The Most Important Number in Handicap Horse Racing for Profit

If you are like many people struggling with the difficult economic conditions in the United States, you may have thought about making money from horse racing as a possible way to supplement your income. While it is possible to make money betting on horses, it is very difficult to do it consistently or make a long-term profit. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is thinking that you have a very good chance of success with a small amount of cash.

A large amount of funds does not guarantee success in horse racing, but it helps. The average horse player goes through many ups and downs, as does the economy. There are good cycles and bad cycles. Having the money to survive is important and the player with insufficient funds often loses it all on a negative spin only to see as many winners as he would have if he had lasted long enough to stay in the game.

Does that mean that the amount in your bankroll is the most important number in your career handicap in horse racing? No, he does not do it. Although the bankroll is important, it is not the most important thing. The next number that comes to mind is the number of runs played. While you do have to play enough races to earn enough money, there is no magic number of races that will ensure success or fail.

If you try to play all the races instead of picking your places and the best bets, you will almost certainly lose, but the number of races is not more important than any other number. You can call this the golden mean of horse racing. Similar to the Fibonacci number found in the natural world. It is the ratio of a knight’s odds on the board, in other words, the price he will pay if he wins, compared to the actual odds that the knight will win.

The whole point of the handicap is to determine the realistic chances that each horse will win. When playing exotic bets, it is also important to determine where a horse is likely to end up if it does not win, for example, what will be second and third, etc. Why is this comparison of your chances of winning to the actual payout so important? The reason is that it is impossible to make a profit betting on horse racing unless you bet on horses that pay out enough to cover all bets and make a profit.

For example, if a horse has a 30% chance of winning, it will win 3 out of 10 races. If he bets it on each of those races for the minimum bet of $2, it will cost him $20. That means those three winning tickets will have to pay out a total of $20 just for you to break even. Anything over $20 is a profit. If you can master the handicap so that you can know precisely what a horse’s chances of winning might be, then you simply need to look at the odds board to find good bets.

I know this is easier said than done, but that’s how it’s done and the only way you can survive as a horse player and so it all comes down to that number, what the horse will pay.