Equotion - For years people have talked about horse racing "systems" that are able to accurately predict winners. From the people who tell you they are "plugged in" to the chatter of the yards to the people who tell you they can figure it out from current form, the number of people claiming to be able to deliver returns from racing have increased exponentially. The internet has given them new life and a new way to recruit followers. The only thing that links them all is that they are unable to demonstrate consistent, reliable, repeatable returns.
I read recently that 75% of race outcomes are "random and unpredictable". Someone else was suggesting that betting on favourites provided the best chance of winning - with a 35% strike rate. To some extent both of these viewpoints are correct. It is fair to say that the majority of races end with a horse unloved by the betting public winning. It is also fair to say that many races end with the favourite winning - but at such low odds that you don't earn back your stake on the favourites that lose.
At Equotion we have never suggested that you can be right every time. What we do is use data science to increase your chances of picking the winner. By using a unique and proprietary set of algorithms we have developed to analyse comparative form across each field of horses, ignoring traditional form and odds analysis, we are able to not only pick the most likely winning entry but also regularly select high value horses in the field.
The maths is simple - if you believe that you are looking at a two horse race (i.e. out of the field of 8 there are only 2 horses that could realistically win) and one of these is evens and the other 4/1, you back both horses. If the evens horse wins you break even, if the 4/1 horse wins you win. Unfortunately its never that simple in real life - but Equotion gets you pretty close to this level of understanding.
Bearing in mind that the results of each bet is binary (you either win or you don't) and that the return us usually a multiple of your stake, when you lose you lose a little and when you win you win a lot. Logically the best way to win is to spread your pot across a large number of smaller bets, thereby maximising your potential return and minimising the inevitable losses.
Equotion works by greatly increasing your chance of picking a winner. Furthermore, by not following the herd (thereby getting better prices on your selections) we have been able to constantly achieve somewhere close to our "target" scenario - selecting the winning horse on average 25% of the time at odds, on average, of greater than 6/1. This is the level required to provide the kind of returns we aim to deliver to our users.
In order to deliver a profitable and repeatable system, Equotion selects one horse in every race every day. It then looks at a number of factors (the level of probability difference between the top three horses, our accuracy at that racecourse, other tipsters etc) to "weight" your bets.
It might appear at first that betting on between 24 and 60 horses per day is a weird thing to do - it is certainly counter intuitive to the systems operated by many gamblers - but it does two things. Firstly it minimises the risk and secondly it allows you to hide in the noise. By not betting significant amounts on a few horses, the bookies in house systems don't tend to see you as a threat. Bet £1,000 on 3 horses per day and see how long you keep your account when one of them wins. Bet £3,000 on 50 horses per day and you are more likely to make profit and the bookies are less likely to close your account.
Our stats are displayed simply and straightforwardly with an easy to follow betting guide.
The Dashboard provides you with an at-a-glance view of the overall stats including overall returns updated in real time, a view of year on year accuracy and our racecourse accuracy levels.
The Subscription View provides you with a returns chart for the last 45 days and a view of progress today. Clicking on the date icon allows you to view the selections and winners from any day in the past and the navigation buttons organise the data on screen to make it easier to place all of your bets, check out one race or see the results as they come in.
Finally, the user preferences view allows you to set your betting parameters and tailer the betting system to your budget and risk appetite. This produces a set of suggested bets that match your selected betting strategy.
Equotion is a great tool to empower your betting and greatly improve your returns. The returns we show on site are based on the very most simplistic strategy - every horse, every race, regardless of odds or other factors. By using the system as an input to your daily betting routine, you may be able to win far more than our indicated return. Even if you want to continue to use other tools or approaches, or do your own thing with our data, betting with Equotion will be more profitable than traditional, unsupported "punting".
When we created Equotion we wanted to move horse betting away from the world of guesses, punts and stabs into the dark and into the realm of data led investing. We believe that we have done that...have a look for yourself and see if you agree.
