27/07/16

Following his sad passing on 10 December 1986 the man who had spent decades trying to educate punters, including yours truly, Clif Cary, had this tribute written to him in the February 1987 edition of Turf Monthly by a Bill Weate:

“The Australian sports world was saddened to learn, on Wednesday, December 10, 1986, of the passing of Clif Cary, at the age of 81.

The former journalist, author and sports broadcaster became a veritable legend of the Racing and cricket and sporting spheres, particularly in his reign as Sports Editor on the commercial radio network boasting the largest sports audience in the Commonwealth.

In 1923, Clif Cary commenced his journalistic career on the Manly Daily, eventually attaining a wide public following when a fearless Turf writer for such publications as “Turf Life,” and “Newsletter”. After the Second World War, he commanded a large, nationwide audience per medium of his radio sports broadcasting network, in which his selections and form analysis of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane race events on Saturdays and Racing Carnivals were featured and always eagerly awaited by his legion of fans in punting fraternity.

In addition, listeners assimilated Cary’s most knowledgeable segments entitled “Idols of Sport”, and “Question Box On Sport”.

Clif Cary was described as an encyclopaedia of sporting knowledge and information. He was never afraid to express an opinion and was noted for his constructive criticism and comments on a range of sporting subjects.

Cary was the author of two cricket books, the 1946 publication “Test Cricket And Records”, and the 1947 absorbing book entitled “Cricket Controversy”. In addition, for some years, he produced and edited a monthly publication, “Turf Digest And Raceform”.

The special flair Clif Cary brought to sports broadcasting delighted radio listeners for a number of years and made him a byword and popular personality of the airwaves.”

In his lifetime Clif Cary wrote a book entitled “How Professionals Bet To Win” (pictured). Over the last two decades many of my educational writings on Justracing have basically reiterated what Clif Cary had said and written during his long and distinguished career. “How Professionals Bet To Win” was a 56-page book that was designed as being an educational tool to all punters and one of its big attractions was that it was set out in easy to understand layman’s terms. The year the book was written was never marked anywhere on it, but it’s fair to assume from the following text that it must have been written in 1976 – some 40 years ago this year. The 1976 version of How Professionals Bet To Win was an updated version of a book with the same title that was written about 20 years earlier.

Right from the start, Clif Cary attempts to educate punters on backing racehorses. “Chapter One” of 10 is recreated here today, totally unedited. It reads:

“The original How Professionals Bet to Win was written in the mid-1950’s. The opening chapter dealt with the all-important question as to whether it was possible to consistently make a profit from betting on horses?

I must have been suffering a losing streak because my answer was a very definite “NO”. In retrospect I over simplified. Maybe I was thinking only in terms of myself, or the average haphazard, or compulsive, bettor as Damon Runyon probably did when he coined his famous line – “All horse players die broke”.

No survey has ever been possible in order to find the proportion of winners to losers over any extended period. We do know that many professionals and semi-professionals, as well as others make racing pay. However, commonsense, as well as official statistics, strongly support the accepted view that the great majority of bettors pay for their hobby, or their compulsive urge to bet.

During the 1974-75 racing year punters in New South Wales and Victoria, with investments and re-investments, wagered more than a billion dollars with the TAB. The exact sum was $1,038, 393, 107. After the deduction of betting taxes and commissions the amount returned in dividends was in the vicinity of $880 million. The TAB community in the two States thus received back approximately $160 million less than staked.

In the same 12 months course bookmakers in NSW and Victoria had a turnover of about $700 million. A recent survey by the Australian Jockey Club showed that for every dollar held by a fielder 95.3 cents was returned. This would mean bettors, in the aggregate, lost 4.7 cents in the dollar, or $30million on a $700million gamble.

The course totalisators and starting price bookmakers also took a substantial slice of the “cake” to bring the total loss by NSW and Victorian players to a figure in excess of $250million in just one year. As machines must win, and legal and illegal bookmakers seem to live comfortably, it is obvious there must have been many more losers than winners.

