I’ve been asked if I ever win money betting on horses. There’s a straight (boring) and a tongue-in-cheek (entertaining) answer. Both are true. The boring answer is, in the long term, nobody wins betting on anything. The “House” always wins. Totalisators ensure this outcome by fixing the system so...

We’re a week away from the season’s biggest racing weekend as, sadly, the Diamond Mile has replaced the Superstakes as the year’s championship race. How was this illusion constructed? As usual, it’s all about the money as the Betting Gaming and Lotteries Commission has, on at least suspect authority,...

Jamaica’s brainless, unoriginal, sycophantic horse racing media “analysts” are at it again. From as far back as July this year, one excitable radio commentator announced that Anthony “Baba” Nunes was the 2019 Champion Trainer and has been applying that prefix to his name ever since. He made that identical...

Over the years, I’ve done my best to encourage punting fanatics to spend time learning the fundamentals of the horse; of picking winners; AND (the most crucial skill) the fundamentals of bet selection. The first and most important no-no is listening to public tipsters. By and large, they’re ignorant...

In so many areas of life, Jamaica seems comfortable with easy-going, laid-back, “no-problem-mon” archaic circumstances. The separated but related industries of betting, gaming and lotteries are no exception. In the 1980s when the remarkable Dennis Lalor ruled both the Jamaica Racing Commission (JRC) and the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries...

BY THE TERRIBLE TOUT I can’t believe this is my 50th column for Public Opinion. Or that you’ve allowed me to bore you to death for so long. Ah, well, once more onto the breach…… So the racing promoter has a new website. Nice idea; horrendous execution. The navigational...

It’s that time of year again when the fillies, dull and listless all summer, tend to pop up as unappreciated long shots and reward faithful punters committed to clear thinking with huge returns. Of course, public hypesters (o/c “tipsters”) do not fall into the above category as their thought...

Last week, in-between family duties, I watched as much of the five-day Glorious Goodwood festival from Sussex, England, as possible. On Thursday, a peculiar thing happened. Although the first race went off on time (routine for a country seasoned in live horse racing coverage and the importance of holding...

  Unfortunately, local horse racing continues to bleed customers of all ages. Very few of the millennial generation are sufficiently interested to invest in a tote that extorts 30% of stakes wagered in win and 40% in exotic pools before declaring a dividend; in purchasing horses that cost a...