The important thing, and with any betting, is that you write down every rule and follow it for at least 100 bets. You do not need to trade real money, paper trading is best at first. If after 100 bets it is in profit, you can then give it a betting bank and start gambling.

Starting an untested system with real money, and packing it in on its first losing run, putting it down as failed, will only cost you more and more money in the long term. Being patient saves you money.

So let us get down to starting a system eh? I’ll show you below how simple they are to put together, this example is profitable, so no reason why you can not follow it with a betting bank, but its yearly profits are not huge, but have a go at your own, always making sure that you understand way a rule works.

The system below is designed for National Hunt racing.

‘The NH High SR Non-Handicap Fav System’

Rule 1: Non-Handicap races only.
This ensures that we do not include handicap races, which are more difficult to get profitable systems out of. Although when you do they are more profitable than non-handicap races.

Rule 2: Forecast Favourite only (if joint VOID bet)
Just to make sure we have one clear qualifier for our non-handicap race.

Rule 3: Forecast price must be odds on.
I know that the lower the odds the more likely it is to win, although the lower the odds the smaller the profit for a new bank.

The first 3 rules of any systems I quantify as the main system rules, they ensure we have the main set of qualifiers we are looking for. Those rules after, I regard as filters to take out any facts I know are not profitable long term.

Rule 4: Horse age must be 6+
This is because in the UK, horses are not generally full wound up for jumping until they are at least 6, so those of a lower age have erratic results that do not prove profitable, so no use including them.

Rule 5: Horse must have finished 2nd or worse on its last run.
Horses that won last time out usually go off at lower odds than they should, so an edge is taken away.

Rule 6: Must be a gelding.
Geldings win the majority of races over fences, and are generally have the most consistent and reliable form.

Rule 7: Going must be Good-Soft or better.
Any softer than this and results can get a bit random.

That is it. Over the last 10 years it has produced a 48pt profit even at those low odds, and a 63% SR overall. It has had 3 losing years in that period, the worst being 5pts, but using the betting exchange prices, they would also have shown a profit.. There are around 100 bets per year.

As well as gambling, I love to have a few beers. It was during one of my nights out drinking when I met an old school friend. His name was John and we had not seen each other for around fifteen years. The conversation soon turned to talking about various forms of gambling and we realised that we had very similar interests.

John told me about some of his more profitable days and I responded by talking about some of mine. I must say his seemed far more impressive than what I had ever won. John then told me that he was very good friends with a local trainer and that he had some information that I might be interested in.

This night was becoming more interesting by the hour and I enquired as to what type of information he had. He started talking about a horse which the trainer and its connections thought could not lose. The horse was going to run in ten days time and was of a far higher class than what the other horses in the race would be. The trainer wanted the horse to have an easy victory so that it would gain some confidence from the race.

I told quite a lot of people about this horse over the next few days, this was to be a big mistake, a mistake I will not be repeating in the future.

The big race day arrived and I was very excited. I will not tell you how much I placed on the horse but lets just say it was a lot of money. The odds were five to one and I believed that this was going to be the easiest money I would have ever obtained.

The race in question was a three mile hurdle and with only three fences to go the horse was cruising. It was challenging the long term leader who was fading and being strongly ridden. Approaching the second to last fence the horse took the lead but disaster was to strike, yes it fell at this fence. I could not believe it, the horse would have won if only it could have jumped those last two fences.