I have no idea of the betting population of the two States. The AJC, in the survey mentioned, calculated there were 500,000 TAB bettors in NSW. The figure could be exaggerated as it was based on bets per customer and the estimation that 75%, on average, placed all their wagers with just one visit to the windows. My view is that re-investments must surely be greater than 25% of the original outlay as the habit of winners is to play up portion of their profit while losers, if they still have money, invariably make the costly mistake of chasing losses.

Accepting the AJC survey to be near the mark, it would mean that on the NSW TAB 1974-75 turnover of $575million the average yearly investment per customer was $1150 for an average loss of $150. The figures cannot be broken down further. There are some people who visit the TAB only a few times a year. Others are in the legal off-course “cupboards” every day of the week, so averages don’t paint a true picture. It is said that several men in Sydney enjoy yearly TAB profits from the Daily Double of well in excess of $100,000; one also hears stories of very heavy losers.

We all know the TAB and totalisator cannot lose. The betting commission and the State taxes are deducted before the balance of a pool is divided among the holders of cashable tickets. The deductions vary from State to State with the minimum 14c in the dollar, and the maximum 19c on Quadrella investments in Victoria.

Bookmakers frame their odds to provide them with a percentage edge. Sometimes it is below and other times much higher than set by the machine. Bookmakers can lose. However, over the long haul they come out on top as, in the final analysis, the figures, tilted so much in their favour, must sway the scales.

Bookmaking has changed considerably in the last 40 years. Few fielders these days are able to make what is known as a “round” book – that is to bet strictly to a percentage and make a profit regardless of which horse may win.

There are some business bookies who still bet strictly to figures in seeking a perfect book, but the majority are opinion men who gamble against the public and the professional play. Unless they are foolish, and consistently take risks beyond reason, they will finish in front even though backers are better educated and informed today than at any previous time in racing history.

So, to answer the question as to whether a punter can consistently win it all boils down to an individual contest – A BETTOR’S SKILL versus THE PERCENTAGES. It is a contest which can be won, but the great majority of bettors lack the required expertise and lose. In any organised gambling set-up the percentages are directed against the player, and more so in racing than in casino games.

The person who wagers on every race at every meeting will invariably lose in the long run. Percentages make any other result almost an impossibility. The person who bets his way through a programme will have far more losing than winning days. Unless he has some systematic approach to staking, and the capital to survive the worst possible losing runs, his chance of winning is remote. He not only has to beat the betting percentages, but has to pick a percentage of winners which over a long period is beyond any individual no matter how skilled, or lucky, he may be. I know this from personal experience.

People ask me if I bet. I do. I make selections as part of my radio work. You can call me foolish if you wish, but except on horses starting at impossible odds-on I have never yet broadcast a selection without investing something on it. That is just one reason why I know the race-to-race bettor cannot succeed.

I have made a life time study of betting and racing. I am confident that had my wagering been confined to races in which I could turn the percentage against the bookmaker, and so reduce the chance of loss, I would now be in a sound financial position and no longer called upon to tap typewriter keys or face a microphone. But to have done so would have meant suggesting that listeners bet on races or horses which I could not support with my own money. I just cannot bring myself to do it.

For my own sake, and also that of listeners, I tried to overcome this hurdle in the early 1950’s. I announced in a broadcast that I intended restricting selections to only those races which I considered offered the bettor a reasonable chance of profit. The first day I implemented this policy I gave selections for five races for three winners. The second day there were four selections and three won. This went on for five Saturdays – and a total of 16 winners from only 23 declarations. I thought I had it made. Instead, the station directly, or through my own department, received hundreds and hundreds of letters and telephone complaints demanding that I revert to the old principle of broadcasting selections for every race. To my regret the management agreed with the protesters. I was back to square one and Bookie Bob was happy.

