The Bottom Line
Stock market "investors" often turn their noses up at horseplayers, under the belief that their game is different. Veteran stockbroker and horseplayer Mark Ripple shows that nothing can be further from the truth, in his new book, "Handicapping the Wall Street Way". Securities investment theories can be incorporated into horse wagering quite successfully. This is an excellent work for novice to intermediate horseplayers, with concepts easily understood and put into practice right away.
Pros
- Very easy to understand strategies any horseplayer can incorporate
- Tailored strategies to reflect any bettor's comfort level, not "one size fits all"
- A well-written work with a unique approach to handicapping and betting
Cons
- Bettors who only want to play longshots or exotics need to look elsewhere
Description
- Market inefficiencies are the key to finding value, both in the stock market and at the track.
- Most of the time, the odds board and stock prices are efficiently set by the public.
- Irrational behavior by the public turns this around, allowing the contrarian a chance to profit.
- Examples: the dot-com boom of the late 1990's, and the Belmont with the Triple Crown on the line.
- Shares in tech stocks bought during the height of the boom, or bets on Smarty Jones, were losers.
- These are extreme examples, but inefficiencies occur every day at every track.
Guide Review - Review: Handicapping the Wall Street Way
Most horseplayers understand the concept of value, the notion that you must bet on horses that are going off at odds higher than their actual chance of winning dictates. However, most novice or intermediate players are not skillful enough to set an accurate betting line. Mark Ripple takes an alternative approach, using some very easy-to-find angles in conjunction with the morning line odds and the tote odds to determine which horse to back. In an almost reverse-contrarian strategy, Ripple actually looks for bettable favorites, those going off at overlay odds, while many horseplayers live or die by the "never bet chalk" mantra and miss key opportunities this way.Most financial advisors will discuss risk management with their clients, prescribing conservative or aggressive strategies reflecting that client's comfort level. Ripple takes this very important step to the racing game, using a simple questionnaire to determine a horseplayer's level of risk, and lists different strategies in the following chapters tailored to three categories of risk-takers. Clearly this is an excellent work for relatively new horseplayers looking for a "quick-and-dirty" strategy that can be implemented successfully right away.
