As soon as you call something a system there is no wiggle room. There is no ‘well this still looks like a good bet’ or ‘there’s no chance that horse is going to win it has one leg!’. If the horse/team/whatever fits the rules you are obliged to bet on it otherwise you are not giving the system a chance.

A system that I myself advised that is running pretty hot at the moment advised a massive bet which I consider to be an anomaly because the two teams involved are too evenly matched for the predicted result to be considered a ‘value bet’. You might think this is just my system showing its flaws but you will find these anamolous results in a number of systems in all sports. Just think of the last time you seen a selection come up in a system that you knew wasnt going to win, but it fit the rules for the system and the system had been running pretty good until this point.

This is why I say that a system should never be 100% followed, there should be flexibility in the system. For example imagine you bought a system that predicted draws in football matches. The next game that the system throws up is Liverpool vs Newcastle. All well and good this might be a draw, but then you learn from Sky Sports News that several of the Newcastle players are out with food poisoning. Should you still make the bet?

My point is this; a system has no way of knowing everything, a system cannot predict how a horse will fare in the weather conditions, it has no way of knowing what injuries have occurred making the result questionable.

Systems are facts and figures and that is it. It relies on how past events have unfolded to predict what will happen in the future, it has no way of keeping up with other events like the weather and injuries. This is where you come in; you add the human factor to betting systems and the better you are at refining and adjusting betting systems the better punter you will be.

So next time you buy a system do not blindly follow the selections it provides. Use the system as a general guide instead of a rigid rulebook. If a selection seems to be wrong because of X or Y then don’t back it, if a selection that you feel is a great value bet is not within the parameters of the system then adjust it slightly (as long as you have good reason for your bet!)

Also remember that systems don’t last forever, if a system is good and really does find inflated odds to secure profit sooner or later this gap is going to get closed out and your profit will shrink and disappear, it is at this point that your system depends on you instead of the other way around. When this happens it is up to you to adapt or die. This is a system that has been working for you, now you need to refine it so it works for you again.

So basically what I am saying here is that your knowledge is just as important as the profitability of a system. You should treat a system as an adviser, they are there to give you their opinion. You should use their selections, your own knowledge, recent news and any other piece of relevant information at your disposal to decide what to bet on.

Now the bet is the 2.5 goals market. It’s popularity is because of the high strike rates that can be attained if you know what you are doing.

2.5 goals can be confusing to those of you who are knew to football betting because we all know that there is no such thing as 0.5 of a goal. This figure is just there to split the difference between 2 goals and 3 goals ie. if you backed over you have effectively backed that there will be 3 or more goals, if backed under you have effectively backed  that there will be 2 or less goals.

This market is not quite as easy as people starting out think it is however. People just starting out will just look for two teams playing against each other who have scored a huge amount of goals in their past couple of games.

There are so many more variables at play than that, firstly is the defence of the two particular teams. The two teams may have both scored lots of goals in their last few games but it could also be that they have not conceded any goals either in their last few games meaning that their defence is solid as a rock at the time.

Just remember to think about more than just how many goals have been scored, think more of how many goals can be scored in the next match instead! Also don’t forget to check out the all new Goals Market Professional, it is an in-depth training course for Goals Market Betting!

Click here for more information about the Goals Market Professional

The truth was we only kind of follow a system. We follow a very basic system but the majority of our bets come from our research and a series of weighted variables based on a number of things. That is why when we made our system we included Advanced Training so that our customers were not just blindly following a system, they were researching and learning how to shape their skills to predict the goals market better.

The reason we bet on the goals market is simple, goals are a constant factor in games. Everything else has a tendancy to be inconsistent at the best of times, but you can always rely on the goals to keep coming or not coming if that is what you are betting on.

The 2.5 Goals market is not the only goal market you can bet on, but it is the ideal one. The 3.5 goal market does not have high enough odds to justify the  lower strike rate and the 1.5 and 0.5 goals markets have too low odds even though there is a much higher strike rate, as Goldilocks would say the 2.5 goal market is just right.

