How To Win At Horse Racing Festivals

Winning At Horse Racing Festivals: Luck Or Skill?

Horse Racing in the UK and Ireland enjoys a year-round festival season, with the bulk of major events taking place from Cheltenham Festival in March, the Grand National in April, Royal Ascot in June, and all the way through to Kempton's Christmas Festival in December.

As you probably know, our preferred approach is to treat betting as a long-term investment, with the view that the longer and more consistently you use a betting strategy, the more likely you are to take home a profit at the end of the day (or preferably, year).

Paradoxically, this approach is not so popular among casual racing punters, who often only come out to play during major festivals and perhaps the odd televised Saturday. The vast majority of money wagered during these festivals comes from the “here today, gone tomorrow” punter who just wants to bag a quick wad of cash.

The problem is, casual punters almost always lose. There will be a few that make a profit over a single festival, but they will probably lose it all (and then some!) before the year is out.

Seeing as most major festivals take place over a 3 – 5 day period, this presents a problem for serious punters who want to maximise their chances of securing a profit.

That problem is luck, with the all-important question being:

Do You Need To Be Lucky To Win At Horse Racing Festivals?

It’s no secret that in betting, the more wagers you place, the more skill is required to turn a profit. Conversely, the fewer wagers placed, the more luck is required to turn a profit.

The relationship between the number of bets, and luck required to win, can be seen in the following graph:

There is of course a limit to how many bets we can place over a 3 - 5 day festival, meaning luck plays a much larger role than skill in determining whether come out with a profit. Bearing this in mind:

What Can I Do To Increase My Chances Of Winning?

Here are a some of the practises that have served us well over the years:

1. Only Use Proven Profitable Strategies

Luck may dominate the playing field, but skill still plays an important role. You’re much better off using a betting strategy that has been proven to work over several years, than resorting to rumours, quick glances at recent form, or the casual punters fall-back strategy - picking your favourite name!

2. Consider Placing More Bets Per Festival

Remember, the more bets you place the less lucky you need to be to win. Find a strategy that provides a reasonably substantial number of selections during each racing festival.

If you prefer to do the leg-work yourself, you might consider backing your favourite 2 - 3 runners in larger field races and betting each way, when an overall profit can be made from the place portion of the bet.

3. Take Advantage Of As Many Bookmaker Offers As Possible.

Racing festivals are prime-time for the bookies to advertise, so there will be plenty of offers available for new and existing customers alike.

Festivals are also a great time to open new accounts; you’ll most likely be marked down as a casual punter (i.e profitable for the bookie) if you start by placing plenty of bets at a racing festival, then give your account a short break afterwards.

4. Measure Your Success Over Several Festivals, Not Just One.

While the above tactics can increase your chances of winning, the fact remains that much of your success (or failure) over a single festival will come down to luck.

It’s therefore better to judge your performance over a series of festivals, providing a higher volume of bets and lowering the amount of luck required for you to profit. Our preferred approach is to measure the performance of our festival bets over a full year.

With the atmosphere and “buzz” that surrounds the major festivals like Cheltenham, Aintree, and Royal Ascot, it’s easy to get carried away and go "All In" with the hope of winning big.

While that’s undoubtedly exciting, it’s also the way to lose your bankroll very quickly.

At the end of the day, we prefer to focus on investing rather than gambling. As investors, we want to reduce the importance of luck, and increase the importance of skill as much as possible. If you’d like to increase your take-home profit from racing festivals, this is the approach we recommend.

Despite this being a more measured approach, we still experience a great deal of enjoyment from our festival betting. It's a proven way to have your cake and quite possibly, eat it too!