Traditionally, the bookmaker is your enemy. He is trying as hard as he can to make a profit from your betting and you are certainly trying to make a profit from him. The difference is these days that the "him" is just as.

If you , like the majority of Australians, have a mobile phone, you would have noticed that you are constantly being bombarded with offers from rival phone companies and even your own phone company and the first thing they want from you is to see your account so they can offer you the best possible deal. Telstra , if they currently hold your account, will come up with a match for any offer you get but only after their software analyses your account. They will tell you when you normally make phone calls, how long they last and if there are one or two numbers that you call more often than anything else. Once this is done, they will tailor a plan to work most efficiently for you. Sometimes your phone provider will call you out of the blue to offer you a price reduction on your existing account, just to ensure your loyalty.

These days, no one can afford to lose a customer.

Would it surprise you to learn that modern corporate bookmakers have similar software that analyses all of your betting patterns and habits? The difference is that they are not rushing out and telling you what your
strengths and weaknesses are. I am fairly confident, though, that they would be happy to tell you the basic information and I was able to obtain the following information about my own betting.

My bets can be anywhere i.e. I do not specialise in any one track or State. My bets are mainly for the win and quite often several horses in a race. The majority of my winners are at $5 or more. My account shows that I am a winning punter. Now as much as I am aware of all this I was surprised at the depth of the information at the bookmakers fingertips.

So how does this help the bookmaker? Firstly, they know that I win and they know when I am most likely to win. They also know that I am not attached to any one stable, track or State so that means I am not getting stable information. They know that they cannot beat me so if the level of my betting was high enough they would lay off the bets I have which would cause them to lose badly.

likely to be a corporate on line business.

The reason why my bets are of no concern is that I spread my bets so that when I do have big bets no one bookmaker will think I am a genius. If my normal average bet was say $100 and today I suddenly wanted $5,000 on a horse then they would take notice. A break in the pattern may indicate that I would be betting for someone else who perhaps did have some vital information on a horse.

The same applies to everyone. Maybe you are a horse owner. Your betting pattern suggest that you always have a $50 bet on your horses but when it is ready to win you would suddenly have $500 on it. The bookmaker knows you are the owner (it is in the racebook) so he now knows you expect it to win. Your bet is accepted but perhaps the bookmaker will now lay some of the risk somehwhere else.

If you asked your bookmaker for a report on your account you may be surprised. For a start you can find out just how much you are really winning or losing for the year. You could see for yourself what are really your
strengths and weaknesses. Now if you know you are winning on Sydney races but losing consistently in Melbourne, why wouldn't you put all your efforts and bets where you are strongest?

IAS (International All Sports), Sports Acumen, and others provide excellent account information which you can load down at your leisure. Analyse the information for yourself, remember these are the bets you actually placed and not the bets you just missed getting on etc. etc. Those reports are your actual betting, blow by blow and you will be able to see for yourself, where you are getting the best value and best results.

I hope you get a benefit from this article. If you have any comments email:

garry.r@hunterlink.net.au