The Winning Ticket

Churchill Breeders Cup Nov 4, 2006

About... The Winning Ticket.


You have seen hundreds of different tout sheets. They are published in various newspapers, are available on line and are sold in grandstands and news shops everywhere.

If you are a complete novice and are just out for an enjoyable afternoon at the track, following a tout’s selections probably makes sense. You can enjoy the food, your companions and the thrill of the stretch calls. You are probably a casual better and there is no real need to think very deeply about your wagering. If you win, that’s great. If you don’t, well, no great loss. ItŐs a small price to pay for an afternoon of entertainment.

If you are more serious about your wagering, however, you have a dilemma. You don’t have the time to devote to serious, professional handicapping but you know that conventional tip sheets are useless. After all, they are written by journalists and not by professional gamblers. A journalist generates words and thoughts on paper and gets a consistent paycheck every week. A racing journalist has no risk. Given those rules, anyone can create a tip sheet. Learn enough about the horses to list your picks, write a couple articles for the paper and pick up your paycheck every Friday. Not a bad gig. It certainly works for the Journalist and his family, it works for the very casual bettor but it sure doesn’t work for most racing fans. It is an absolute waste of effort and space.

As a professional gambler and full time horse player, I know that opinions about the outcome of a race are just that until you back that opinion up with real money. I don’t mean ten and twenty dollar wagers. And I don’t mean one day every other weekend. I mean Wednesday afternoons when the civil servants are in their cubicles and the doctors are out on the golf courses. I mean Sunday afternoons when Aunt Midge is in town and wants nothing more than to visit the Strawberry Festival. I mean pouring over the advance entries when most of the world, and all the Journalists, are watching American Idol or Law and Order. Being a professional at anything, including any form of gambling, requires a heck of a lot of time and total dedication to the craft.

Enough general background; fast forward to today and The Winning Ticket. As you can see, The Winning Ticket is a simple two page tout sheet. Novice players can look down the left side of the ticket and find the projected running order for a race. It’s great for them. But how is the ticket different for more serious players?

First, we assume a majority of the bettors looking at The Ticket have a pretty decent understanding of the races and have their own methods of handicapping. The problem for them is TIME. Between the job, family obligations, other hobbies, friends, etc., most people simply do not have the TIME necessary to properly study an entire race card. They love the action, oh yes, but the lack of preparation can end up costing people a majority of their betting bank-rolls. This problem is compounded by the fact that as you sit there watching your favorite track, you probably would like to bet on another track or even a few other tracks simultaneously. Now, there is no question that TIME is your problem. We eliminate much of that problem for you by directing you to the races that are most bettor friendly and the types of wagers you might want to focus on in that race. Next, we give you a brief few line highlight of the most important factors that play a part in the outcome of the particular race. Armed with that information, you can make a reasonable choice on whether or not to handicap the race. Following your handicapping, you can compare it to our probable order of finish. We don’t want you to blindly follow our picks. We won’t always be correct; this is a game of variables. But armed with our information and analysis, you should be correct more often than you would have been alone.

Second, The Winning Ticket is prepared by true, professional race players. By that I mean, people who sit at the track or in the VIP room of an OTB parlor, day after day and night after night. Take me, The Player, for example. Right now, in July, I will be following action at many of the major betting tracks: Belmont, Churchill, Hollywood, Calder, Monmouth. Arlington and Woodbine as well as my favorite betting track Mountaineer. I’ll also play select races at Pimlico, Louisiana Downs, Bay Meadows, Delaware, Lone Star, Finger Lakes and Thistledown. Typically I am watching races and playing horses from 12:30 until 11:00 most every day. Some days, the action begins a little later and on some days it ends a little earlier but it’s a safe bet that for a majority of those 10 1/2 hours, seven days a week, I will be in front of a bank of screens. Even if I choose to play from home I have my own betting terminal there along with a wall of televisions with cable and multiple satellite inputs. For another two hours a day, I will be in front of a computer, crunching numbers or selecting data to make my job that day easier. And if I am lucky I will be able to go on-line and watch a few dozen race replays that set up key opportunities for me for the future. And if betting isn’t enough, I have close partners in different ventures that own a significant number of race horses running throughout the USA. I “advise” them on claims, on race placement, on veterinary treatment (I am trained as a biochemist in my real life) as well as on a number of other related factors. Ninety percent of my phone calls are from trainers, owners, horseplayers or officials at betting venues. Still not convinced I “live” horses deeply enough to trust my opinion, well, if I walk out into my “yard’ all you will see is paddocks and mamas and their NY bred babies grazing on the lush Saratoga spring grasses.

