Every year we all want to back the winner of the Melbourne Cup and many dream of also being the winning owner. It's well out of the reach for almost everyone, but a new venture known as the Cup Club is looking to change that.

They were featured in the Financial Review this week Cup Club’s non-profit ownership: winners not winnings.

So this week on the podcast we have Cup Club CEO Jason Cornell to explain more about an innovative approach to the thrill of racehorse ownership.

Punting Insights You'll Find:

What is the Cup Club and who is involved in the management team?

How is it different to a syndication company?

What do you get with a monthly membership?

Which horses in the stable are in for a big Spring?

Today’s Guest:

Jason Cornell - Cup Club

Get the Transcript:

David Duffield: Thanks for joining us Jason. If you could just start by letting people know what is The Cup Club?

Jason Cornell: Yeah, thanks Dave it's a membership club. It's like being in the coterie group of your footy club. It's a premium membership experience that we provide an ownership experience at the raceday and a number of exclusive events for members and our goal is to have a winner in the Melbourne Cup and have a lot of fun along the way. Obviously we're buying staying type of horses so if they don't make it to the Melbourne Cup there's a lot of other staying races and prize money in Australia on offer.

David Duffield: So it's really about the enjoyment of being a very, very small owner of the horse rather than striking it rich by winning a big race and enjoying all the prize money?

Jason Cornell: Yeah, it's really an alternative as you and your listeners would know. The alternative is to buy, for example, a 5% share in a yearling that may or may not make it even to a country race meeting. A lot of our members are horse owners and have got shares in other horses but The Cup Club is that different type of experience. We're very fortunate to be in some pretty exclusive syndicates with some top quality horses but the main thing about our club is definitely not about financial return. Anybody that even asks about a financial return I say, "Well this is not for you." It's all about the experience, it's about the networking, it's about creating some pretty premium racing events.

David Duffield: And what's your background in racing and also the founder, John Wall?

Jason Cornell: Firstly, John set up The Cub Club over 12 months ago now. He had shares in a couple of horses firstly, Quest For Peace and Kelinni, through both OTI and Darren Dance last year. His aim for The Cup Club was exactly that. He was running it by himself.

My background, I've spent 17 years in Hong Kong, very big on the punting side but was lucky enough to work with what I call the greatest monopoly in the world. I worked for the Hong Kong Jockey Club. I was in charge of sponsorship and marketing. Came back to Australia and was looking for an opportunity in the thoroughbred world and even though some of our race clubs you'd think would need somebody from the Hong Kong Jockey Club, haven't been able to do that. But I met John and I created a company called Owner For A Day, you might have heard. I did Owner For A Day with Fiorente, for the Australian Cup, for charity, for 4 Tracks 4 Kids. John Wall was pretty impressed with that as a marketing idea and he said he'd back Owner For A Day but in the meantime I had to run The Cup Club and I think some of our philosophies are very much the same. We're just trying to attract a lot more people and a much broader reach of people to what we think is the best marketing that racing's got. That is that ownership experience at the race track. At the present time I don't know - whose responsibility is that? Is it the racing jurisdictions? Is it the race clubs? Is it the syndicators? It's a really complex marketing field out there. We're trying to be very innovative in that field.

Michael Pryde is a full-time professional sports punter focusing on major sports like baseball, basketball and football.

He has developed models that run simulations on each game to find the team most likely to win the game (or cover the spread). When those projections differ to to the market, they become value bets.

Listen to this week's podcast or read the full transcript below for a number of valuable pointers for sports punters.

Punting Insights You'll Find:

How he progressed from a keen amateur to full-time pro

Why it's important to maintain a flexible mindset

The best betting options for maximum returns

Why big liquid markets present massive opportunities

Today’s Guest:

Michael Pryde - Sports Predictor Model

Get the Transcript:

David Duffield: Good to have a chat with you Michael. You've been with us for a little while, but never been on the podcast, so it’s good to talk. Why don't you just explain to the guys a little about your betting background and they might soon find out you're not an old grizzly veteran, but just run us through your background as a sports punter.

