Product Description

In this book, Nick tells how he succeeded in taking more than £1,000 a month from bookmakers, despite betting almost exclusively on week-ends and public holidays. The book details the exact methods he used and explains the precise reasons behind every bet. Reading it, Nick says, 'won’t turn you into a professional gambler, but it will give you the knowledge to become one'.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #309679 in Books
• Published on: 2002-09-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

From the Publisher
Not only in paperback for the first time (after nine reprints in hardback), this classic work has been exhaustively revised so that all examples are from the 2002 season.

All that remains of the old are the actual journal detailing Nick’s betting performance. There is a whole new generation to appreciate this title, plus all original buyers would have every reason to purchase and see how Nick’s thinking has developed and improved over the years. Lucid, well written and compulsively contrarian it will appeal to any horse racing enthusiast.

About the Author
Nick Mordin is Britain’s best-selling author of books on horse-race betting. His articles have appeared in British, American, Australian and South African racing publications. He has appeared on a variety of radio and TV shows and co-produced a documentary for Channel 4.

Excerpted from Betting for a Living by Nick Mordin. Copyright © 2002. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Things have certainly changed since I wrote this book back in 1990. And I have to admit that I am partly responsible.

Betting For A Living is now the best selling book on horse race betting in Britain and has strongly influenced a whole generation of racing journalists, publications and punters.

As a result many of the changes that I called for in the first edition of the book have now been introduced. Tongue tie declarations and sectional times are the most obvious examples (though the latter are restricted to Newmarket and the 'AW' tracks and are currently hard to access).

More importantly, British punters now seem to expect and demand the kind of information I discuss in this book. They can now instantly access the full lifetime form of any horse instead of having to page through the formbook one race at a time. They can call up everything a trainer has ever said about a horse without having to go to the trouble of noting their comments on file cards as I originally suggested. They can go online and access information about any horse's pedigree in seconds instead of ploughing through stacks of bloodstock publications. They can purchase speed ratings based on the formula I set out in this book. They can even buy an annual that analyses each horse in training and shows which of them match the various 'performance patterns' I've described.

I guess I ought to be gratified that my ideas have been taken up so enthusiastically (or perhaps mortified that I'm not earning any royalties from their use). In fact my reaction to the success of Betting For A Living is tinged with regret. The regret is that all the ideas I've set out in this book have now been factored into the betting market to some extent. This is not great news for those of you who want to 'bet for a living'. It means that the
average betting odds available about the kind of horses this book will help you pick have been lowered. In other words, the bar has been raised and the task of betting for a living made that much more difficult.

It is a sad truth that horse race betting is not like any other game you can play. It is not enough to simply learn a set of rules and think up a winning strategy. Due to the nature of the game, the rules are changing all the time, and most strategies that win today are doomed to fail within a few years at the most. The reason for this is that when you play the racing game you are betting against other thinking protagonists. It is their money that you win when you land a successful wager, and they don't like that. They are constantly on the look out for new and improved methods of selection that will enable them to win your money instead. If they spot a method that gives them this kind of edge they will use it.

The trouble is, when enough punters start using any successful method they end up ruining it. The weight of their combined wagers drives down the average odds if the horses the method picks to the point where they are no longer profitable to bet. Of course I was aware of this when I first wrote Betting For A Living. This is why I focused on methods of analysis that everyone needs to master before they can hop to make money from betting. The book was designed to teach potential professional gamblers the ropes rather than set out winning methods that would be certain to fail within a short period of time.

No matter how the betting market changes, it will always be necessary to know how to assess race times, analyse pedigrees, decipher trainers' methods and spot repeating patterns in the form of horses. Since this is what I write about here you might well ask why I need to change a single word of the book.

One obvious reason for revising Betting For A Living is that I now know more. I've learned better ways of analysing pedigrees. I've learned a more accurate method of calculating speed figures. I've learned a superior way of calculating how much you should bet on any particular wager. I've learned more about betting systems and how they work. It just wouldn't be right to bring out a new edition of this book without revising it to incorporate my (hopefully) greater understanding of the subject.

Since Betting For A Living was first published I've written around a million words on how to analyse horse races in my column in the Racing Post Weekender. This has required many thousands of hours of research.

In addition, thanks to this book and my column, many academics, professional gamblers and racing fans have contacted me with great ideas of their own. As a result I've had access to invaluable criticism of my work and had access to new ideas and insights that would otherwise have been unknown to me.

But it isn't simply new ideas that have led me to revise this book. There is another equally compelling reason, one that can be summed up in a single word; 'computers'.

Things are very different now. Computers have dramatically speeded up all the methods that I've set out in this book. Certainly, you can still use the methods manually. However if you do so you will place yourself at a severe disadvantage with computer-powered punters.

Of course, whatever aids you use there will never be a substitute for the creative thinking required to make profitable selections. I give you all the guidance I can in these pages, but that part is up to you. Feel up to it? Then let's begin.

Customer Reviews

One of the best
I am currently a successful backer of horses and actually logged on to this site to put the book up for sale. Having done that I gave the book a quick scan as it is a very long time since I read it, having bought it 12 years ago. I decided to take it off the Amazon marketplacelisting because I am going to read it for a 3rd time. Also, I now realise that as I am writing my own book about horseracing, I should keep Mordin's book to ensure I don't reproduce anything he stated without giving due credit.

This book is a must buy for anyone who does not make a profit backing horses, but wants to. I bought many books on horseracing in the early nineties, but this is the book that made me look at horsracing/form study in a different light. It got me thinking about the game and the way I approached gambling both practically and psycollogically and sparked research of my own which benefits me to this day. This is the book's true value in my opinion.

None of the UK horseracing books I have read since comes close to it really. Scanning through it again, I see that much of the content still applies today.

The further reading suggested in the book should be considered. Most of it is American books, some of which you will find very useful.

I don't think one should take everything written as gospel, but rather give it serious consideration.

I didn't become a winning punter until 10 years after reading this book. I now know I had to realise the truth about myself first, before I could think about winning. Mordin's book even touches upon this aspect slightly.

Indeed, I think everything is there to varying degrees.

MUST READ!!!
'Betting for a Living' is a must read for anybody who wishes to make a profit at horseracing. After reading this I realised many major mistakes I make in studying form and betting on horses. This book does not give you any quick solutions or systems, it actually encourages much more hard work on your part. However from the information in this book you can be sure that you will be concerntrating on the right aspects of form and eliminating many elimentary mistakes that I used to make. 'Betting for a Living' has made my betting more profitable and I would reccomend it to anybody who regularly backs horses. Also I would reccomend 'Betting on flat handicaps' by John Gibby, a book which builds on many of the concepts in 'Betting for a Living'.

An Obsessed Racing Genius
Like many people at or near the top of their chosen field, Nick Mordin is plainly obsessed. Thank God he is! For this obsession has led Mordin to write books which lay it on the line about racing and betting thereon.

One of the points he makes which made me laugh is how very very poor the TV "experts" are. I recall a year or so ago Julian whatsisname --Wilson--, one of the rather Establishment TV commentators of yesteryear, solemnly plugging the horse he owned, odds-on or very short odds anyway for a major race...NOWHERE! And it still happens daily. Look at the main racing channel on satellite. Of the three usual commentators, none usually gets a hit, but, Oh! how knowledgeable they are BEFORE the race (and indeed, all-wise, AFTER it, shameless people)!

For me, the statistics-led approach he favours is not easy to adopt; neither is the observant approach of seeing which horse is, e.g. frightened, angry etc in the paddock (and Mordin does insist you SEE the horses before backing). But this is a very useful book indeed for the backer who attends the course to bet.