Be a better bettor: Dave Nevison's five gold wins for Christmas and the New Year
By Dave Nevison
Last Updated: Tue 5 Dec 2023
Betting expert Dave Nevison suggests five ways which may help your punting over the coming days and beyond.
The racing betting landscape has certainly changed a lot over the years, and seems set to change even more in 2020 with the likely megamerger of Sky Bet, Paddy Power and . That will inevitably lead to a tightening of choice and competition for punters.
I have been asked to give a few observations and pointers on staying ahead of the game, a task that has been made a little less onerous by the fact that I have actually managed to be nicely in front this year. That has become progressively more difficult as bookies and exchange players set against each other become more sophisticated and accomplished.
My regular tips on racingtv.com are showing a good profit (as are all my colleagues on the site, which is really remarkable) and I do strongly believe that the feeling of responsibility gives me a more focussed edge.
1 SHARE AND CHECK YOUR OPINIONS WITH TRUSTED ALLIES
In my punting heyday, I always worked with someone and my conclusion is that it just must be beneficial to share opinions and get a second view before finally committing to having a bet.
It is not unusual for me to come up with a stone cold certainty that I am advocating having “the lot” on only to have a blindingly obvious downside to my enthusiasm pointed out by a mate.
Even broadcaster of the year, Lydia Hislop, has her ideas rubbished on a weekly basis on the Road to Cheltenham by Ruby Walsh, and sometimes vice-versa, so even though it is unlikely you will have both these two on speed dial getting a valuable second opinion before stepping in is not a sign of weakness but in fact a measure of a rational approach.
2 SPECIALIZE, DON’T TRY TO STAY ON TOP OF EVERYTHING
Dave focuses on the handicaps
I also have to admit that I just cannot keep up with all the form any longer and no longer try.
I used to be able to do a whole card from top to bottom each day and on good days even do two, but those days are gone for me, my declining brain cannot store and certainly can no longer retain all that information.
Luckily, my computer can and approaching punting without access to an excellent database is impossible in my view given the amount of racing nowadays.
I no longer concentrate entirely on the one card I might be travelling to. Instead, I focus on the handicaps, unless there is something maybe a two-year-old I have seen with my own eyes that I just have to be with.
I know my colleague Eddie Freemantle does not bet over jumps, or in races over more than 10 furlongs, so he has cut it differently, but cut things nonetheless. I wish anyone luck at trying to stay on top of all elements of racing but I am not attempting to anymore.
I decry the limited amount of choice available in the market but bookmakers are competing for your money and will give you a spin for a while and let you access the bold prices in the pricewise box.
It will last for varying lengths of time depending on how quickly they tumble you might be a bad risk. Then you will be unceremoniously closed down or severely limited, they are after all businesses that want your money and definitely want to keep theirs. They do offer sweets, my advice is take them while they are there but don’t expect them forever.
3 BET EACH-WAY AND DO MULTIPLES WHEN THINGS ARE IN YOUR FAVOUR
I generally bet everything each-way, even my short-priced fancies. I have read various articles and my own conclusion is that each-way, at standard terms, advantages the punter.
I feel I must be right because on course, where bookies are not enforced to bet at standard terms, they generally don’t. So how can I be wrong? Extra place races are the ones I look for first of all. Maybe I have been seduced into having a few more bets than I should have but I do feel they have kept my in the game longer at times.
I got paid out on the eighth-placed runner in the Sky Bet Ebor both as a single and as part of a five-horse each-way accumulator and that certainly would not have happened a few years ago.
Bookies have obviously reacted to the bad each-way races and trimmed the prices of the second and third favourites to prevent the multiples, but I now find that looking at the favourites s in this sort of race is now the way to go for each-way multiples.
4 NEVER CASH OUT
Two elements of betting do fascinate me enormously: the option to “cash out” and the exchanges.
Cash out is the new tool bookies are using to seduce punters, and if I have one piece of advice for the New Year it is resist ever doing so. The money offered looks attractive, but the price you are paying for that is enormous.
When Annie Power was apparently on the brink of putting the bookmaking world out of business at Cheltenham in 2015, a number of punters came up to me in the betting ring showing me their phones with varying cash out amounts offered.
“Better to live one day as a lion than a lifetime as a sheep” was my advice and on that occasion I was spectacularly wrong.
However, I massively stand by my view. If every time you put yourself in a good winning position you then give the bookie his money back on his terms then you probably shouldn’t have had the bet in the first place as you clearly do not think you can win!
If you are tempted to cash out, look instead at the betting exchanges as the margins to lay your horse will be much better.
Obviously, it ties up funds most likely with a separate account but presumably only for an hour or so as one side of the bet will be a winner. However, exchanges are difficult to beat. I have not finished in front on exchanges this year or last, though I have done very well in the past.
5 IF BETTING NEAR THE OFF, CHECK EXCHANGE MOVES
The sharpest players in the game compete with each other in exchange markets but, a little like at a casino, the 2 or 3 per cent that gets dropped down the hole in the middle of table wins every race.
The exchange market often develops very late, in the immediate minutes before the off.
All the heroes who used to put up bold prices overnight have long gone under, so you have to be extremely confident and a very good judge to win long term.
Just because something looks a big price does not mean it can’t get bigger.
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