Many people ask, “How much money can I make betting on horse races?” While many people struggle to make a profit from handicap racing and horse racing betting, few people have a realistic idea of what to expect and how much profit can actually be achieved. Horse players often talk about ROI or return on investment (ROI). Simply put, it is the percentage of return on top of your initial investment. So if you spend $ 100 on a winning bet and get $ 125 back, your ROI is 25%.
So how do you know what a good return on investment is and what to expect? First of all, when comparing investments, you need to look at the competitor’s investments and also take into account the amount of risk and work involved. Handicap horse racing is time consuming and therefore you have to pay yourself for the time you spend in handicap racing. You can pay a pro like me to do some of the downsides, which means you will have to spend less time on your own time, but in the end, you will have to spend some time researching and thinking a bit about how you bet.
If you buy stocks or make any other investment, you also need to do some research. You may have a broker who makes recommendations or a financial analyst or planner, but in the end, as with the people who pay me for handicap races for them, the final decision will rest with the investor. Many equity investors now consider 10% a reasonable return on their portfolio.
The amount you can earn from horses will vary from week to week, but your yearly average may be better than the performance of stocks, but also much riskier. When it comes to horse handicapping, even the pros have their ups and downs and you have to look long term to get an accurate idea of what is reasonable. For example, on the weekend of June 11 (I work in three-day weekend blocks and send a newsletter with the information for each three-day block) my key horses made a profit of over 80% ROI. That is very high, but the following week the winnings of the same types of bets went down.
In the most recent weekend of June 25, 2010 to June 27, 2010, my top picks had a fixed stake profit on winning bets for Thoroughbred bettors of 22% ROI, while punters who played my top picks in harness racing in half mile and 5/8 mile tracks received 11% ROI. There are no guarantees when betting on horse racing and it would be unwise for me to guarantee a profit or try to predict how much profit to expect due to market volatility.
In general though, it’s safe to say that horse racing bettors can sometimes see a higher rate of return than bettors in other markets, but they pay for that possibility with a much higher risk.