Michael Pryde: I'm one of six boys, so sports and gambling's been pretty much my childhood. Yeah, there's always been an interest there for sure. About four years ago, my older brother Matt and myself were interested in trying to find a way to find an edge with the AFL and NRL in Australia and after trying for about a season, we found that there's kind of like a lack of stats and fixtures to develop a long term edge. I mean, that's not to say that there aren't guys out there who have success, because I know there are, but using the statistical approach that we do, it wasn't really a vital option.

Then we kind of looked into the American sports and found that the multitude of stats available and fixtures suited us perfectly. It was from there that we developed an algorithm to take on the kind of the Vegas bookies. That developed over about a period of about six months, so yeah.

David Duffield: And then amongst that period of learning and experimenting, I think you started some actuarial studies. Do you just want to explain what they are?

Michael Pryde: Do you mean personally I started it?

David Duffield: Yeah, I think it's a fairly dry subject but it's one that has some points in common with what you do on the sports.

Michael Pryde: Yeah, personally I was studying actuarial studies at UNSW in Sydney and I mean, they don't really look at sport, but a lot of the foundations from that, pretty much all the foundation from that helped with this and it was kind of like a unique balance with the actuarial side and mathematical side to the sporting kind of life that this family is. It was a really good mix, kind of turned into what it is now. My older brother Matt, studied engineering as well, so he's got a really extensive mathematical background as well.

David Duffield: Because as an actuary, you're basically using data to access the likelihood of an event happening, often for insurance companies and the like.

Michael Pryde: Yeah, businesses and companies and models, the whole idea is to find out whether a system or model is going to work in the business world. This is kind of applying that to the sport team world. A lot of the ideas are carried right through into both kind of fields.

David Duffield: With the American sports, like you said, the bonus is there's just so much sport played whether it's the amount of baseball games per day or college football on a weekend, and NBA every team plays eighty odd times. So the opportunity's there and you can also get a decent bet on so there's a couple of big bonuses, but in finding a model that works, you're trying to beat a fairly efficient market or very efficient market. How do you go about testing your theories and seeing if you've got an edge to do what you need to, which is achieve a solid profit?

Michael Pryde: Well at the start of every season,

Our Senior Form Analyst Rick Williams returns to the podcast this week to discuss betting on favourites.

These horses (by definition) carry more punters money than any other so it's worth knowing the difference between a false favourite and a true one.

We've analysed the last two racing seasons to look at a number of scenarios where favourites are overbet and others where you can find some value. We discuss these on the podcast and you can download the accompanying pdf on backing favourites.

Punting Insights You'll Find:

The best tracks and track conditions to bet on favourites

The best (and worst) trainers and jockeys

When field size is important

Which barriers are the most profitable

The importance of fitness

Whether unlucky runners out-perform the market

Today’s Guest:

Rick Williams

Get the Transcript:

David Duffield: I’ve put together a few stats. Now I know the way you approach things it's only a very small part of what you look at. Being data driven, it's more about the class and the speed ratings and the sectional times and that type of data more so than just generic stats, but I thought this might be a bit of a talking point.

Looking at the record of favourites over the last 2 years I've broken them down by area. In a small percentage way, the metro area is underperforming or you'd lose money a little bit quicker than country or provincial. Any reason you could see behind that? This is looking at the last two years, so a full 24 months of data.

Rick Williams: Even in some of our own analysis on our information, metro versus country and provincial, there does seem to be some discrepancies in different measurements. As far as this measurement goes, I'm not quite sure exactly why the country and provincial are about equal and a little bit better than metro. Certainly the racing can be quite different. I'm not exactly sure why there's a bit of a difference there, but from my experience it's not a surprise to see the difference.

David Duffield: Because we had someone feed a whole heap of data we have for internal use through their pretty sophisticated software, and it did come up with the fact that the mix that you need to look at or to consider is different, metro racing versus country racing and even to provincial.

Rick Williams: Yes, if you're looking at a variable weighting of model contributors to a rating- If you had four measurements, and you included them in your rating saying everything would be equal as a starting point, then running it through a program and asking it to give you what means more of those four in order for metro Saturdays, to metro mid-week, to provincial, to country, it changes a lot for a few of those different things and certainly the sample size is significant. This doesn't surprise me. It goes a little bit with what we've experienced.

David Duffield: What about the track condition? Again, this is probably not surprising. It would confirm what a lot of people think and that is the wetter the track, the less reliable the form, or the more work you have to do.