In play trading is always good in the 2.5 goals market. A common, and still profitable, technique is to back the Under 2.5 Goals on Betfair and then lay it off for a profit after 20-30 minutes. This bet is profitable because it is often easy to identify teams who have sluggish starts to a game and therefore unlikely to score in the first half. Even if there is a goal in the first 20-30 minutes it doesn’t mean all is lost as there still needs to be another 2 goals for your bet to fall apart, if you’re reasoning behind picking that particular game is strong you should win in the long run.

Anyway if you are interested in Goal Market Betting, and more specifically the 2.5 Goals Market I recommend you taking a look at our new guide Goals Market Professional, get involved and you’ll thank me later!

Click here for more information about the Goals Market Professional

Make sure you read that ‘for me’ I included at the end of that last sentence. Just because I am doing well laying horses does not guarantee you will succeed as well, it could just be I have a ‘gift’ at finding horses that just plain wont win. The way I do it and this is no big secret is I look for reasons a certain horse wont win the race, note this down and then look for other horses that can win in its place.

No big secret there; just find reasons the horse will not win and then find another horse that can win in it’s place. Then I lay off the horse that I dont think will win and take my profit! (For a more in depth look at how I determine what horses wont win check out the Losing Qualities guide.)

So that’s my big betting strategy! Sounds easy doesn’t it? Well before you go running off to betfair laying off horses left, right and center there are a few things you should keep in mind.

Don’t lay off huge priced horses – This is the fastest way to huge losses. Long priced horses do win and they will cripple you when they do. Especially because on betting exchanges long priced horses odds are even higher than they should be because of the inflated odds exchanges have.

Keep it short – Price and Field I mean. Under 4.5 odds is what I usually go for and is where I usually get the most profit.

Keep an eye on competitors – Remember you need a horses that can beat your lay as well. So it is no use if you lay off a 3/1 shot when the next horse is 12/1 to win. Check the size of the field and the odds of nearest competitors and keep this in mind.

So this post was only supposed to give you the basic idea of why I lay horses and to answer some of the questions I’ve received on the topic, I’ll leave it to you to do the proper research on your own, just remember with every type of betting the more you put in the more you get out. So do the work put in the effort and you will see the returns.

Also I cannot take all of the credit for laying horses being my biggest earner at the moment. Laying Horses Tipsters are probably my biggest monthly expense at the moment, an expense I consider to be totally worth it. The most profitable tipster I use is Martin’s Better Betting, which in the past 3 years has only had 3 losing months and is easily the cheapest of them all.

We would be wrong to completely overlook the value that can be found from spread betting on sports though as spread companies are just as fallable as standard bookmakers if not more so. When spread companies set their spreads they are not accurately reflecting what the actual spread is instead they make them in order to split the public down the middle thereby guaranteeing a profit for themselves.

Explanation: Say the spread for Total Points for England in a 20/20 match is 150-155. The betting company has made the spread at this level so that half of the money bet on this market is on the BUY and half of it is on the SELL. This means that the spread company will make a guaranteed profit considering they have successfully split the public.

Still not convinced? Well say to continue the example that the total wagered on this market was £1000 per point (that’s how spread betting works on a point basis) that means that £500 would have been bought at 155 and £500 would have been sold at 150. Now regardless of the actual result the spread company will win 5pts profit or £2500:

England Score 140 – SELLERS will make a combined profit of £5000 (150-140x£500). BUYERS will have made a combined loss of £7500 (155-140x£500) – Spread Company Profit = £2500

England Score 160 – BUYERS will make a combined profit of £2500 (160-155x£500). SELLERS will have made a combined loss of £5000 (160-150x£500) – Spread Company Profit = £2500

England Score 152- BUYERS will make a combined loss of £1500 (155-152x£500). SELLERS will have made a combined loss of £1000 (152-150x£500) – Spread Company Profit = £2500

Now given this knowledge on splitting the public the Professionals in the field, like my friend Tony Jenkins, will tell you that you should be SELLING more than BUYING because the psychology of the average man is to BUY the spread because of the ‘infinite’ profits available driving the spread higher as a result (If more people are BUYING than SELLING the spread will be higher so it splits the public).

