Customer Reviews

How To Beat The Dog Races

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

From Beverly Vanburen of Illinois.
This is not only an introduction (or how to) book, but is filled with many factors of racing and suggestions on how to use them. There are helpful charts included, as well as greyhound racing terms. If you take the time to read and study this book, you will find yourself winning more often at the track. I've read the book three times and I was not a novice when I bought the book. I had been handicapping for severl years, yet I still learned from Bill's book. It will be one of the best selections you've ever made.

This is by far the best book I have ever read on Greyhound racing. If you are relatively new to handicapping the pups this book will put you well ahead of the competition, if you are a veteran it is sure to provide plenty of information you might be neglecting in your capping. You will be able to design your own system by following the steps laid out in the book, and that means you will stand a chance when you go to the window to place a wager. There are few books out there worth reading in the Greyhound racing world, this is one of the few.

I recently got interested in greyhound racing, and my results have been pretty hit or miss. Time to get educated. So I bought this book.

The ideas presented in this book will take time to apply. Make no mistake. He is not giving you a system here. He is teaching you how to look at past results and develop your own. There's no quick and easy path here. You gotta work for it. Don't misunderstand me though. He definitely does throw in a lot of extra factors to consider which show his vast experience in this field.

If you are willing to put in the work, I think the ideas presented in this book will give you a very good chance of positive returns at the track.

He also presents some worksheets in the book that you can use as you develop and apply your system. The concepts could easily be applied to other forms of gambling, but the extra bits of info are all clearly geared towards greyhound racing.

Good book. But reading it is just going to be the start. I don't plan to wager another dollar at the track until I apply what I have learned in this book.

I don't know how it would be possible to do better than this book if you are trying to decide which greyhound racing book to purchase.

Edit: I listed this book at 5 stars, but Amazon dropped it to 4. Not sure what happened there.

Excellent book for beginners to learn handicapping basics.
Definitely recommend

I got interested in the greyhounds after moving to Las Vegas and seeing them being simulcast in the race books. I wanted to learn a little bit about the sport and how to handicap and wager on them. So I bought a couple of Bill McBride's books: First, The Gambling Times Guide to Greyhound Racing and then a few months later How to Beat the Dog Races.

How to Beat the Dog Races is basically an updated and improved version of his Gambling Times Guide book and for this reason, I would recommend starting with this one and just passing on the first one all together. In this book he explains everything about greyhound racing-- the how the sport is run, what the major and minor handicapping factors are, the basics pari-mutuel wagering, how to wager with boxes and partial wheels, etc. The bulk of the book, however, is teaching you a method for evaluating and testing the various handicapping factors which will become the building blocks for your own individual system.

As one of the previous reviewers had mentioned, this does involve a little bit of work--handicapping and recording results of the recommended 40-50 past races can involve a lot of time and energy, especially if you are just using pen and paper. Fair warning. But McBride is not giving you a ready cut and paste system to use (unlike many other books on the sport), rather he is teaching you a way to find out what the pertinent factors are at the track that you regularly wager at through use of rating and testing. Then you do your handicapping, and also your wagering, not just blindly, but according to those results. And in the end, you will not have a system that was given to you, but one that you created and built up yourself.

The method of "testing" mentioned above is by far the most valuable lesson you will take from this book. You will often hear that Early Speed is one of the most important factors when handicapping greyhounds, but through this testing, I have found situations where it doesn't matter at all. Likewise, you may also hear that the Late Speed factor matters very little, but again I have found instances where it is one of the most important factors in a race. These are things that can give you an edge over the masses and all can be discovered through the testing method.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is curious about greyhound racing...it will keep you from wasting a lot of money on bad wagers. And as far as all the "due diligence" involved, much of this work can be alleviated with the use of spreadsheets and/or a database program like Quickdog.

I really love this book! It has everything needed to win consistently at the greyhound races. If you would like to improve you profits at the track, GET THIS BOOK!

This book is definetly very informative. It gives you a better understanding on how to interepret the programs. Two things that I didn't like are the hand written parts in the book, and some times the author is tends to get a little wordy, and you have to reread parts to get a clear understanding.