Monday, 13th August 2018
An occasional break from the action is to be welcomed....
Horses need a break. They need freshening-up from time to time....
They need a few days out in the paddock having a pick of grass with the sun on their back – free from the rigours of training and released (for a brief period at least) from the strictures of routine....
A break from racing and the day-to-day regime can revitalize a horse. And it’s no different with tipsters. We can be revitalized too....
So I welcome last weekend’s Shergar Cup at Ascot. I must confess that I am beginning to see the point of it....
The Shergar Cup gives hard-working and frazzled analysts like me a mid-season opportunity to take a breath, turn away from the racing and refresh the mind by focusing on something different....
I went up to the allotment – a new undertaking....
I applied for one earlier in the summer and expected to be put on an 18-month waiting list – or longer....
But allotments – like so many other things I am interested in – appear to be going out of fashion. They are more readily available than I had dared to believe....
So short was the waiting list on my local site, that I was surveying a patch of recently-ploughed land with my name on it within 48-hours of making the application....
Of course, the hottest and driest summer since 1976 is not an ideal time to be moving onto a patch. I got a few bits in. But the season kind of ran away from me....
The plan now is to sheet two-thirds of the plot – to suppress weeds – to work on the other third and then open-up, work and plant the sheeted part from early next year....
Saturday was given over to that operation. Or at least the first phase of it....
I passed a pleasant-enough few hours, hitting the occasional flat spot and finding myself a little out of puff at stages – like a horse in need of its race....
But the great thing about the garden – and now the allotment – is the time and mental space it gives you to think and to drift off into reverie....
I found myself thinking about an email I got from a reader a couple of weeks back....
It was a long email – charting the many ups and downs he’s enjoyed and endured on the ATC service over the last 3 or 4 years....
I get these types of ‘Dear John’ emails from time to time....
Usually from long-term readers who I’ve got to know through sporadic email conversations and who have now decided to break the relationship off – for whatever reason....
In this instance, my correspondent has lost his job and needs to cut back on ‘unnecessary expenditure’....
He has no option but is ‘sorry to leave’ because he has ‘very much enjoyed investing money on your value selections’.
I am sorry to see this reader go. I am sorry to see any reader go. And I am equally sorry to fall into the category marked ‘unnecessary expenditure’....
But I think I understand. Food on the table and new shoes for the children are more important than big-race tips....
What I’m not entirely sure about is my correspondent’s use of the word ‘investing’....
We do a lot of things here at ATC. But one thing we don’t do is make investments....
What we do here at ATC is to make a best effort at predicting what is going to happen out on the track when a bunch of horses leave the stalls and go at it over whatever trip the race is being run over....
And we have a bet. We put a stake down – if we think the price we can get is right – on that outcome transpiring....
We hope to get it right. We hope to get paid out at the price we took....
But, more often, we will get it wrong. And when we get it wrong the stake is gone. And that’s the end of it....
That’s betting. Not investment....
There’s a big difference between the two activities....
Tomorrow morning, I might say this to you: ‘Invest in ABC Company stock. This thing is going to the moon. Get your money down now and you’ll be a winner....’
And, overnight, the stock of ABC Company could plummet in value – because of some scandal, or a significant drop in profits or expectation or for a thousand and one other reasons....
But your stake – the money you put down on the stock – remains live and in-play for as long as the company continues to trade....
You might continue to hold that stock for another five or ten years – with the stock trading at a price well below the price you paid for it....
Until, one sunny day in the indeterminate future, the stock price suddenly soars and takes flight – rising much higher than the price you paid for it....
The bottom line is that you would have been wrong for a long time. But, with the passage of time, your decision to invest has now turned into a winning move....
That’s how investments work. That’s how they can pan out. You can be wrong for years – but right in the end....
Bets are not investments. They don’t work that way....
A bet on a horse in a specific race is a here-and-now one-time deal....
You bet the horse, it either wins or it loses and that’s the end of it....
If you’re wrong, they don’t run that race over and again until such time you are right. You get one go at being right – on the day – and that’s the only go you get....
If you bet the horse and you bet wrong, then you stay wrong – forever. And your stake is gone too – forever. It doesn’t stay in play – at a reduced value – waiting until such time that the outcome or the outlook improves....
With an investment, the value of your stake can fluctuate. You can be down today and up tomorrow. Time can change your position and your outcome....
Not so with a bet. There is no time. You are either right now or you are wrong now....
Either way, it’s game over once the race is run. You know the ultimate outcome. And you know it for sure.
There is no going back. There is no waiting for improved circumstances or conditions. You can’t bet a horse in today’s race and then get paid out when it wins a different race in two-months-time....
Betting on races or sports should never be confused with investing. The two things are completely different animals. They work in completely different ways....
And I’ve always had a pet-hate for sports-betting services that choose to blur the lines and talk about bets as a form of investment....
I tend to think of such services as misguided and foolish at best – or, at worst, con-jobs wilfully misleading potential subscribers by taking the language of the respected financial universe and applying it to the oft-maligned sports-betting environment....
Maybe such services think that by recasting bets as ‘investments’ they are elevating themselves from a win/lose proposition to a ‘sure thing’ in the minds of the punters they are trying to win over....
I don’t know. You’d have to ask them. But, whatever it is they think they are doing or achieving by referring to bets as investments, it boils down to nonsense....
Bets are not investments. Bets are bets. It’s a win or lose deal – right now. No second chances. No dragging the outcome out over the years....
‘Investment Advisor’ would probably read better on my CV than ‘Sports-betting Journalist’. My mum would certainly be happier about my career trajectory....
Investment is a respectable business pursued by serious people who know a thing or two and can hold their heads high in company. That’s what my mum tells me....
Sports-betting journalism, on the other hand, is a field populated by hustlers, hucksters, misfits and fly-by-the-seat-of-your pants merchants. It is not what was hoped-for and is something to feel ever-so-slightly-ashamed of....
But it is what it is. We choose our path. Or our path chooses us. For better or worse, I am a Sports-betting Journalist. Not an investment advisor....
Here at Against the Crowd we advise bets. We are not in the business of recommending investments. The two things are very different, and it is potentially dangerous to confuse the one for the other....
That’s all from me for today.
I’ll be back tomorrow.
Until then. Stay tuned.
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