Two Sydney based pro punters join us on the podcast this week to preview this year's Golden Slipper.

Nathan Snow and Dean the Trial Spy run through their speed maps, early form analysis and recommended betting strategy for the big race.

Punting Insights:

The profile of recent Golden Slipper winners

Does Vancouver deserve to be the warm favourite?

What needs to go right for Exosphere to win?

Who are the best roughies in the race?

Today’s Guest:

Dean the Trial Spy and Nathan Snow

Get the Transcript:

David: Hi everyone I’ve got Dean on the line as I wanted to run through a bit about the history of the Slipper, this year's speed map and also some value bets, potentially. Firstly, the barrier draw as you've done some analysis on that?

Dean: Yeah. There’s been 58 of the Slipper and the most prolific winning barrier is Barrier 1 with 9 wins. If you put them into groups of four, Barriers 1 to 4 have won 22, 5 to 8 have won 16, 9 to 12 have won 14 and 13 to 16 have won ix. Obviously, the key point there, I guess, is Vancouver who looks like he's going to come into the 15 after scratching. You know, only two horses had won from Barrier 15 or 16 in fifty-eight runnings. So, you know, he's got history against him there.

David: And what about in recent times, not just the barrier draw, but you've done some work on where the winners have come from in the run?

Dean: In '04, Dance Hero from gate two led all the way on the rail. In '05 Stratum from gate six led all the way on the rail. In '06, Miss Finland from gate seven was at the back, well back and hugged the rail. In '07, Forensics went from gate one, won that course on the rail. In '08, Sebring from gate five settled well back and hugged the rail. In '09, Phelan Ready from gate fifteen, uh dropped right back to last but hugged the rail. In 2010, Crystal Lily from gate one was good on the rail. In '11, Sepoy from gate eight was 3rd on the rail. In 2012, Pierro from gate one hugged the rail. In 2013, Overreach from gate eleven was third on the rail, and in 2014, Mossfun missed the start and hugged the rail the whole way to win.

So you can see a pattern there of recent Slipper winners over the last ten or eleven years, that you want to be on the fence.

David: All right. So how do you think it'll pan out this year? What does the speed map look like so far?

Dean: Well, I think Haptic leads from barrier three. It looks like Furnaces sort of tucks in and gets a lovely trail directly behind from gate one. Haybah has gate two, so that'll probably get a nice run, but take a sit. You know, I think it comes down to the tactics with riders out wide, you know, there are three sort of key pace horses going out wide, from a speed perspective. Headwater, from gate eleven, Speak Fondly from gate twelve, and Vancouver from gate eighteen. It's really going to have to come down to how they jump.

Headwater led in the Sliver Slipper, but then couldn't cross him in the five-course race in the Todman and got caught pretty wide outside Furnaces and Vancouver, so whether he is going to be able to get across in the race, will be interesting. Speak Fondly led last start but can take a sit, so a lot of them might try and get across and see if he can slot in, and Vancouver can jump well but it's also shown a propensity to miss the kick, so where he - and obviously from barrier eighteen, he's going to go a long way to determine his fate.

But, you know, you've got the speed of Haptic and Furnaces, they're still the ones guaranteed to get lovely ones, and then the question is would that speed come from out wide in there, and what pace.

David: So you talked about Vancouver there, and obviously he’s been a spruik horse for quite a while now, with the form that it’s in and the map that you've just spoken about there, would you want to be backing or laying it around the $3?

Dean: Vancouver was the best trialler out of the first set of two run trials on September 22.

Almost every week our podcast guest is an expert in their field, whether that's punting, training or riding.

But in 2014 we started tracking the journey of someone who wanted to go from an enthusiastic punter to a full-time professional.

On the show we find out how that progress has been over the last 12 months.

Punting Insights:

His learning curve over the last year

How he's learned to frame his own markets

The number of races he covers each week and his expected Profit on Turnover

Why being a full-time professional is no longer his goal

Today’s Guest:

Trent Orwin

Get the Transcript:

David Duffield: Thanks for joining us again Trent as we follow your journey. For those that missed the chat almost a year ago now, just to give a brief rundown of your background, you were someone that was bored with your accounting job and decided you wanted to become a full-time, professional punter.

You also understood that it was going to take some time and that there was a learning curve involved. When we last spoke you were putting in pretty much the equivalent of a full-time effort of around 40 hours a week. To go from a keen punter to a semi-professional. Tell us what's been happening over the last year or so.