How To Win With Equotion
Equotion uses the very latest big data analytics techniques to understand comparative form, yard performance, jockey performance and the impact of going, the draw, the race type, distance and a myriad of other factors to select horse / jockey combinations that have the best chance of winning the race.
As with any kind of risk based investing, we don't get it right every time...but we do get it right more often than most and deliver a far greater level of return than form based analysis.
On the site we provide the ability to look back through history at any days racing over the last 2 years...to see our selections and how we fared. We also provide hosts of statistics that allow you to monitor the performance of the tool.
The analysis we have done on this data provides a number of strategies that can be used in conjunction with the data on the site to deliver a betting approach that suits your needs.
Maximum Spread, Minimum Risk
For many people taking a long view is key to generating returns. In order to do this it is important that you don't lose your pot and that you are able to maintain your staking plan pretty much indefinitely.
The simplest strategy you can employ with Equation is to take 25% of your pot daily and spread this across every selection we make each day. This will mean placing between 20 and 75 bets each day, spreading your risk as widely as is possible.
This is the strategy that drives the results on the site and is as straightforward as it gets - you don't need to make any decisions, just tell the system how much you want to bet and it will provide the list of selections alongside the amount to bet on each.
Corroborated Staking
By taking our selections, rejecting those that are uncorroborated in the wider market (Racing Post provides a consolidated list of the newspaper tipsters) you are able to identify the bets that are supported by numerous tipsters using differing analytical methods. Looking at the Timeform and ProForm selections also provides additional insight.
Working this way you are likely to back more winners...but the winners are likely to be at much lower odds. Having to wait for visibility of other tipsters / selections means that you will miss out on the best prices.
That said, if you wanted to identify good choices for multiples (doubles, triples, multi folds etc) then this is a good way of minimising your risk.
Value Hunting
If you have a Turf Accountant subscription we provide you with our top 3 selections per race. By looking through the various suggestions and backing the long odds horses you can often drive very significant returns. This is a high risk strategy that is likely to leave you with a total loss on the day, but winning days can be very significant. This is often used in conjunction with a lower risk staking plan
Forecast Betting
Using Turf Accountant opens up the option of placing forecast bets. Taking our top 3 picks and backing these in races where the odds provide a reasonable change of making a return is a great way of driving significant returns. Again this is a high risk plan best used in conjunction with another lower risk plan or by only staking a low percentage of your pot.
Multiple Bets
Because Equotion greatly increases the odds of winning it is a great tool for deriving multiple bet plans. The best returns come from backing doubles out of a list of corroborated selections but it is possible to win on multi-fold bets if you have the time to analyse the cards a little deeper.
Totepool Betting
We have had considerable success placing TotePool bets - our best result this year was a £120 place pot bet that returned £3,900. You need a Turf Accountant subscription to do this and by selecting two of the three top selections for the first four legs and all three of the top subscriptions for the last two, you are able to maximise your chances of winning the pool and claiming the maximum number of units.
Coming Soon
We are in the process of developing a betting strategy screen that will allow you to apply control filters to the selections, reducing the overall number of bets you place whilst at the same time maintaining the win rates. This screen will allow you to filter on a whole raft of criteria including draw, yard / jockey selections, odds and our new Value metric (more later).
This will allow you to try out various strategies and see both the profitability and the maximum liability this will have generated in a given period. We believe that this, combined with the inherent accuracy of the Equation system, will be the last word in driving substantial returns from your race betting.
In Summary
Equotion represents the very latest in predictive analytics from large scale unstructured data sets. Using AI algorithms it provides you with the base information you need to place a variety of bets on the UK and Ireland horse racing markets.
This blog aims to provide you with the information you need to best utilise the site and to improve your own betting returns.
In the future we will share our moves into new markets, a wider array of sports betting and ultimately into the world of FX, Commodities and Share Dealing. Our predictive algorithms have a significant advantage over the incremental / volume / swarm trading solutions currently in the market - predicting the way the market will move then maximising returns by exploiting the way the current generation of solutions chase market movement.
2017 will be a pivotal year for Equotion and we hope you choose to be involved in our evolution.