Rick Williams: Yeah, if you're looking at favourites, the more you or the market favours a horse, I guess the more certain you are. To be very certain, you need to have less doubt. To have less doubt, you need less variables. When you analyse the information when tracks get wet, there's more variables. There's just a host of different variables that come into it. I guess the market is very stats driven, so the stats do tend to probably stack up more on the better ground and deteriorate as far as their accuracy as the ground gets more rain affected.

David Duffield: What about the record of favourites by state because there's not a lot of difference other than Victoria's a bit of an outlier. The performance of favourites in Victoria in the last couple years has been, in relative terms, poor.

Rick Williams: It's a significant margin, isn't it? I don't really know the answer,

Deane Lester has spent a lifetime in the racing industry and has a big following from his work with RSN, Sky Sports Radio and many other media outlets. For a number of years now he has been widely respected as one of the best form analysts in the count...

Gerard Daffy is an Australian sports betting and online gambling pioneer having been involved in the bookmaking industry all his adult life.

In this episode Gerard discusses the AFL and NRL season so far and looks ahead to the finals including futures betting.

Punting Insights You’ll Find

Why this year has been such a good one

The three times each week when the line will move

The teams he is happy to keep as winners in Tatt's book

How and why punters often over-react to just one game

Today’s Guest:

Gerard Daffy

Get the Transcript:

David: We’re only a month or so away from the footy finals so I wanted to talk to you about the season so far and of course what we’ve got to look forward to over the next couple of months, starting with AFL. How has the season been so far for Tatts?

Gerard: It’s been a pretty good year in all codes, so many upsets in this day and age. I just had a look the other day. Leading into this weekend in AFL, we’ve had 153 matches. Only 105 favorites won and that’s probably been the poorest winning record we’ve had in recent history particularly since we’ve had the newer sides in the competition. Most thought that the competition would be one sided.

It probably was to some degree over the last 2 seasons but it’s definitely averaged out now and we’ve seen a lot more shocks.

David: So in horse racing when there is a blowout winner though they say it’s a good result for the bookies. Is that the same in AFL where if it’s a big upset, it tends to be a big result?

Gerard: Well not really because in a field of 2, the other side is always going to be backed, backed the outsider particularly for those who don’t want to take the short prices. I guess the best example of it we’ve seen so far this season was the recent win by St. Kilda win over Fremantle. St. Kilda were $14 but we actually took 4 times as many individual bets on St. Kilda as what we did for Fremantle, just value punters or people who’ve got sides that they support and they back them week in week out but having said that, obviously when a $1.03 pop goes over and there are always matching results because there’s so much business now done through multi’s. While your singles book you might lose on it, ultimately, with a lot of people now focusing on multi’s or trying to pick 2 or 3 wins or maybe even the whole round, once an outsider gets up, that’s normally enough for you to break it square at least for the weekend.

David: With a result like that when Freo are $1.03 do you get much action at the line or plus or minus the points as you do for a straight bet?

Gerard: You do. A lot of people do turn their focus to the lines and it’s interesting looking at those because again, 153 games this season, only 75 favorites have covered the lines and that’s less than 50%. While you might think that these teams will win by big margins, it doesn’t always go that way. A lot of them take their foot off their pedal. They might come out of the blocks and lead by a big margin but it doesn’t always transpire that that will go on throughout the game.

It does get very dangerous at this time of the year. Once sides have consolidated their position either in the 8 in or out of it. There’s not a lot to gain by beating sides by 20 goals so you run the risk of say, some of those bigger sides risking players or not even playing them in the first instance. Taking minuses has never been my cup of tea anyway but more importantly from this time of the year onwards, it gets extremely dangerous.

David: You mentioned 153 games and 75 favorites have covered so the bookies are doing a reasonable job because that’s only a game and half off the perfect 50/50.

Gerard: Yeah, that’s right and I suppose when it’s a $1.90 take you pick, in theory you’d want to be more than 50% in your favor anyway and that would be enough to win on a level staking plan, but given that most of the money is used for the favorites anyway.

There are only a handful of people in the country who could honestly say that they have lived off the punt for the last 25 years.

This week's special guest Greg Lethe is one of them, having been a professional greyhound racing punter since 1980.

...