Trent Orwin: The past year has been a fair learning curve. I think when I spoke to you last time I was looking at Gloucester Park which is my favorite track, my strongest point. I was also looking at Melton.

Since then I've scrapped Melton for a number of reasons. I've just found it tough trying to follow two different states. The racing is a completely different style. You've got to learn all the drivers, horses, trainers. It's just too many horses to keep track of so I've just completely isolated it to WA now. I'm looking onl at Gloucester Park now.

David Duffield: I understand why you'd want to focus on one state. A lot of guys we speak to that are successful have done the same thing. Why Gloucester park? You're a Victorian, why not Victoria or even New South Wales?

Trent Orwin: One of the reasons is with WA being such an isolated state you don't get too many interstate raiders turning up to Gloucester Park to race except for some of the featured races.

A good starting point is they are the same horses that race against each other. I don't have to look at the form for a New South Wales horse, trying to gauge how does that stack up against WA. Just with Victoria I've noticed a lot that there so many Victorian horses. You get your New South Wales horses coming down. You get Tasmanian horses coming up. It was just hard trying to look at their form lines through them whereas with Gloucester Park it's the same sort of horses. You can go well horse A beat horse B. Now here's horse C and it raced horse A.

You can put a line through the form. At times, when you are looking at one track there's only a couple of distances you can actually try to match up the time. Also, one of the parts that I enjoy, which a lot of people don't is the fact that there is bias at the track. I hear a lot of casual punters will complain that another leader won, another leader won. Well, why not use that to your advantage?

David Duffield: Does that track bias have anything to do with weather conditions?

Trent Orwin: It doesn't really matter from what I've seen. There's not too many meetings that I've covered where there has been a massive downpour of rain. Even when there was one that stands out was on the Mighty Quinn. He's more known to come from behind. He led in the pouring rain and just won. It didn't deter him. It's more the track itself. How they made the track short and straight. You want to be on the peg line. It's hard to make up ground from behind. The bias is there more times than not.

David Duffield: What about pricing your market? It's part art and part science. I know you've contacted someone like Ben Krahe about how he goes about it. How's that evolved over the last few months?

Scott Woodward is a highly successful NRL punter having produced 10 winning seasons over the last 11 years.

He joins us on the podcast to talk about the 2015 season.

Punting Insights:

His predictions for the Top 4 and Grand Final

Why he is convinced Souths won't win the premiership

Two teams written off by many but which Scott expects to play finals

The varying importance of game replays, stats and team contacts

Today’s Guest:

Scott Woodward heads up our premium NRL tips service.

Get the Transcript:

Transcript to be published Thursday March 5th.

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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.

On last week's Betting 360 podcast Matt Cosgriff gave us a really good insight into the evolution of on-course and corporate bookmaking in Australia, so this week we have followed that up by chatting with highly experienced Sydney bookmaker Garry Clarke.

Garry is a third generation bookie who has been involved in the racing industry for almost 50 years .

Punting Insights:

The evolution of on-course bookmaking over the years.

Why he does all of his own form and frames his own markets.

Why bookmaking and punting are almost the same thing.

The reasons why he likes track bias.

The common characteristics of successful punters.

Today’s Guest:

Garry Clarke

Transcript update:

There is no transcript available for this week's episode

Get More Betting 360

Make sure you don't miss our punting tips to come! Subscribe on:

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RSS

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or you can directly download this episode by right-clicking, Save As Here.

What Do You Think of the Show?

Drop by iTunes and leave a review

Share your thoughts as a comment below

Get connected via Facebook

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In this week's episode Dave catches up again with Betfair's former Senior Racing and Sports Trader Matt Cosgriff. He has plenty of betting and bookmaking insights to share having been in the industry for almost two decades now.

Punting Insights:...

Joining us on the podcast this week is Nathan Snow, undoubtedly one of Sydney’s smartest punters.

Following a bookmaking career at a relatively young age Nathan realised he could make more money punting and has become one one the leading players on the Sydney scene.

Punting Insights:

His starting point for analysing a race

What he looks for when doing video replays

The relative importance of trainers and jockeys

Why his outlay varies in line with his confidence levels

Today’s Guest:

Nathan Snow - Ratings Analyst

Get the Transcript:

David Duffield: It’s good to have a chat today and also good to have you on board, which we'll get onto a bit later on, but I just wanted to run through a bit about your background, for people that aren't familiar with you and your work. Just talk us through how you got involved in horse racing and betting and then onto the bookmaking career.

