This week's special guest is someone who is living the dream of many punters.

Andrew Hannan is a successful full-time punter and our Betting 360 podcast chat focuses on how at a relatively young age he has been able to develop a ratings model for Melbourne racing that has a clear edge on the market.

Punting Insights:

Why he enjoys the challenge of betting as a full-time career.

The importance of speed maps, videos, trials, trainers and jockeys.

Why some form factors lose their profitable edge.

How all of that comes together in assessed prices.

Today’s Guest:

Andrew Hannan

Get the Transcript:

David Duffield: I wanted to talk to you about your background and also some Melbourne Metro ratings. Where did your interest in racing come from, just as a kid?

Andrew Hannan: Well it was interesting, cause I came from probably a different perspective to everyone else, as I didn't really have that deep knowledge or passion for racing as a kid. I mainly was one of those normal bandwagon guys who would jump on at the spring carnival and go to the races at Flemington here and there. I personally got interested in form analysis, instead of the actually the races themselves first.

It was only until really, simply horses like Black Caviar came along that I actually fell in love with the horse. It was actually form analysis that I fell in love with first, the puzzles and the interesting theories that people had about it. I got into that when I was 17 and started doing my own markets and analysis at that age.

I had some fantastic mentors like Deane Lester, who really helped me at the start, to gain a very basic understanding at first and then getting to the more complex things. Just really have learned a lot in a very short period of time. Still loving it just as much as I was back when I was a kid.

David Duffield: Sounds like you kind of skipped a few years, in a way, ou said that you're into the form analysis right from the start. Where do you start, at that time, when you don't have, say a decade in racing or a father to drag you along every Saturday. How did you go about learning the process of form analysis?

Andrew Hannan: It was basically just emailing people that I thought could help me. As I said, Dean Lester was one of those, I probably cluttered his inbox a bit too much to annoy him at the start. They were really gracious with their time and helping me sometimes ask, probably stupid questions to them, but I really was just quite ignorant at the start. They really helped me grow pretty quickly in doing probabilities for horse races.

Obviously I’ve gotten a lot better at as time has gone on and gotten to a point now where I'm really satisfied with the systems that we've implemented and hopefully can use those to find a few winners for the Champion Picks clients.

David Duffield: We had Nathan Snow on the podcast a couple of weeks ago and he mentioned that he really enjoys the mental challenge of it all, and there's eight puzzles to solve every afternoon. Do you have a similar approach?

Andrew Hannan: Yeah, absolutely. Although it's mainly the computer which is actually doing the probabilities, we still like to have a look at it ourselves and particularly the top races. I guess every analyst gets excited when the good horses and the spring comes around. The winters can be quite long for some of the analysts out there, but it's certainly something that we do really enjoy.

I guess the perfect example of that was just last week with Lankan Rupee versus Deep Field, it was a bit of a battle royale going on about who was selecting who. People were all putting their points forward- which were all very valid and obviously Lankan Rupee came over the top. We certainly- just like Nathan said - we certainly do enjoy the puzzles that we have to solve every weekend.

David Duffield: It's the, I suppose the positive advantage or expected value, whatever you want to call it, that appeals to you.