Some years ago, a bookmaking
acquaintance of mine told me he loved how I always bet to a system
because people who bet to systems always lost their money systematically.
I thought about that deeply for a long time as it worried me that
he may be right - and he almost was except he left one very important
word out of the sentence.
To be correct he needed to use the word "losing". Then,
correctly, he would have said he loved how people bet on losing systems
because they lost systematically.
Conversely, it therefore logically
follows that people who bet on winning systems MUST win systematically.
And what are the other alternatives to betting to "a system"?
To go to the TAB or track or bet at
HOME on your computer UNsystematically? Well that doesn't make a
great deal of sense then does it?
Throw $20 on the favourite
because it's drawn well and then in the next race whizz $40 on an
outsider because it's form reads 005 or some other crazy system that
contains no logic?
Investing on horse racing or greyhound racing should be treated the
same as any other investment strategy in life you undertake.
Would you invest in short term bonds without knowing anything about
the company or the interest rate you were going to get? Of course
not.
Would you pay good money for a car if you didn't know it had a more
than reasonable chance of getting you safely from point A to point
B and back again? Again, it's patently obvious the answer is no.
To profit IN THE LONG TERM you have to have two "systems"
going for you:
a) a "system" of selection that you have trialled over a
sufficiently long period to have the confidence in long term profitability
b) a "system" of investment on the selections that you believe
have a good chance of success.
Any other approach would logically seem doomed to failure.
