Using the Racing Markets to Enhance ROI

There was a video posted today that I think can help some pure handicappers who sometimes struggle with betting. It's from Pizzola, and it solely focuses on betting markets, and betting market moves. 

In 1986 or 1996 or 2006, the odds board mattered - it was a free information source - but in 2026 it probably matters more than ever before. Understanding it, in my view (and it appears Rob, who is a successful sports bettor) is of utmost importance. 

A couple nuggets from the video - 

"The Gut Check". If you love a horse (in the video's case, a team or player prop) and the market is well outside your price, the chances you missed something is undeniably strong. Did we miss that the horse was buried in his last? Is the race condition built for this horse and there's a hidden big class drop we didn't see? Is there something nefarious at play? Is the pace scenario completely different than we imagine?

Time after time after time I find when my numbers are outside the market I missed something. 

On Chris's pod awhile back I noted that in 2006 if I saw a 8-1 horse I loved and had 3-1 I would likely bet with both fists, but in 2026 I am extremely cautious, oftentimes not betting the horse at all, or betting someone else. 

No, not all the time - I am against the market many times a month - and Rob addresses it in the video. But recognizing the characteristics and the patterns when the market is telling me I am wrong is a massive part of my current play.

Rob "treats the market movement as a free data input", and I thought this is very informative. This is exactly what CAW's do, and again on Chris's pod I talked a about an old story. It was regarding the legendary bettor Alan Woods going after a Triple Trio carryover in Hong Kong. He was watching the Betfair markets and said to his posse (as they were ready to fire hundreds of thousands of dollars into the pool) "I think we might be wrong on this lean boys". If a guy who is a defacto market maker in Hong Kong pools pay attention, we sure as hell should be. 

I think the warm and cuddly one ITP said years ago on twitter that he could take a sports bettor like Rob, hand them a betting exchange with 5% win juice, teach them a few things and within months they'd be very competitive betting horses. I think one of the reasons he said that is because high level sports bettors can read markets better than most, and they put aside their egos enough to gain an edge with it. Recognizing if a market is real or memorex is super important today. 

Have a nice Thursday everyone. I hope you enjoy the video.

Sports Streaming Costs & Racing Pricing - Both are Probably Built to Fail

I was recently wondering where to watch an F1 car race in the U.S. and saw it's on Apple, after ESPN lost the rights.  This app, to just watch a car race, joins many other subscription sites that are needed to watch sports. Like Amazon's to watch Thursday Night Football, Netflix's to watch Christmas Day NFL games, and Peacock's to watch an NFL playoff game (and I'm sure I'm missing many others). 

The U.S. congress has began looking into these practices. Leaving aside that I don't blame you if you cringe when the government does such things, it's probably a discussion worth having, right?

Americans are pretty rich (disposable per capita income in the US is around $63k versus Canada's $35k for example), but when is the cost too much even for them? One would think it has to come, and the market will have to correct. But there to me is the problem.

The sports broadcast market is so fractured, to change pricing and distribution, you have to unravel TV deals that are 5 or 10 years out, with five or six or ten different entities. And we can't forget player power - the first time the NFL salary cap is proposed to be reduced, there's going to be hell to pay from the NFLPA. 

Demand can go down and revenue can crack, but to fix it, the response will be like solving several Rubik's cubes (without AI) with your hands tied behind your back.

I can't help but think it's a lot like our sport. 

Horse racing moved to excess as a monopoly - we got tons of money in from government and slots, handle was growing with the Internet betting advantage - and nothing moved. It was virtually the status quo. 

Then the cracks game; handle fell, interest fell, and the sport lost gamblers to other games and vocations. This happened year after year. Every one of us saw it and lived it. 

And still nothing moved. Takeout is as high or higher than 10 years ago; than 20 years ago. Effective takeout with CAW's has risen even more than that. 

The retail player has been demolished, and continues to be, while the sport did and does virtually nothing (ABR party buses and Youtube influencers don't count). 

This sport - just like the streaming environment - is complex, with tentacles and fiefdoms as far as the eye can see. It can't solve multiple Rubik's cubes, hell I don't think it can solve one, even with AI.

For McDonald's, global supply change issues with the pandemic resulted in a 40% increase in menu prices from 2020-2024. Because consumers expected it, the gravy train of high prices helped profits at the food giant..... until they didn't. 

When demand fell, McDonald's (and others) pivoted. Suddenly, less than a year later we could order $4 meal deals for breakfast and $1 coffees again. 

McDonald's saw the change in demand and had no choice but to respond. It was fast and commensurate - it was exactly the way things should work. 

Racing could never have hoped to have done that. And, in my view (which might be worth what you pay to read it), logically the sports leagues will find themselves in the same boat at some point. The NFL and MLB and F1 are structured a lot closer to the 5th at Churchill than they are to a fast food joint. 

Have a nice day everyone!

Doug Breaks Down the "Custom" PP's (With Vet Notes)

One of the more informative videos I have seen in some time was from Dougie Sal on twitter. 

It's in reference to the "custom" PP's post that's been floating around social media. There's a ton of information in the piece from someone who is pretty sharp, and knows the inner workings of the game. 

These PP's are fairly straightforward, however what's caught most people's eye are the vet notes supplied in them. The notes include dates of injections and shockwave therapy treatments. 

I'm no vet - I didn't even stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night - but from what I know, shockwave therapy is generally used for tendon or soft tissues. It helps a sore horse and supposedly speeds up healing.  I don't know the current regulations, but with the "off date" listed on these PP's I would surmise you can't enter a horse within one month after a treatment. 

Injections are fairly routine, and it looks like we're looking at two weeks pause for some (which is one of the reasons a lot of trainers don't enter back within 15 days). 

Shockwave being a month makes sense, as well, because this is a pretty powerful treatment (again, as I have understood it). For Toronto area handicappers you may have heard the rumors over the years (in the wild west of the 2000-2010 era especially) about specific trainer-owned shock wave machines.  The rumor was they were using it on, or a couple of days, before race day; which is flat-out cheating and frowned upon for obvious reasons. 

I really liked that Doug broke this down, because this is the back side of the game that many don't know.  We've read some opinion about how we'd like to get rid of HISA, or regulatory vets, and we should "smoke em if you got em". But injecting, or shockwaving near race day, or the many other backstretch remedies to make a horse "go faster" are dangerous practices. Someone has to look out for the horses, and this is one way they do. 

Have a great Monday everyone. And thanks for taking the time to do the video Doug.