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Learning how to bet on horses
Horse betting is an art by itself and many books have been written on the subject. Many well known authors like Steve Davidowitz, Tom Ainslie, Charles Carroll, Dick Mitchell and Tom Brohamer have written so called handicapping books, which is the terminology used for what would be called a strategy guide when talking about other betting games like the ones played in casinos.
Like with casino books there are beginners’ guides available, the strategy (handicapping) guides and the occasional book on the history of horse betting.
Reading up on a little history on horse betting is never a bad thing and you can’t go wrong there. With the other types of books it is another matter and one needs to take care not to fall victim to a scam. It is very important to always check the source where the guides are coming from.
While it is important to learn the rules of the game by reading a beginners guide or two, be careful when applying a strategy guide. Unlike strategy guides for casino games, handicapping books generally provide methods of picking winners that work. However, most of the available works are so well known that the method is saturated and provide no real advantage over the other bettors.
Some of these methods are so well known that they have actually been incorporated into the past performance records found in the daily racing form. Picking winners in horse betting is about finding winners the general betting audience has overlooked, and that is an art that cannot be taught by a book and only experience can bring.
This being said it is advisable to read some of the rule books on horse betting, especially when you are new to the game. It is always important to be familiar with the game and at the very least understand the terminology that is used in the game you are betting on. Beginners’ guides to horse betting are available in all forms, from hardcopy to eBook. The latter is recommended as those eBooks usually are free to download and contain the same vital information their hardcopy counterparts do, which are not free and have to be bought.
Anything other than the basics needs to come from experience and can’t be learned from a book. So be careful when offered a so called handicapping book that will guarantee you winners every time, if it were true there would be a lot more people using it and that means the method in question is either saturated or has never worked at all.
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