Lose Less by John Cutts
With kind permission, we will be serialising the new book from Punters Pal partner John Cutts over the next 12 months.
Early reviews for the book have been very positive with an overall 4.5 star rating as I type.
If you can’t wait for 12 months you can get it in paperback or on Kindle here
Preface
I have long felt the need to write this book.
I have not read a lot of books on horse racing betting but the ones I have left me no wiser after I read them.
They tend to be written (or ghost written) by ex-owners’ trainers or jockeys writing their memoirs, or pro gamblers with some stories but who give none of their ‘secrets’ away.
So, when the idea of finally (actually) writing a book came to me, I promised myself that the reader would finish the book having learned systems, methods, facts, that will help them in their future betting.
In fact, there are four or five “do this – do that – do this” systems in this book; the only logical guide to a ‘value’ price for a horse I have ever come across; and a guide to how to calculate the real (rather than the official) going, using race times.
As well as the experts keeping their secrets to themselves, another irritating thing has been the obvious padding of their books with irrelevant stories to make it look bigger and thus more ‘valuable’.
Obviously, memoirs are stories and needn’t offer any gambling advice.
But for me, a how-to, nonfiction book is worth what I learn from it and, though there are stories in my book, they are short and relevant to the discovery of this or that fact, system, method etc.
In short, I think there is a market for a book on horse racing betting that deals with topical debates like value vs winners, singles vs multiples, stake to size of bank ratios and more, but as the basis for immediately actionable advice rather than abstract nit picking.
Who am I to say? Well, I am no big shot pro gambler – that’s for sure!
My first bet was on Red Rum in the 1973 Grand National, so you can tell how long I have been betting.
But I was only a kid back then and didn’t begin betting seriously till the early nineties when my brother and I were introduced to the system selections of someone who we still call the London Bloke to this day, even though we have known his name for decades.
We learned a lot in a short time back then and have been learning ever since as we continue the search for the London Bloke’s system, which, for four and half years had an 80% strike rate at average odds against!
About a decade after his death, we had an inspiring winning run which we thought might enable us to quit the day job (glazing) and go pro. We also launched a new tipster service called Bet2Win.
We got rave reviews but, eventually, as with all systems, the bookies caught up with us. It still breaks even, and we still have some clients as subscribers for the selections even today – as part of other services in our portfolio.
So, since the 90’s we have learned lots of lessons. There are nearly 30 years of experience, 30 years of trial and error and 30 years of joy and despair in the pages of this book.
For the past decade we have had a blog called thepunterspal.com and I have spent the past six months sifting through hundreds of our blog posts to select the very best – the most enlightening and those which underpin the systems and methods we reveal in the book.
Since then, I have carefully edited and fact checked them.
So, I have spent a good six months putting this book together and it will take you an hour or so to read it. No fluff. A how – to book that tells you precisely what to do, how to do it, and why – the reasoning behind it.
The reasoning is important, so don’t make the mistake of skipping it as you will need belief if you are to withstand the inevitable losing runs on the way to the next winning cluster.
Today I have learned to make enjoying the racing the priority as well as running the site.
This book is written to save you 30 years of trial and error. I have done the work for you.
Not only that, but I want you to start enjoying your racing again.
My journey has been from casual, fun betting, punter, to stressed would-be pro gambler (in truth, more like semi pro) to well informed punter who approximately breaks even most of the time, has some bad days and some brilliant ones too.
I enjoy them all.
Not many people have hobbies that pay for themselves.
That’s where I want to take you.
If you want a guru, you are in the wrong place. This is not the definitive guide to backing horses. No such book exists – nor could.
This book is based on 10 years of blogs. My blogs work as a diary for me, and it serves you as well as me that I maximise their use.
Even if you are a pro, you should find something that improves your betting a shade (calculating your own going, for instance).
When you read on, you will enjoy either swearing at, or nodding in agreement with, what I have written on the principles.
One thing is for sure – it will make you think.
Warning some of my views go against the grain.
Fundamentally, this book is aimed at those who love horse racing as their main hobby and want to enjoy their hobby at minimum cost and/or, with some luck – a big win that changes their life.
Almost every chapter has immediately actionable advice and I can guarantee this is not your usual horse racing betting book.
My aim with this book is not just to show you what to do but also why.
Knowing the why will keep you going when the results are going against you.
Introduction
Vindication!
That was the overwhelming feeling as Tayarat landed the last leg of the 6-fold, shown below. No whooping, no dancing with joy – just vindication.
After all those years of snide remarks, “you’re wasting time”, “you’re wasting money” etc – vindication.
And all those ‘gurus’ who said only ‘mug punters’ bet multiples – who is the mug now?