Nathan Snow: I sort of took a back route into racing actually. I had a pretty regulation childhood. I just had a desperate dad that took me to the TAB every Saturday and instilled a love of horses and gambling in me that way, and I did the regulation thing and went to uni and ended up landing a job as a bookie's clerk part time while I was at uni, on a Saturday, and just absolutely loved that and ended up finishing work and got a job in the city in a finance company, was hating that and just sort of punting away whenever I could and doing form and loving that.

Eventually my dad saw how unhappy I was and I hit him up for a little loan and I said, I want to have a crack at this and God bless him, he was just behind me a 100% and said, have a crack and do your best. Yeah, I got my bookie's license at the age of 23 and sort of went to Gosford and Wyong and Hawkesbury and made very small books out the back, just playing very small, learning my craft and learning by doing and had the time of my life. I was there for about four or five years, made it to the rails in Sydney and there was great fun, but unfortunately the crowds started disappearing from the race track and it became harder and harder to make a book and as an opinioned book, that was the worst thing because I’d do all this form and couldn't stay out there and do what I wanted to do.

So eventually I started punting Monday to Friday and bookmaking on Saturday. After a year or so of that, it just became apparent I was wasting my time on a Saturday and made the full time switch about four or five years ago.

David Duffield: When you were bookmaking, I think one of the things you said to me in the past was, you did the analysis and you found you were laying the horses that should be laid, but just because you had a relatively cautious approach, having your father's money involved and the like and lack of experience.

Nathan Snow: I knew I only had one crack at it and if I did my bankroll, that was the end of it and I'd have to go back to the real world and get a proper job and I definitely didn't want to do that, so I went out there super cautious. I played very scared and looking back, it's probably not the way you want to do a bookmaking career but, it was the best way for me to learn. After a few years of analysis, I could see I was doing a fortune in bet-backs, so I knew I was laying the right horses and I knew I was doing something right. It was just a lack of confidence and a lack of bankroll so I could start my betting bigger.

I just always, I still to this day, I bet very small compared to what I should be on my bankroll, because I'm just cautious. I want to keep doing what I love. I don't want to get a real job.

David Duffield: When you say you bet small, you're talking in percentage terms of your total bankroll?

Nathan Snow: Yeah, correct.

David Duffield: How were you doing the form in those days, because I know it’s evolved a lot since, but back then when you were going to rate them all from a bookmaker's perspective, what was the process?

Ben Krahe followed a career in bookmaking to venture out on his own as a professional punter more than three years ago.

He's been very successful ever since and on the podcast this week answers the rest of your listener questions we didn't get to in Episode 68. The focus is on form analysis and bet placement.

Punting Insights:

Why you should back more than one horse per race

How to frame your own markets

A market segment where the bookies often make mistakes

His approach to backing odds-on runners

The main reason why he won't bet the exotics

A great way to read the market moves

How to handle both falling and rising banks

Today’s Guest:

Ben Krahe

Get the Transcript:

David Duffield: The next question was, "I can't bring myself to back more than one horse in a race. If one doesn't stand out for value or it's winning hope, I stay away. Is this the correct approach?"

Ben Krahe: I think this is definitely not the correct approach for a few different reasons, Dave.

One I like to look at, let's say there's 3 horses which we consider of value, which one of those you're going to select? For instance, I don't actually make selections in races. I price every horse. Therefore, I don't have any favourite to which one I want to back I just back ones which are a value. For mine, if something is value, why does it matter whether it's 1, 2, or 3? Basically if you take 2 horses or 3 horses, you're combining, it's like you're backing those 3 versus the field. It's in effect that it's still a 2-horse race. You just got 2, 3, or 4 horses at your backing, versus 6 or 7 horses. In effect that's a 2-horse race still, but you're just coupling a few together.

The second way I like to look at it, let's take a soccer match for instance. How many times do people back the plus half, I think that is called. Let's say Australia is playing New Zealand, you’ve got a draw in there as well, so there's 3 options. Each time you'll see the people back the plus a half, which actually gives you 2 options of the 3. Or conversely, if you want to lay aside, you're backing the other 2 options. It's the same in horse racing. Let's say you don't like the favourite, and you're going to lay it on Betfair, let's say this 10 horse in the race, in effect you're actually backing 9 horses. There's many different ways to do it.

For mine, you can't just single out one horse, because which one are we actually putting on top? Just the favourite runner or the second one. What happens when one that is 10/1 rated wins at 20/1, and you've only backed the favourite because it's the shortest one that we got as value? You're going to be really doing your head in and that's when you're discipline is going to start to struggle.

