tips,tipsters and punters

Tips and Tipsters – some opinions


Horseracing is a game of skill…Finding a winner of a race needs evaluation of many factors…More factors you include in your analysis better should be the result…How many punters (gamblers) have time, patience to follow these basicprinciples…Very few, but they are quick to blame everyone – tipster, jockey,trainer and owner…
I am an occasional punter and a casual tipster.
I have read many postings and comments on various sites and blogs about free tips offered and their failure and the start of a blame-game against the tipsters. Sometimes a tipsters fails badly- many times not even one of their first choice wins and in one tipster’s case out of 21 selections given by him for 7 races only 2 won and those were second or third choices! But this happens occasionally and will happen again . Many times the race card tips fails miserably but no one writes about it ! Punters don’t stop buying that race card! But if a blogger’s tips fails the adverse comments and the language used is unbelievable.



Why?



The surfer who jumps from one site to another and from one blog to next thinks that it is his ‘birthright’ to get the tips which should win ‘always’ and most of the time. Who has given him this right or perhaps the idea? No one knows, perhaps. I certainly do not know…

Occasionally successful, sometimes failed tips, some wild tips(and their occasional success) made me realize that a tipster is always held in ridicule by these so called smarty Jones…Why?
Most of the tipsters are smalltime race aficionados who graduallygraduate to this position from humble beginnings and therefore,most of these gamblers take their opinions as a `necessary evil' andrely more on `khabar' and blame the tipster if their `forecast'fails… they don't have guts to blame the `khabri'….But what is a tip ?

A tip is a personal assessment/opinion about the winning chance ofa runner in a race. It can be right and of course it may be wrong…But who is a tipster ?A person who with sufficient/insufficient expertise provides this assessment/opinion…And who is a punter ?A person with money( hard earned/borrowed/black) and wants to makeit ‘grow’ - fast…But they are of 2 types…1) few- very few- who know horseracing, handicapping, anduse `khabar' to their advantage…they are privileged…ordinarypunter can not compete with them…2) the majority- called ‘public’, the majority of punters who buy a racebook before entering a racecourse and dream of winning a fortune…they are backbone of horseracing…
This, type/category of punters are those who depend on tips, followtipsters and blame them when they lose…they pay peanuts and desire toown thoroughbreds instead of monkeys… (said by a thoroughbredbreeder )…but what's the truth ?
early 70's a tipster, by the name – Galloper , used to chargeRs.20/- for a day's tip…gold was Rs 250/10gm. and real estate flats were sold at Rs.50/ to Rs. 70/- per sq.ft. at Andheri in Bombay… today gold is sold at Rs.10,000/-per 10 gm. and the minimum rate per sq.ft. at Andheri is Rs. 7000/-…


A tipster( say VM Dalal) still charges Rs.50/- for a day's tip while his predecessor charged Rs.20/- in 1970…what does a punter want ? pay peanuts and want to own a thoroughbredand not monkeys??Not convinced ? OK …let me give you a real life example…
Few years back, to be exact and to the point ,during 2003 Puneracing season ,RWITC in a rare show of wisdom announced a prizefor the best tipster of a PARTICULAR DAY… the announcement wasmade on 10th. raceday in September and the 18th. raceday inOctober was the D day. I have written an article earlier onthis subject and will not repeat it but will present only thesalient points…the study was limited and only readily available data was selectedThe study was carried out in the following way…The tipsters selected were from Mumbai and they were …1)Cole tipster 2)Cole track reporter 3)money Spinner 4)Lucky Spinner 5)Times of IndiaTO EVALUATE ONLY THEIR FIRST CHOICE WAS CONSIDEREDthe prize money was a whopping Rs. 100,000/-On 10th.day ( the day of announcement of the prize) theirperformance was as follows:COLE….COLE TR…M SPINNER…L SPINNER...T O I-20 ……… -26 ……. + 12……. -8…………… - 16 .

But after declaration of prize, their selections improved and on 18th. day the return was-16………..-23...............+18…………+6...,,,,,,,,,-36except TOI every other tipsters ROI has improved in anticipation of winning the bumper prize…after the prize was won by Gujrat Samachar tipster, theperformance of ALL the above tipsters went down…what does it prove ? pay peanuts – get monkeys…………………….Think before you blame the tipsters for their failure…