Business professionals – not gamblers – rarely bet their way through a programme. They manage their money much more carefully than rank and file bettors, and possess the patience to wait for the opportunities which permit them to lower the percentage-hurdle as much as possible or, on occasions, almost completely erode it. Unlike some people have suggested, they don’t regiment themselves to the number of bets they will have on any one day. This is dictated after their examination of a card. They concentrate on only those races in which they believe their chance of profit is greater than the possibility of loss, and the profit to be obtained is worth the risk of the investment involved.

YOU CAN BEAT A RACE, BUT YOU CAN’T BEAT THE RACES. This is a very old turf axiom. It was once quoted by the late Eric Connolly, doyen of all Australian professional punters. People have put different interpretations on this pronouncement.

Those who oppose the submission claim no one can be absolutely sure of being able to win on any single race: that there are far too many ways in which a horse, or several runners in a field, can be beaten. No one can argue with any logic against this point of view.

Connolly certainly did not mean a person could just pick out one race at a time and beat it. His view was that if a punter concentrated solely on races which offered a greater opportunity of success as against failure, he could spread his betting capital and obtain a high enough percentage of winning thrusts to gain an overall profit. Connolly never knew in advance which of his selected races was going to be a winning one, but he was confident that over a period the races he considered could be beaten in sufficient numbers to give him the vital edge over the bookmakers. He also had the knowledge that by betting in this highly professional way the chance of a long losing streak was greatly minimised. Connolly learned this from experience.

There were two Connollys. Early in his life he was a gambler: a plunger. He would have bundles of money one day: nothing the next. With maturity he changed. He became a cool, competent, calculating investor. He took the bookmakers on at their own game – percentages – and beat them.

Bookmakers are like insurance companies. Because of actuary tables a life insurance company knows just how many policy holders are going to die in, say, a year. It cannot possibly name which clients are going to pass on, but in terms of numbers the forecast will be almost spot on. Opinion bookmakers might not know which race is going to win them money, but they know that at the end of a year the overall results will favour them. The Connolly approach was similar. He could not tell in advance which particular races would enrich him, but he always had the best races going for him and, as a result, winnings would outweigh losses.

Let me quote one other Connollyism – KNOW WHEN TO BET AND WHEN TO WATCH. This again stresses the importance of not over-betting. It urges the punter to acquire patience: to approach every race as a separate problem and to wager only on those events which afford one a chance of winning. Bet if there is a strong chance of profit, otherwise look on and gain knowledge for the future. The shrewd poker player does not risk his chips on every hand. He comes in only when his expert study of the cards tells him he has a chance of collecting and the odds to the money he stakes is worth the chance he is going to take. Even the good book provides a lesson. We all know the parable of the woman who went to the well just once too often.

Connolly in later life as an investor became a multiple bettor. He made a book against the bookmaker in order to twist the percentages in his favour and not against him. He marked his changed approach with the oft-quoted statement – “I had one certainty and it was beaten.” He said the experience cured him from mostly never putting all his eggs in one basket in case they became scrambled. The Connolly method of betting will be fully explained. But we have already learned three extremely interesting points:

A-You can beat the races by concentrating on predictable races.

B-Acquire patience, and so know when to bet and when to watch.

C-And when you bet rarely pin your faith entirely to just one horse.

No one can refute points A and B. They are basic fundamentals aimed at reducing the number of losing plays and improving the collect percentage. There are many, however, who quarrel with point C. The tired old argument is that the person who bets on more than one horse to win the same race must lose because he is betting against himself: that if, for instance, he wagers on three runners he has to lose on two of them.

This submission does not stand up, and is in direct opposition to the professional edict that the basis of betting is to make a profit on the investment.

Joe Blow, for example, does the form on a race and decides there are three definite chances. He decides to back one of them. Joe, win or lose, is the person who is betting against himself.

I know several people who make racing pay by betting all the true contenders in a race on a flat stake providing there are not too many, and the odds-spread is right. They work on the premise that a race which is suitable for play is any race in which it is possible to make a flat bet on all the contenders and either break square (at the worst) or show a profit no matter which one of them is successful”.