How Profitable Are Your Check Lists? & How Much Could They Save You?

Hi all

The other day I was reading a post on a blog called Mick’s Gamble. The post was titled ‘Two Form Horses Clash At Catterick’. In the post Mick analysed the chances of a few different horses and to me the analysis was quite in-depth (about 400 plus words), but by the end of  it Mick decided that he was not to have a bet.

I was so impressed by the discipline that Mick showed by doing all of that analysis and then deciding not to bet, that I asked him if there are any strategies that he uses to stay so disciplined.

This quote was part of Mick’s reply:

“Best strategy for remaining disciplined. Make up a checklist of what you’re looking for and don’t bet unless you can tick every box.”

I thought to myself it’s not surprising that Mick is a successful sports investor when he can think in such clear terms.

Moving to yesterday, I was reading a post called ‘Do your homework’ on the Sport is made for betting blog. The post explained that £66 was matched at 1000 in running on Betfair for the eventual winner of a race at Lingfield. The post then went on to explain that the probable explanation for the layers huge error was a last minute colours change for the winning horse.

So someone or a few people lost in total £66,000 because the colours had been changed and they had not noticed and then effectively laid the wrong horse! OUCH!!!

What strategy could we as sports investors use to safeguard against such a costly mistake happening to us?

Well one simple answer is to use a pre-race version of Mick’s checklist with one of  the boxes that asks the question: Are the colours for the horse as published?

I know that when we are in the thick of the action in the sports markets we need to react fast but I believe that a little prior planning using tools such as different versions of Mick’s check lists could make a massive difference to our sports investing returns.

I hope you enjoyed this post.

As usual any comments or questions appreciated.

Wishing you good luck

Mark