For mine, I'm happy to back any horse that's value, because if someone says to you, "This is value. I want to take it. It doesn't matter whether it's 1, 2, 3, 4 horses in the race.

David Duffield: I saw a 60 Minutes interview with Billy Walters, the massive US sports guy and he said something like, much like what you were saying there, he's framed his market, but it's basically, if he's valued something at $10 he's a buyer at 8 and he's a seller at 12.

Ben Krahe: I mean you can even liken this to just general life, you know. If you went into the shop and saw a pair of jeans that are normally, $100 and they're $30, well you're going to buy them. If you saw a tee-shirt that's the same sort of value, you're going to buy it as well. Why just buy one thing? This way you're buying 2 or 3 things that are value and in the long run, as long as the ratings are right, you will end up winning.

Yes, your margins may be smaller, but what would you rather win, 8 or 9 or 10% consistently or win 30% one day, lose 30% the next day, win 30% the next day, etc., you know what I mean?

David Duffield: Yeah. The next part of that question is how do you form an accurate market and get tips on how to quickly frame your own market,

Ben Krahe spent many years on the 'dark side' as a bookmaker, initially on course and then framing markets for the corporates right from the early days.

But a little more than 3 years ago he went full-time as a professional harness racing punter and hasn't looked back since.

On the podcast this week we ask him the same questions we pitched to Nick Pinkerton. These are questions from our listeners keen to learn more about the skills and lifestyle of a successful professional.

Punting Insights:

How did he get started?

What is the biggest key to long-term success?

Why Ben turns Sky Channel off for most of the day

The importance of a proven staking plan

How he handles losing runs and maintains a work/life balance

Today’s Guest:

Ben Krahe

Get the Transcript:

David Duffield: Our last podcast episode was based around listener questions so I wanted to repeat the dose for yourself. What I'll do is run through the questions that we received which were, "What would you ask if you sat down for a quiet beer with a professional punter?" You're right to run through those?

Ben Krahe: Well, there's no such thing as a quiet beer with me, but sure.

David Duffield: Alright, well the first set of questions, you could broadly categorise it as getting started. How did you gain the confidence when starting out? I know you've got the bookmaking background, but how did you get any confidence to basically go solo as a professional punter?

Ben Krahe: Well, Dave, to put it bluntly, I had been to some bookmakers. I've been in around the traps and I take a lot of knowledge from all the bookmakers and even the professional punters that punted with me. I like to put all that in the memory bank hopefully. One day, I decided to leave the bookmaking side of it and had a little bit of a bankroll behind me and decided, "Let's give it a go for real this time." I've always thought I was good enough to do it, but I didn't have the discipline to do it. We gave it a go, and 3 1/2 years later or whatever it is, we're still doing it. Something's going okay.

David Duffield: In terms of getting started and then the ongoing stuff, well, I know you’re pretty meticulously do records, did you already have the mindset and also the ... I'm not sure of what the exact word is. Did you do that consistently, the record keeping side of things before you went professional, or only once you got started?

Ben Krahe: I probably did it for about 6 months before. That was another thing that influenced my decision to be able to go out by myself. I just decided we've got to make sure you can do it.

But keeping records is the main way to do it. Now as you've outlined, I keep a record of every bet I've had, every track it's at. I can tell you where I win and where I don't, and that's pretty much how we narrow down where we do a bit.

David Duffield: So we had a question. It's probably not as relevant for you being a ratings based punter. It says, "What is regarded as an acceptable strike rate for a serious punter to aim for, or is there another measure that should guide a punter?”

Ben Krahe: Well, as you said, I don't really go on strike rates and I don't think anyone really does. I mean for a start, you got to make a profit that's obvious. If you can make somewhere above ... I would say somewhere above bank interest. If you can make 7% or 8% or 10%, you're flying in my books.

There wouldn't be 1% of punters that they even win, let alone get close to winning. If you can make somewhere around that just under 10%, by the time you think of all the turnover you're doing in a year, that's quite a lot. You can make six figures out of it. I'm not a millionaire and never will be but we don’t big enough to do that. But as long as we're getting by and that's the way I look at it.

David Duffield: You might be a millionaire if there was a bookie who’d take your bets.

Ben Krahe: No. Maybe a million baht but that's about it.

Last week on the podcast Nick Pinkerton answered questions from our members on how to get started as a serious punter including skills, lifestyle, mindset and form analysis.

In part two of our chat (below) Nick focuses on how, when and where to plac...