subject: Can Computers Pick Horse Racing Winners and Make a Profit? [print this page] Can Computers Pick Horse Racing Winners and Make a Profit?
Because I am a professional horse racing handicapper and use computers to help me to pick winners for my handicapping service, I am often asked if computers can pick winners. People want to know if there is software that they can use to pick horses that they will then bet to make money. While computers are very powerful, they do have their limitations and yet, as any one who has played chess against an advanced chess program can tell you, computers can do amazing things.
Some of the top suppliers of horse racing information, the companies that sell the forms and past performances, have sophisticated software that they let their customers use when the customers buy the data from them to download into the programs. Make no mistake, these companies invest a small fortune in this software and if any one on earth knows how to manipulate horse racing related data, it is those companies.
The software programs are based on historical studies and statistics. Statistics are powerful and very useful for predicting the future, but they are not infallible. I use two computer programs, I call c-1 and c-2. Each is set to rely on handicapping factors that have historically predicted winners. I then take the information from those programs and reprocess it and generate the final product, c-1 picks as well as key horses and fit and ready horses.
Last weekend for instance, my top c-1 horses made a flat bet profit on win bets, but that was only after I tweaked the initial results from c-1 with my own anecdotal information and methods. C-2, on the other hand, is strictly a computer generated result with no human input once the algorithm is set. It produced a flat bet exacta box profit at Saratoga Harness track on Friday, June 25th and also hit a $197 trifecta at Harrah's Chester Racetrack on the same night. While the $197 trifecta was impressive, on the same night, with human imput as well as the c-1 program, c-1 chose the $325 trifecta in the second race at Harrah's Chester.
The points I am trying to make are that to the best of my knowledge, no computer program has produced a flat bet profit over a long period of time, though some do produce profits over short periods of time and while computer programs often help to pick many winners, human beings, assisted by computer programs will out perform those straight computer picks. Therefore, I recommend you always use or own judgment or a good handicapping service that uses both computer generated picks as well as human experience.