I also agree with this thinking but I also notice that on some markets the spread is lower than expected, meaning a large number of people are selling and it is these opportunities I like to exploit. Either way you do it you should always look for inconsistencies between what the spread should be and what the spread is and then use this to make your profit.

For those of you who are reading this thinking “What the hell are you talking about, what in god’s name is Spread Betting?” then you should check out the guide written by my pal Tony Jenkins called Spread Professional. It’s only a fiver and is designed to give the basics plus some good tips to profitting in the world of spread betting.

Betting Underground is a complete step-by-step betting guide that starts from square one and includes strategies and systems not only for horse racing, but also virtually for all other sports – Baseball, Basketball, US/UK Soccer, US Football, Tennis, Cricket, etc.. Betting Underground is suitable for anyone who wants to make quick money on Betfair or on other bookies whether they are novice or seasoned punters.

I have just bought the system in question myself this morning and here are my thoughts on it:

For starters the number of exit pop-ups on that site was totally annoying and gave me the initial impressions of stay away scam, but I realise this is a viable marketing technique and I am here to do a review so I am continued on and bought anyway.

When I got to the thank you page I was pretty impressed to find that I had not only the main guide but then individual guides for each sport and 4 bonus guides to choose from. However what I later learned was that all of the individual sports guide were take directly from the main guide and only made into a seperate guide for ease of access I would expect.

The systems themselves are extremely basic and a lot of the time just well known and proven to not work systems (Martingale anyone?). I think the line that summed up why I will not be recommending this system to anyone is this:

Thus you bet the winnings from the previous game on the next game as well as in the Let it ride strategy.
If you are going to be successful 15 times in a row, you have the winnings paid out and start over.

Ah yes the let it ride strategy, a well known and profitable strategy indeed (sarcasm). Seriously though I can never recommend a guide that recommends the use of the ‘let it ride’ strategy, more over for 15 times before taking the winnings.

The system that I have hinted at above is basically a complex way of laying off 0-1 in football (UK) matches. Which is quite funny as the system makes you place three bets on three different outcomes with the only outcome missing being the 0-1 away win. The example they have given results in a $9 win from $100 if it is not 0-1, where they then tell you to let the winnings ride for 15 wins.

I would like to say that foolish systems like this were uncommon in this series of systems guide but I cannot there is a system that says if the away team have a player sent off by the 75 minute mark back that there will be another goal. Where are the past results to show that this isn’t anything more than a guess? Surely the odds will change after a red card to reflect that there might be another goal so we will not be able to get value in the long run.

Let’s move on from football, let’s check out what it says about baseball. According to this guide there are only two ways of betting on baseball, The Money Line and the Over/Under. This is news to me, all of these years I have been betting on the Run Line (+/- 1.5 runs remember that one?)

Again with the baseball system the rules are merely guesses that probably influence a game and I can guarantee are already reflected in the odds. Take for example this gem:

If you hit upon powerful offences that have been scoring consistently against a strong ERA pitcher, it is best to bet on the offences team. Betting on the team totals is advisable as the offences will score high runs for their team.

So if a team has been scoring lots of runs we should bet on them to score lots of runs? What a ridiculous statement, this statement would be the greatest betting strategy ever if we assume bookies are idiots and do not take past form into account when setting their lines and making their odds. Obviously a team that has been hitting good pitchers for multiple runs are going to have shorter odds on any overs bet than a normal side. Thus negating any gap in the market and resulting in losses in the long run. Also I have still failed to see any proof that any of these systems work.

Right well I think I may have made my point about this system but as I don’t get to do this an awful lot let’s take a look at the cricket system. To be honest I was quite impressed that there was a cricket system as it is not the most popular sport going but people still do like to bet on it.

