Is it advisable to concentrate on small win bets and big place bets on your selections? In this article, PPM's Rick Hunter gives his views.

It doesn't matter how good a selector you are, there will be times when you encounter a run of horrendous cuts. It happens to the best of professional punters. We all have suffered from the losing streak at some time in our punting life.

But you've probably noticed in these losing streaks that you continue to get a lot of placegetters. If you're a win-only bettor this can be most frustrating. If you're a straight each-way punter you'll get some of your losses back but not enough to keep you in profit.

Luck being what it is, it often happens that a punter's choice winds up on the wrong side of a photo. The difference between the winner and the second placegetter may be just a centimetre or two, but that slim margin makes the difference between profit and loss.

How much better off would you be if you adopted a bit of 'insurance' on these 2nd and 3rd placegetters- insurance in a big way compared with your win bet? You see, the all-or-nothing approach which most front-end win bettors advocate, may be all right for the man with plenty of guts and an unlimited bankroll but the average punter has neither! After a bad run of losers he usually ends talking to himself or blowing his top about the whole 'rotten' racing industry!

Anyone who has been playing the horses for any length of time doesn't have to be reminded about the times his selections have been nosed out - and this usually happens right in the middle of one of those horrible runs of outs, thus prolonging the agony further.

So is there any point in betting on a really conservative basis? I am thinking now of a ratio of two units a win and 16 units a place in races of between eight and 12 runners. This gives you a strong chance of coming,. out ahead should your bet run 2nd or 3rd.

An example: You back a horse at paying $5 a win and $1.80 a place for $2 win/ $16 place. It finishes 2nd. You have a place return of $32.40, for a profit of $14.40 or 80 per cent on turnover. You can see immediately the vital insurance factor m this approach.

Let's say you go three plays without striking a winner. You now move to a new bet of $4 a win and $32 a place, regardless of what dividends you have picked up on placegetters in those first three bets. You can continue to step up the bets if winners fail to arrive - your next step, after a further three bets, would be $5 a win and $40 a place, and then $6 a win and $48 a place. (Your place bet is always eight times the win bet.)

What you now have to decide is whether, in the long run, you would be better off putting all that money on for a win. In this way you would be going along with any long losing run you encountered and would be hoping that your ultimate win bets would pick up all the losses and put you ahead.

If you went 10 bets without a winner under the method I have outlined, your bets would have been $18 a win three times, $36 a win three times, $45 a win three times and then one bet at $54, a grand total of $351. Your 11th bet would be at $54, so you would need an 11/2 winner to break even-a pretty tough assignment.

How would you have fared had you backed on the win/place insurance basis, and assuming that you were able to back five placegetters at an average of evens for the place? For this example, I have assumed the placegetters will happen every other bet.

The following is the workout:

BET 1 : 2/16LOSTLoss 18
BET 2: 2/162ndWin 12
BET 3: 2/16LOSTLoss 18
BET 4: 4/322ndWin 28
BET 5: 4/32LOSTLoss 36
BET 6: 4/322ndWin 28
BET 7: 5/40LOSTLoss 45
BET 8: 5/402ndWin 35
BET 9: 5/40LOSTLoss 45
BET 10: 6/482ndWin 42

You have then staked a total of $351 for a total return of $336, a small loss of $15. But what if your next bet, the 12th, was a 3/1 winner? Betting for a win you would have $54 on it for a total return of $216. Your win ledger now stands at minus $189. Your 12th bet under the win/place insurance would be $6 win and $48 a place, giving you a total return of $24 from the win bet and, say, $86 from the place (assuming a $1.80 place divvie), a total of $110. Your win/place ledger then stands at $405 out and $446 returned, a profit of $41 or 10 per cent on turnover.

If you could have achieved a 70 per cent place strike, of course, your balance would be much healthier. You would also have been likely to have picked up one or two rather more healthy divvies than even money (as well as some paying less!).

You can, if you wish, simply stay on the one level of win/place betting. You might like the initial $2 win/$16 place format because it amounts to only $18 a race. You could operate on a few races per day and have a lot of fun without an enormous amount of risk.

If, at the end of 12 months, you can show a handy 15 to 20 per cent profit on turnover, you would be doing well. At an outlay of, say, $90 a week (five bets at $18) your annual outlay would total $4680, and a 20 per cent profit on this would be $936. A 15 per cent profit would be $702. This is money not to be sneezed at.

If you could get $936 in your hand, that amount is the equivalent of having earned a lot more if you were getting it in a normal job, because to secure $936 in the hand you would have had to have earned 30 to 40 per cent more to pay the tax required! So the win is worth much more in real terms.

By Rick Hunter