Any long term betting strategy also needs a sound financial strategy.  Think of it in business terms.  You have adopted a selection strategy and combined with a betting strategy.  The missing component is the capital base and how that capital base is going to be handled.

The first thing to do is to have some clear financial goals.  For example, the goal might be something like “I want to consistently earn $2,000 per week so that I can retire from my day job and make an income from betting on thoroughbreds.”  Clearly this is  a very ambitious goal and would require (a) a lot of initial capital or (b) betting tactics that would allow that necessary capital to be built up.

Alternatively, the goal might be more modest; something like “I want to make a profit of $10,000 per annum from my betting strategy and use that money to fund an annual overseas holiday for me and my family.”

The first step is to establish  a bank.  This is your “risk capital” and is the sum you are prepared to put up and indeed prepared to lose if it comes to the crunch.  Having adopted a selection strategy, you now combine that with a betting strategy to go with it.

You have taken my advice and will never risk anymore than 5% of your initial bank on any one selection.  This means you could have 20 losing bets before you ran out of capital. Frankly, if you have more than 10 losing bets, you would need to take a long hard look at your selection method as clearly, it is not delivering.

Or alternatively, you could risk only 2.5% of your initial bank. This would be appropriate if your selection method was one which threw up longer priced winners but at a relatively low strike rate.

Let us assume your initial bank is $1,000, that you are risking 5% of your bank, that you select one winner out of every four bets, that you have four bets per week on average and the average winning dividend is $5. This would mean that in a typical week, your outlay is $200, the collect is $250, meaning a profit of $50.  This represents a profit on turnover (PTO) of 25%.  Trust me, if this scenario could be achieved, you would be on the “high road”.

Let us assume you kept your bets at $50 even though your bank is increasing.  After 20 weeks, your bank would be $2,000, meaning you have doubled your capital in less than six months.  At that point, you could then increase your standard bet to $100 and if your success rate continued, you would have $4,000 in your account after another 20 weeks, meaning a $3,000 profit in less than a year.  Not bad!!!!!

But, here is the word of warning.  Many, many punters start out with a very clear selection and investment strategy, have initial success and so change the plan.  Next thing they are chasing Pick 6’s, First 4’s, betting on greyhounds, listening to the spruiking of the Trackside team etc, etc and all of that disciplined approach goes out the window.

Remember, have a plan and stick to it.  Develop a selection strategy, combine that with a betting strategy and have a clear banking strategy.  Do those three things, make haste slowly, don’t be diverted from your plan (unless it is clear that a component, such as your selection strategy, is not working.  At worst, you will take a long time to lose your money (and if you are losing, have plenty of time to modify your components) while at best you will make a very nice profit and gain immense satisfaction from your efforts.