In part one of the 'Framing a market' podcast last week we had pro punter (and former bookmaker) Ben Krahe explain his approach to rating every runner in the race.

This week we have the contrasting view of Rick Williams, our Senior Form Analyst here at Champion Picks.

He operates very differently to Ben so it's good to learn more about another way a professional goes about the business of finding value.

Punting Insights You’ll Find

Some of the methods and people who have influenced Rick's approach

The process of turning raw data into a rated price

When to incorporate subjective assessments

How he decides which races to bet into and which to avoid

Get the Transcript:

David Duffield: Let's have a chat about framing your market and market percentages. How do you explain to people that are semi-serious punters or even just a casual punter, how do you explain market percentages to them?

Rick Williams: Basically I think the simplest analogy is ... How much it's going to cost you to return a hundred dollars, so if you had a hundred percent market and you were to back every horse would cost you a hundred dollars to return a hundred, proportionately, or if the bookie's market were say a hundred and thirty percent, then you were to back all of those horses, it would cost you a $130 dollars to get back your $100. That's obviously where a wider margin help to make themselves some money. We try and keep it up, our market, around 100% and in our favor.

David Duffield: Do you care whether it's 108% market in Sydney on a Saturday, or whether it's 135% on a midweeker. Does that come into your thinking at all?

Rick Williams: Look, I think it does but I guess it's relative to what your rating the horses, and I guess where you sort of might be getting a lot of value for your money if it is 135%, but you do like one, you might want to go to hard in that race, but if you've got a really competitive market such as Sydney where they get down to 108 or 105 to 108 on a Saturday. That's good value and good shopping, so you might want to attack it and spend up there because you're getting good value for your money from the marketplace, and if you're backing horses that you think are value also, then in turn you're getting value again.

David Duffield: So the markets that we put out are framed to 100%, and there might be some that are 99 and a half or 100 and a half depending on some rounding ... I had a chat with Ben Krahe, the harness racing analyst, and he frames his markets to 120% and then uses a spreadsheet to bring that back to 100. A lot of that comes down to pushing the outsiders out to an even bigger price. Do you just work the whole time with a 100% market?

Rick Williams: Pretty much. I mean I’ve got a function where I can make it whatever I want just at the push of a button, I sort of work around that, and I have a couple of prices, so when I sort of create the market, I'll have a price that will come up on a few different factors, and sort of will help me understand. For example, I might have a horse come up 5000-to-1 or something like that on one particular scale, and then that will, I guess as you said, he will penalize the other horses, while I've sort of got those types of indicators in there to tell me rating set A says this is 5000-to-1, rating set B says it's 100-to-1, well we can probably make it longer than a 100-to-1, so there's a couple of different ways to look at it, but certainly the longshots should be longer, generally speaking, looking at the markets.

David Duffield: You've got a hell of a lot of data there to work with. Some of it's publicly available form, some of it's by subscription, like Vince Accardi and then some of it's developed internally like the class, speed and the base ratings. How do you go from the raw data into a rated price?

Rick Williams: It's a process that I first got into through reading a lot of books from Don Scott,

Ben Krahe spent many years framing markets as a bookie and backing his judgement against some of the big players.

In recent times he has made his living as a professional punter focusing on harness racing.

So he's in a great position to share his insights into how to frame a market and rate every runner in the race.

Punting Insights You'll Find

Market percentages explained in layman's terms

Why framing a market as a bookie requires a different mindset to that of a punter

Some of the most important factors he considers when doing the form

Why he starts with a 120% market before bringing that back to 100%

The reason he backs every single overlay

Get the Transcript:

David Duffield: All right Ben, how are you going?

Ben Krahe: Good thanks Dave, yourself?

David Duffield: Yeah, going really well, thanks. I just wanted to get you back on the podcast to talk about framing your market and percentages. I had a few questions along those lines recently so if you're talking to a novice punter or more of a weekend punter, how do you even explain market percentages?

Ben Krahe: That's a good question. To put it in layman's terms, if a bookmaker is betting 120%, in theory the bookmaker should win 20%. I mean, that's in theory and all things being equal and that's if they lay the same amount of money to lose a certain amount on every horse, then the bookmaker will in theory make 20%.

This never happens because a bookmaker will never lay every horse for the same amount of money but in theory, that's the basis behind it.