Ah that is unlucky, the two pages that they have on cricket are not infact systems they just tell you what the different types of bets are.

So I think you know where I am going with this but I am going to have to put this in my failed category. This system in its entirety does not expose any gaps in the market to make long run profits which is what a system is supposed to do. Instead it goes into great detail on the  types of bets you can make and then proposes a system citing the only proof as one example, if that, where it was profitable for them.

I would possibly have said it was a good read for the professional gambler as they could get a few decent ideas from reading over these people’s theories but I can’t possibly endorse paying £27 for a system that is going to tell you to let it ride.

Also a small thing that annoyed me, the entire site is advertised in £’s leading you to believe that this guide is aimed at UK persons but then all through the book it uses American betting terms (parlays, soccer etc.). As a dual citizen of both countries I had no problem understanding but a normal UK person would have some troubles trying to decipher what all of these terms meant when for all intents and purposes it looks targetted to him.

Click here to go to the Betting Underground Site

1) If you see a horse in a handicap race carring more than one stone then you should think about betting on it. You will find that you will get some good odds on them because most backers will steer clear of them due to the large amount of extra weight they are carrying. However what you should think about is the fact that they would not have that much weight if they were not a good runner.

2) Back jockeys when they are in form. You will often find a jockey will win 3 or 4 times on the day. Especially if he is a big name like A P McCoy. When you see a big jockey like him winning a race in a day’s meeting then you should seriously consider backing him in the races that are coming later in the day. If you remember back when Frankie Dettori won a total of 7 races at the Royal Ascot. Imagine if you had backed him once he won the first horse, that would have been 6 races and 6 bets that you would have won, not bad.

3) The majority of races are won by horses that go off at 5/1 or less so remember this if you are going to be doing any multiples. 6/1 and 7/1 horses and higher will not be good selections for multiple bets.

4) Do not be put off by the price in the morning papers they are sometimes way off what the horse will go off on. I have actually seen a horses once that was evens in the paper that went off and won at 12/1. So keep this in mind when placing your bets.

The best way you can increase profits from horse racing is to use a proven tipster. The one I use is currently £500 in profit for the month and is only getting better! To find out what tipster I am talking about and to read a full review of their service then click here

Spread betting effectively rewards you for being right and the more right you are the more you will see rewarded to you in terms of profit. Take for example you think the game between Manchester United and Queens Park Rangers (Hypothetical example) will be high scoring. In this circumstance you will buy the total number of goals spread say at 2.5 for say ten pound. Now say the final whistle goes and the final score is 4-2 to Manchester United. Here you will have won £35 as each goal over 2.5 is worth £10 to you. Now say that the score was an astonishing 7-5 to Manchester United. You will have won £95. So your prediction of it being a high scoring game is worth more the more correct you were about that statement.

So as you can see from the previous example the more correct your feelings about a particular game turn out to be the more money goes into your profit. Now that is all well and good but how can you use this to make a killing from spread betting on football? The real key to achieving this is to realise the psychology of spread bettors.

The majority of spread bettors are thrill seekers; they love the feeling of a spread bet and like to play it out to the end. This is good we can use this. Now because most spread bettors are like this they are more likely to buy a spread than sell it. Why? Because what is more entertaining/exciting? Wanting a goal to go in or not wanting a goal to go in? Exactly.

So because of the psychology of the thrill seeking gambler we can deduce that most spread bettors will prefer to buy. Now how is this helpful? Well if more people are buying the spread than selling it what would you do as a spread betting company? You would raise the spread wouldn’t you! Now what we are seeing is an artificially raised spread because of thrill seeking gamblers, not high spreads because of real sporting circumstances.

And it is through these artificially raised spreads that you can make a killing from spread betting. If you want to learn more about Spread Betting and profiting from spread betting I recommend you read the Spread Professional. It really helped me a lot when I was getting to grips with all the jargon associated with this form of betting and it will really help you to.