It got me thinking, did that near 20K win put me in lifetime profit or in loss? I had no idea and I didn’t care. All I knew was I had an extra 20 Grand more in the bank now than I did in the morning.
All those years pouring through the form books, burning the midnight oil. Yet the selections above took me around an hour to find.
No stress, no rushing, I had picked these the night before and placed the bets then too.
All I had to do now was watch them on TV.
‘‘This is the life I thought’’, as I leaned back in my chair in the conservatory, where I was watching racing on AtTheRaces.
No betting bank, just betting what I could afford – and who can’t afford a pound?
No calculating stakes from race to race. All bets placed the night before.
No searching out the best odds – though being sure to take Best Odds Guaranteed (BOG). All on with one bookie last night.
Only around an hour or so of research.
And I have just watched my one-pound win 6-fold pay nearly 18,962 pounds!
In short, living like a ‘mug punter’ and loving it.
What it really takes to be a pro gambler
I doubt you have been told this before…
Perhaps you too have had that dream. Professional gambler sat on the train going to the races. Laptop open, Racing Post too perhaps, finalising things before we arrive at the course and start organising the placing of bets for the gigantic coup we have plotted up and which will make us rich and famous.
Then we wake up! Professional gamblers, those who make their income solely from gambling are so rare that I doubt anyone reading this is one or will ever become one.
There are many reasons for this which are only partly to do with the personal attributes necessary to make a good living out of betting – patience, discipline, tenacity, money management skills etc. No, the fundamental reason that even someone who has the pre-requisites for success fails is for the same reason the majority of small businesses fail – under capitalisation.
Money makes money
Denman’s former owner, and larger than life, big hitting, pro gambler, Harry Findlay, famously said that “No punter on the planet wins more than 8% of his turnover”. P11 of Patrick Veitch’s book Public Enemy Number One.
Let us suppose you could better that, and, to keep the maths simple, make 10% on your turnover. To better the average wage to earn say £30,000 per year, you would need to stake £300,000 per year! Ten times your profit.
This can be done – at one extreme, by placing around £800 a day on one horse and, at the other, by backing an average of 20 horses per day to £40 stakes.
But where to find 20 good selections a day or £800? By the way, if you think that 8% profit is on the conservative side bear in mind that the great pro gambler, Alex Bird, worked on 2% profit and packed it in when 4% betting tax was introduced.
The other part of the capitalisation thing is cash flow. If you back as necessary to make a profit of 10% on turnover you will have a lot of your bank tied up on an average day.
More than half your bank could be tied up.
Also, if you are looking for the best prices – and you should be – then you are going to have money tied up with lots of bookies.
You will surely be familiar with how it takes seconds to deposit money with the online bookies but a few days for it to appear back in your bank account!
Therefore, you really do need to have enough money to cover cash flow requirements, cover all the bets and to get the best prices.
So, while I do not want to discourage anyone who has the knowledge to make a profit, the cash to finance it all and the personal attributes (mainly the ability to keep at it through the inevitable losing runs – every famous pro I have read about had lost at least one bank – the winning runs are easy), I just wanted to introduce a note of caution so that anyone thinking of ‘going pro’ at least has some idea what they are getting themselves into.
Even as a hobby though, this can actually make you money.
So, is it all a waste of time then? If we can’t make a living out of racing why bother? Not at all.
First, it is fun. If it isn’t, why do it?
Secondly, it isn’t all or nothing. With at least some of the attributes listed above it is quite possible to supplement your income – some do!
Everyone has a hobby and, as I always used to tell my mates when I was on my way to the bookies and they on their way to the local pub on a Saturday, “I have a chance of walking out of the bookies with more money. Unless you hit the jackpot on the fruit machine, you will definitely walk out with less.”
What's more this hobby could completely change your life.
Ask Agnes Haddock who won £688,620 for a £2 Scoop 6 ticket based on names she liked!
Or the thousands of small stakes punters who took their share of the bookies’ £40 million pay out on Frankie Dettori’s Magnificent 7 accumulator at Ascot in 1996.
Of course, these are extremes, but I have had the big win I showed you, I should have won 30K a few years ago at Galway but for stinting on the perm just to save a few quid in stakes. I’ve also had many other 4 figure payouts. These examples are all to one pound unit stakes, by the way. Low risk – high reward.
Last Cheltenham (2021) I got a nice 1K treble up and would have had a 5K 4-fold acca had Windows Updates not taken my computer over for a couple of hours so I could not get the 4-fold bet on.
For the big win I showed you at the start all except the 16/1 winner came from the systems and strategies in this book. For the big festivals I use a mix of our portfolio and race trends.
In the next chapter, you will discover the motivation for devising the systems and strategies we now use. I hope they encourage you as much as they encouraged us.
Until next time…
We will continue our serialisation next month, if you would like to read the whole book right away you can buy it here