David Duffield: All right so when they talk about a 100% market, in theory you can back every runner and come out square.

Ben Krahe: Correct.

David Duffield: So 120%, the market's framed in favor of the bookmaker. What about, as an analyst or putting together a market where you're trying to find overlays, what percentage are you framing your market to?

Ben Krahe: I always do a market to 120 or 130% originally. It's just because, being an ex-bookmaker it's just the way I was brought to do it and that way the other bookmakers usually go up about the same.

What I do then is I convert it to a 100% market and that way anything that we get which is over the odds, we theoretically should be making money. As long as, of course, I've rated it correctly.

David Duffield: All right, is it just the bookmaking background or how have you found that to be a better system to do 120% and then bring it back to 100 as opposed to just starting there?

Ben Krahe: The way I do it is, I've also developed a spreadsheet which sort of changes things. If you just do a straight 100% market, I'll give you an example. I might mark something 100 to 1 but when I put it through my spreadsheet it might spit it out at 500 or 600 to 1, which is probably it's real chance in a 100% market.

If you're just going to frame a straight 100% market, are you really going to mark something for 600 to 1? I'm not too sure that you will so I like to do it at the 120, 130%. I whack it through my spreadsheet, which has got a couple little secrets in it involving the long-shot favorite bias as we've discussed on this program many times.

It's not a straight conversion 100% but what it does is, it stretches the long-shots out a little bit more and it brings the favorites in a little bit more.

David Duffield: On the punting side, did you have a look at framing 90% or 95% or is it more, always do it at 100% and then just back all the overlays?

Ben Krahe: Look, there's a few ways to do it. I've got a couple of friends who are professional punters that frame markets 80% and that way they have a lot less bets. It's just whatever suits you and the way that we're doing it at the moment, I'm happy just to, I like to have a bit of a play every race. This way we have a bet in every race.

If you're doing 80%, you're probably only going to have 2 or 3 bets a day. If that's the way you want to go,

Daniel Weston returns to the Betting 360 podcast this week. He's a tennis betting expert who runs Tennis Ratings and produces a lot of stats and analysis that can help punters. He is also an expert contributor to the Pinnacle website.

Punting Insights:

How to approach betting on the unique grass court surface

Why big servers often under-perform in Grand Slams

Why there tends to be more upsets in the Women's game

Early value opportunities in the Men's and Women's tourneys

Some big name players that are well under the odds

Anyone that quotes 'Champion' when ordering a Tier Two Daily Spreadsheet can get 40 days subscription for the price of 30, or 4 months for the price of 3.

All product information can be seen on the Tennis Ratings product page.

Today's Guest:

Dan Weston

Get the Transcript:

David Duffield: G’day Dan and welcome back to the show.

I just want to get your take on grass court betting and, of course, Wimbledon. Grass is a pretty unique surface, so what's your approach in looking at value bets when it comes to the grass court season?

Daniel Weston: Grass is a completely different surface to the other three surfaces in the ATP tour, which are clay, hard court, or indoor hard. Grass is probably the closest to indoor hard in terms of the court speed. Grass being the fastest surface on tour, indoor hard being the second fastest, hard being the third fastest, and clay somewhat fourth.

It kind of brings some different tools to the part of the players. What they need to be good at. With grass, serve-volley game is a predominant tool, whereas on clay it's more focused towards base-liners.

You've got a player like Nicolas Mahut who's got a serve and volley game who's very effective on grass. He'll be a dangerous player in the draw for a seeded player. Could cause an upset, for example.

The fastest surface does make for very different conditions. Obviously the big servers are rewarded, they get a lot of big points on their serves, a lot of aces, a lot of unreturnable serves.

Looking at the stats on grass on the ATP tour, 82.4% of service games were held in 2013. That's a quite a bit up from the 78.6% all surface figure. That actually drops to the 75s for clay. You can see that grass is about 7% higher service hold than clay, which obviously has a slower speed and the biggest discrepancy between the two.

Wimbledon actually, conditions have been on the fast side of average in the last couple of years. In 2013, 83.7% of surface games were held, and 83% in 2012.

Conditions looking to likely be quite fast. Weather's been good in England in the last few weeks as well. Very little rain. The courts will probably be quite dry. I don't see that changing in terms of the conditions this year.

