Why Keep Records?

Why keep records? Punters often ask why the keeping of records is considered so important by professional bettors. The answer is simple. We learn much more from our failures in life than we do from our successes. Sometimes it’s because our failure is public, involving some degree of humiliation, which of course we never want to repeat. Sometimes it’s because our failure could be in a relationship (social, romantic, or business), where we experience emotional pain, or financial loss. In these and similar situations we tend to look deeply into what went wrong. If we’re honest, we will even seriously consider whether all or some of the failure was our own fault!

Many years ago when I was selling door-to-door, an occupation many consider to be very high-pressure, I had constantly to deal with this perception on the part of potential customers. I found one good way was to imagine our roles reversed, and try to deal with my audience as I would like to be dealt with. Of course, sometimes no rapport could be struck which would facilitate a sale, despite initial prospects looking good. When this happened, naturally I rued the missed income and what appeared to be wasted time. The time would indeed have been wasted had I simply (under my breath as I was leaving) called the prospect a “turkey”, or some other derogatory term frequently used by the sales fraternity to describe people who they couldn’t bend to their will.

I found the real answer to this problem was to replay the conversation to myself, imagining re-phrasing my statements immediately before the sale went pear-shaped, and imagining also what the prospect might have said to my alternative proposition. I would do this repeatedly, trying to think of whatever the person might say to my blandishments. When I had something I thought might work better, I’d try it on the next person who raised that objection. One problem here was that there could be some lengthy period of time between encounters of this type, and I didn’t want to forget my new Idea, and be caught wrong-footed when the situation was ‘live’ again. So I would introduce the prospects’ objection for them, in a conversational manner, and answer it in the manner of a third-person account of some other discussion. Using this methodology, I was able to devise answers to almost every conceivable objection dogging that type of sales work, and can only recall one or two instances, out of thousands, where the prospects expressed the opinion that they felt pressured.

The point I’m making here is that my work then involved recording things. How many appointments I had each day, how many doors I had to knock to get those, how many sales resulted, the financial profit from each, how many days in a row I could produce sales, and so on. But the most important thing by far, was Accepting the fact that when I failed, it was my fault.

Of course, sometimes there was no reasoning with certain people, or they simply lied about their reasons for not buying; but even in those cases, I found that it paid to still consider that I could have done better. Over time, using this strategy, I found a steady improvement in my sales statistics, as well as a decline in the amount of stress I, as a commission salesman, experienced.

Hopefully, you can see the parallel nature of this situation, with that of punting. We could, when a horse we’ve bet on fails to do what we want, blame the animal, the jockey, the trainer, the weather, the stewards, etc, etc. But what good does that do us? It is far better to start by assuming that perhaps our analysis was wrong (even if it was not), since that will lead us some way towards a refinement.

When I first started on my current path, I used to have many more bets than I do now. As I examined my records, I realized that some bet types were more profitable than others. This enabled me to adjust my approach, resulting in a much better strike rate and POT. Eventually, I found I had a method which could also be marketable.

This process was only possible because I kept detailed records of every one of those bets. Without that information, I would have had no way of knowing which selections were consistent performers, and which could be profitably excluded. I was surprised myself, when analysis revealed that areas which I’d thought useful, were in fact a drain on the process. Of course, the time spent gathering and recording the information might have seemed like work to some folk, but if such activity leads to something we want, it’s worth it.

Part of this recording process involves analysing results by comparing what would have happened if different staking methods had been used. This means going over the same list at least several times (sometimes many more times), greatly adding to the time investment required. Again, that can seem like too much work for most punters, who, let’s face it, are betting because they want to get money quickly, without having to work hard for it!

A man I know, who has lost tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars over many years, once told me:
“I like favourites”

When I pointed out that it was a known statistical fact that it was impossible to make money backing favourites (unless one has some detailed method of identifying so-called ‘false favourites’ from the ones which do win often enough to guarantee a profit), he merely shrugged his shoulders and said
“Well, how are you supposed to do that?”

I told him that it was indeed impossible, unless one recorded and analysed the results of every bet, and that it was most likely that he chose favourites because they represented the work of thousands of other punters’ selection processes, which he was either too time-poor or lazy to replicate for himself. It’s a fairly safe assumption that many, if not most favourite backers, make the same error, which would go a long way towards establishing the dismal success rate of favourites, which hovers between the 30-33% range.

However, even with such a poor return rate, there are people who do profit from backing favourites, but they have detailed selection processes, and cleverly-constructed staking plans, to overcome the inevitable runs of outs, which are an unavoidable hazard in horse racing.

Summary

The extra work we can choose to undertake can provide the bonus of knowing you’re succeeding at something where 98-99% of punters fail; making a long-term profit. Most punters bet for many years of their lives. Even long-term losers, if their habit isn’t out of control and they do it basically for fun, enjoy their occasional good wins. But if a punter wants to bet for a long time, why not plan to be a long-term winner? It’s a lot more fun. And as an added bonus, fun usually ceases to be regarded as work…

My personal experience is that I’ve grown to love the challenge of confronting a pile of apparently inscrutable statistics, and unravelling the paths (there are many) to a successful series of punts. These days, I get about as much fun from that as I do from winning bets…

If you ever get the chance to see a professional punter in action (which I was fortunate enough to see on TV some years ago), you’ll be struck by how they have everything written down in a book (or these days, it’s likely to be an iPad). These are people who are willing to bet up to a million or more in a year, and make 10-20% profit. It’s a safe bet they have more detailed records at home or in their offices. Whatever the methods employed, and there are many which can be successful, record keeping is the boss-stone in the arch keeping it all hanging together.