it goes off at 8-5. That’s two ticks over the betting line - 7-5 / 3-2 / 8-5 - but should it be bet?  I do nott think so, not to win anyway, maybe in a trifecta, or a multi-race bet.

Minimum acceptable odds and odds groupings should be established that keep the horse bettor off of the low priced overlays.

The reason for this, is if a player keeps very accurate long term records the astute horse bettor will find that, as a group and over the long term, these low priced horses offer very little profit. 

How do you make a betting line? 

Making a betting line is simply assigning an opinion to each horse in the field.  The betting line purists carry this much further and get very precise in the giving or taking away of a percentage point her or there. 

Making a decent betting line can be time intensive.  A lot of time can be spent even after the initial line has been made - just trying to shape it into a true 100% line (adjusting and readjusting some horses up or down to finally get near the 100% final line or 118% to adjust for track take.

There is an easier way that will attain equivalent or even superior results.  For the serious horse bettor who keeps good records (and you should), it does not take long to accumulate statistics.  If you have that kind of data, an averaged line can be made.

What is an averaged betting line?

Find out how often has your top ranked horse won over say 1500 bettable races and at what odds.  Then find what its ROI was on each odds or odds grouping.  In most cases, you will likely find that horses under a certain odds level are not profitable over the long run.  Thus, you need to know where the break-even odds level is.  If you then find that profit starts to show at 5-2, say, then that becomes the minimum acceptable odds for win betting your top choice.

This odds level, whatever you discover that it is from your records, will thus become the your automatic minimum betting line.  Now, you carry the research on through for each odds break until it shows a definite tail off in profits.  Let’s say that at 12-1 it shows a 15% profit over the data, however, at 13-1 it drops to 4% and at 14-1 its at a negative 1.5%.  You have now found your high cut-off at 12-1 or 13-1 if you want to accept 4%.

You have just handicapped yourself and turned that into an automatic betting line.  You should then always bet your top ranked horse at any odds from 5-2 to 12-1.  No need to make a line for every race!  Yes, it is time consuming, but only the first time!

Do the same research for your 2nd ranked contenders and 3rd ranked using your betting record data.  If you are a good and consistent handicapper, you will find that the odds groupings for each rank move up the scale. 

By doing this, everyone will have their own unique parameters.  However, if you bet those parameters that you set, you will automatically be betting for value.

Also remember, that the number in the field should be taken into account, the odds groupings will be different for 12 horse fields than for 6 horse fields!

If you do the above, you will be one of the rare few who has a unique and completely personalized betting approach to making consistent profits at the race track.

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