subject: Is Handicapping Better Than Spot Plays? [print this page] Is Handicapping Better Than Spot Plays? Is Handicapping Better Than Spot Plays?
My friend, Lil, swears by spot plays. Her nickname at the dog track is Longshot Lil, which tells you how often she plays them. I see her cash tickets and I know she wins more often than she loses, but why does she still use my systems if spot plays pay so well?
I asked her this one day and her answer was very interesting. Lil says that spot plays are - well - spotty. They come in when they want to, is how she put it. They're also impossible to handicap. A dog is either a spot play or it isn't. Trying to figure out whether it's a good play is often very difficult.
Sometimes, Lil says, a spot play that looks weak will come in at a big price, while one that looks like a really strong play will fade at the wire. For this reason, she says the only criteria she uses for them is the odds. If they're not at long enough odds to justify taking a pretty big risk, she passes them by.
I play spot plays too from time to time, although I prefer old-fashioned handicapping and systems. I find it better to compare dogs with one another and weight their strengths and weaknesses, rather than just play them because they fit a special situation that makes them a spot.
Lil, too, likes to handicap, but then she uses the dogs she finds with my systems along with the dogs she finds with her spot play techniques and puts them together to make more money than either technique can make alone. I never thought of doing this until she clued me in on it, but now I do it all the time.
You might want to consider combining two or more techniques, like this, to boost your handicapping success. Using a good spot play system and a good basic handicapping system can really make a difference in your ROI or "rate of return."