Click here to visit the Spread Professional

Also for those of us currently residing in the UK it meant that we had to get our heads around decimal odds. However being able to lay horses was the real big thing to come from the exchanges. It meant that we, the betting public, could now make a decision as to whether a horse will win or not and if we did not think it would win instead of backing another horse as we would normally do we could lay it off. This was a totally radical new way of betting and one that has only gotten more and more popular since it’s invention.

The best thing people say about laying horses is that it is much easier to select a loser than it is to select a winner. That is to say if there were a 10 horse race it would be much easier for you to pick a horse that will not win the race than for you to pick a horse that will win the race. As we can see here you will undoubtedly have a much higher strike rate than ever before and you have the chance to start making the big profits like the bookmakers have been doing all along.

The drawback with laying horses to lose is that you have to put up with the liability involved if the horse does win. Take for example you lay a horse at 5.5 on the exchange to make a profit of £100 and it wins you will have to pay out £450 to the person who took you up on the bet. It is probably important to point out now is the reason why betfair is so popular is because it boasts higher odds than most traditional bookmakers.

On betfair the prices are said to be standardly 20% higher than at a traditional bookmaker. This means that you are still not in the same boat as the bookmakers as they are laying things off at considerably lower odds than you are. All of this is still not including the commission charged by betfair also!

Even after all of the disadvantages I have just mentioned I still love lay betting and I will tell you why; you do not have to do it for every race! Sure the bookmaker is compelled to offer odds for every horse on every race but you don’t have to, you can pick and choose and it is this reason and this reason alone why there is money to be made in laying horses

Just ask the boys over at Lay the Best what I am talking about, in the past 3 years lay betting has given them the chance to make over £80,000. Don’t believe me? Check out their results page for yourself by clicking here

There are literally thousands of horse racing systems available while only a few are actually of any value, so any newcomer should make sure to find some positive reviews of any system he tries out before shelling out any money on them. A good system will not only outline some rules and staking plan that the reader must adhere to but must also teach the user why he is doing this, otherwise a newcomer will just be blindly following along without learning anything whatsoever. Imagine in school if they had just told you the answers without the working out, you would never be able to move on to more advanced learnings would you!

Finding such a system that provides you with winners at the same time as it is giving you some foundationary knowledge on the sport will be hard, it will become a sort of trial and error with numerous systems which could be very expensive. The more astute punter will realise that genuine and up to date information is required to find a regular supply of winners. With this comes even greater obstacles, gaining such credible information can take years of research and networking within the social tiers of racing before you come to have the knowledge that some of the more die hard race enthusiasts have.

It is at this point where most punters decide to turn away from horse racing systems and start to look at horse racing tipsters to find themselves a healthy stream of winners. However even here you will find obstacles blocking your path. What service should you choose? You will need a service that is showing winners and has been showing winners for quite some time, preferably at least one year. The reason why you should look at how long they have been around is that most services that are showing losses for more than 2-3 months will lost near enough all of the members, so any service that has been around for over a year must be showing some form of profits to still have members on the books.

As shown already using horse racing systems and horse racing tipsters to provide a steady stream of winners will require a hit or miss approach when determining which particular system or tipster to use. So how then do we decide whether to use the tipster or the system in order to get winners coming up as a regular occurence?

My answer to you is to use both. Why both? Because using both will help you master horse racing much faster. If you have a professional tipster feeding you information on horses you will be gaining up to date knowledge of particular horses and how they are faring. If you have a system where you are finding horses yourself you will be learning the mechanics of handicapping races and hopefully making profits.

Hopefully when you combine the two you will be able to spot winners based on knowledge of the particular horse and based on more scientific reasoning as taught to you by your system.

The service I am using at the moment is called Martin’s Better Betting. It has shown profit for the past year and is still going strong. Take a look at the review I made of it last November by clicking here or clicking Martin’s Better Betting on the sidebar under ‘Approved Systems/Picks’.