David Duffield: In the past you've mentioned that at Grand Slam events, the big servers can under perform? How do you marry that up against the fact that having a decent serve on grass can be such a bonus?

Daniel Weston: Well, it's a tough one. I think I still stand correct that a big server hasn't made past their quarterfinals, or... maybe it's one if you count Janowicz at Wimbledon last year, in recent memory.

I don't see that changing. The fact that it's a very fast surface with very few service breaks means that the big servers will actually have more variance in their matches, because they're going to be playing a lot of tie breaks. They're going to be playing a lot of one break sets.

Those kind of sets are determined on one or two key points a lot of the time. The variance for those guys is really high. You can see someone like John Isner losing like a 6-4, 6-7, 7-6, 7-6 kind of match, where there's really few breaks but he's just on the wrong end of a couple of key points.

Actually, he does play the key points quite well, but that was just an example that I was using. But then by the same token, you've got Ivo Karlovic, who could cause an upset,

It reads like a Hollywood movie script but it's actually a true story: Marisa Lankester is the daughter of a United Nations official and was raised in an affluent New York suburb. But her thrill-seeking nature led her from car racing to playing a key role in America's biggest illegal gambling organisation while still in her twenties.

It's a remarkable tale that that involves the mob, FBI raids, fugitives, jail time, corruption, offshore betting, sexual assault and more.

Punting Insights You'll Find

The enormous size of the illegal gambling industry in the USA

How a well educated woman ended up working for the mob

The story behind one of the world's great betting masterminds

The role of allegedly corrupt police and military officials

How she eventually got out of the business to live a more normal life

Today's Guest:

Marisa Lankester Dangerous Odds

Get the Transcript:

David Duffield: Sports betting down here in Australia is legal and widely advertised. How different would your life have been if that was the case in the land of the free, the USA?

Marisa Lankester: Well, off-track betting is permitted in many locations, but we were taking illegal bets on horses because I guess we could take more than you were permitted to at the track, and I think we also offered more exotic variations than you could just make legally.

David Duffield: And sports betting tends to dominate in America with all the pro and the college sports, but almost everywhere it's illegal outside of Nevada, so how does the typical American sports fan get a bet on?

Marisa Lankester: Well, $380 billion was wagered illegally last year. It's only legal in four states, but people aren't getting on an airplane and flying to Las Vegas to make a sporting bet. They usually have someone that they know, either in a bar or a friend of somebody who's taking bets, and that's how they're placing their bets.

David Duffield: Okay, so to take it back a bit in your career, in 1986, you were pretty young at the time, early 20s I believe and you were taking bets for one of the largest gambling organizations in the US. How did that come about?

Marisa Lankester: I was in Vancouver, and I participated in a car rally that went from Vancouver to Acapulco up to Alaska and back to Vancouver. It was three weeks long, and I met an American rally driver who happened to rig the telephone lines of Ron “The Cigar” Sacco's gambling operation, and they needed clerks. I had no idea how big this operation was or what I was getting myself into when I went down. I was just looking for some money and to enjoy some of that California sunshine.

David Duffield: It must have been a bit of an eye-opener for you when you saw the volume of bets coming in?

Marisa Lankester: Unbelievable. I knew nothing about gambling. It's legal in Canada. I didn't understand why it was illegal, but I was working in the big office where we were taking bets from the professional gamblers, the heavy hitters, so in 1986 we were taking $10,000 on football games, $5,000 on basketball games. Then we had parlays, round robins, and things. It was an enormous amount of money: $40 billion in bets in 1986.

David Duffield: That was '86, and then '87 I believe you ended up in jail?

Marisa Lankester: Yes, I did. I was actually arrested on the Kentucky Derby in I think it was May 2, 1987. That was my first arrest. I had actually started with the organization under the impression that the LAPD were paid off, and they were, in fact. We had a contact, but as we expanded to Vegas, we got the sheriff involved, so I was arrested and went back to work the very next day. We had another 1-800 line. I mean, everything's set up at a back-up location and we were back in business.

David Duffield: The whole operation was headed up by Ron “The Cigar” Sacco. What can you tell the listeners about him?

Marisa Lankester: I think he's been referred to as the godfather of gambling.