Not only do I bring my entire lifetime of experience to The Winning Ticket, I have help. While perhaps being the best gambler in my group, I am probably actually the worst handicapper. And I am not trying to be humble when I say that. The truth is being the worst here is kind of like being the ugliest in a group of the five best looking woman on earth or the dumbest in a group of the ten top IQ’s on record. The point here is, &ldquo:we can bring it.”

Now, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. You can plainly see how hard we work and how much we value our information. The Winning Ticket is free. Free at selected racetracks and betting venues. Free at WinningGoneWild.com. And free on a number of other websites worldwide.

What’s the catch? Why free? Why would I try to get this information in front of tens of thousands of bettors every day. Obviously, if the information was good and they followed my picks, it would hurt my prices. More money would pour into the pools on the horses we recommended and liked and our pay-offs, in real dollars, would diminish.

That’s true. But it isn’t as self destructive as it appears. Let me explain. First off, when we really get it going, The Winning Ticket might focus on five or six races at two or three major tracks. The tracks we will cover has A LOT of money flowing into the betting pools and, no matter how successful The Winning ticket becomes, we will not SIGNIFICANTLY undermine our payoffs. Most importantly, remember, we are not directing you what specifically to play. We are only highlighting the most relevant variable in the race and advising you on what we might do at race-time. But as all horseplayers know, thing change every minute as a specific race draws near. There is NO WAY POSSIBLE we can predict scratches which can dramatically alter the pace and therefore outcome of a race. Nor can we guess as the weather conditions. The track bias that day. A jock down with the flu. How an individual horse is warming up. Or even the betting trends of the public. Some of the races we highlight, we’ll pass betting ourselves. Others we’ll actually change the way we are betting given the last moment circumstances. The Winning Ticket isn’t intended to be anything more than a general guide for bettors. Honestly, we called this The Winning Ticket not The Ten Commandments.

If you are the skeptical sort, you are probably thinking, ok, makes sense, but why do it at all? There must be more to it.

Actually, you are right. There is a method to my madness.

First, as I pointed out it is impossible to get what is sometimes the most important information, the last minute information, via a delivery system like The Winning Ticket. After all, we have to create it, print it, distribute it or publish it on the Web and so forth. So it can never be as last minute accurate as we would like.

But you all have cell phones and most of you have video iPods which will soon be able to scoop last minute information out of the air the same way you receive text messages on your phone. See where this is going? The Winning Ticket will help you enormously, we expect. But it cannot by definition be the ultimate service since it isn’t immediate to the race. But wireless messaging; well that is truly another story. Perhaps a few months after The Winning Ticket is has proven itself as the best tip sheet available, we will have a pre race text, audio or even video messaging service available. The service might have a small cost associated with it. Or best yet it might be free supported totally by advertising. Or supported by a legal betting venue looking for a percentage of your action.

So, there you have a little information about The Winning Ticket. Now, perhaps since I am doing all the talking (or writing), you might be starting to identify a little with me and are beginning to wonder, why I am identifying myself as “The Player,” rather than by my name. Simple, really, I am not a Journalist so I am under no obligation to behave like one. In fact, by accident, if I do anything that reminds you of a Journalist please write me an e-mail and upbraid me! That would include playing it safe, being politically correct and skirting the truth on the really central issues to race performance and to winning. The Player keeps it real. And I am more likely to keep on keeping it real if I am not worrying about one of you out there taking offense to the truth and deciding to come shoot out my porch light. Just joking, of course. Actually, I am just using a pseudonym for the same reasons that infants cry... they can. I have no problems with pseudonyms.... I encourage you all to go to Winning Gone Wild for a free membership and sign up with a screen name you feel is appropriate for you.