The first step to formulating a solution is to define the problem.

The following points are areas of betting where many punters often get it wrong. My views arise from long personal experience and years of communication with successful and unsuccessful punters alike.

My aim here is to highlight these common areas of failure in the hope that I can speed up your learning curve towards successful betting.

Read the following thoughts and you may be able to side step many of the pot holes others have fallen into in the past.

1. The failure to use a betting bank

Most gamblers fail to understand that the best method of achieving a healthy and sustained long term profit from racing is to set aside a sum of money away from your main finances, solely for the betting of horses.

Whatever method or system you are using, whoever you are following or subscribing to or however your own bets are calculated, you are better off with a betting bank that has built-in advantages that can help you. It needs to be independent from your own personal finances and needs to be protected from factors that can threaten it. This can take a lot of emotion out of the decision making process. Emotion is a factor that threatens all punters.

The size of your betting bank will of course be dependant upon your own individual circumstances and free capital available. An analogy to the world of shares perhaps may be that no financial advisor worth his salt would advise you throw all your capital into the stock market alone.

The vast majority of punters fail to use any form of set-aside bank. They bet randomly with whatever money they have in their pocket at the end of the week or go in too deep with stakes far in excess of their personal safety levels.

A punter with a professional attitude will set aside what he can comfortably afford to invest and then determine the best use he can make of that fixed sum of capital.

With a fixed sum of capital available, you now move on to the next reason for failure.

2. The failure to stake correctly

It is vital that you consider your betting bank as capped in amount. You do not have an endless pool of resources to dip into. Betting by its nature carries inherent risks. These risks include periods of low strike rates and long losing runs. Your betting bank and staking should be adapted for the method you use.

You must in advance, prepare yourself for the possibility of a worse than average sequence of losers through adoption of a sufficient number of units in your betting bank.

Correct methodical staking in addition to the mathematical advantage can also help overcome the risk of emotional reaction to a sequence of unusually positive or negative results.

Take the Pricewise column in the Racing Post as an example. Long term, if you could get on at the advised prices it would return a decent profit overall. During this time, however, followers would have to have endured runs of up to 40 losers in a row!

Despite the overall long term profit, I suspect the vast majority of Pricewise followers would have been terminated either by a failure to set aside a sufficient amount of points or through failure to cope with the emotion of the losing run.

We have long since established here a strike rate of about 35% on our Best Bet selections and at an average SP of over 5/2 for each winning bet. We feel able to protect clients banks as long losing runs haven't happened and the strike rate and odds have been more than enough to ensure long steady and safe growth for your betting profits. That, in essence, is the key to winning money. Manage your accounts in a way that protects them as far as possible from the element of risk that the game presents you.

3. Chasing losses

Chasing losses at first sight may appear to be an easy way to guarantee an eventual profit but the true story is that it’s a game for fools and, statistically, will not work unless you generate an overall level stakes profit.

Chasing losses is a game for the ill-informed who do not want to make the effort to seek value in their bets. Bookmakers have to price up every race. Punters don't have to play in every race, they can pick the races they want to bet in and that is the main edge that people fail to understand. If you have had a losing day, by attempting to chase your losses you give up that advantage and bet in the races you should not be betting in. Therefore, you are betting the way bookmakers want you to and not in the correct way to win.

Many punters will alter their stakes in the last race either to "chase" losses or "play up" winnings. It’s no coincidence that the bookmakers have ensured that the last race on each day is often a handicap or one of the hardest races that day. There will be more racing the next day and the day after that. The secret is waiting for opportunities and only betting when you know you have circumstances which favour you and not the bookmakers. You must never change your approach or deviate from sensible staking as there is no such things as "the last race".

4. The lack of value appreciation

Appreciation of "value" in a bet is core to long term success.

To profit over a long series of bets you must be betting at odds greater than the true chance of winning your selection have. To do this over the long term, however, you need to concentrate on each race individually and seek the value bet in that race.

There is value to be had in every race – the key is in understanding where that value is. Many times, a punter will screw up a losing betting slip and say: "At least I had some value.” There is absolutely no relationship between value and prices. A 33/1 chance may be diabolical value, yet a very short priced favourite may be supreme value. It does not follow that the bigger the price you take the better "value" you have. The value is sometimes clear but more often it is well hidden and it takes a trained eye to identify it.

Everyone has this "foresight" on occasions, it is a game about opinions after all and nobody is always right or wrong. Value can be the most expensive word in racing if you cannot bet winner. The old cliché about value is betting a horse whose true chance is better than its price reflects. That's only a small part of it. You also have to make sure that you bet in the right way and in the right races – that is the only way you can keep strike rates high and protect a betting bank.

You should continually strive to increase value in your bets. Once you have a selection you feel is value do not just take the first acceptable price that comes along. Seek to improve it by shopping around the various bookmakers or try and top the best bookmakers price by looking to the betting exchanges.

Marginal improvements on the odds of each bet you make can have a dramatic effect on long term profits.

5. The greed for instant wealth

Many punters seek the thrill of a life-changing bet that will produce huge gains of instant wealth for a small outlay. Bookmakers play on your natural desire and go out of their way to encourage you to bet exotic multiple selection bets that can in one hit, turn a small stake into a large sum.

Professionals, however, rarely bet in multiples. Most professionals bet singles and steer away from the multiple bets. Bookmakers relentlessly promote a host of multiple bets with exotic names such as Yankee, Lucky 15 and Goliath. The reason they are heavily touted is the profit margin in the bookmaker's favour increases the more selections you add to your multiple bet.

Say, for example, you select any random 5/1 selection. If you bet this as a single the bookmaker may have a theoretical edge in his favour of 15 per cent. Taking two such selections and betting them in a win double, on the other hand, increases the bookmakers profit margin to about 30 per cent!

Yes, your win double can produce a much bigger win from the same stake but over the long term the bookmaker is eating away at your capital at a much faster rate.

It is a waste of time debating which type of multiple bet is 'best'. Unless your prediction skills are supernatural or you are incredibly lucky, then betting in singles is more often the best option.

You may say that many "pros” do bet in multiples in bets like the Scoop 6 or the Jackpot, but that's only because they know there is plenty of "dead money” in any given pool and they are betting against people who don't understand the dynamics of those types of bet. There are times you should bet in multiples but, in truth, they are few and far between.

You cannot approach this as a ‘get rich quick’ scheme. It is a long slow process of serious and sustained profit and not a game for ‘get rich quick’ schemers. If you go into any betting shop, have a look at all the posters on the wall offering "special offers", "enhanced terms " and "bonus offers". You will see they are all multiple bets. Bookmakers want you betting in multiples and it is easy to see why. They carve most profit from them. You never see a bookmakers promotion offering extras on a win or each-way single. Ask yourself why.

6. A lack of discipline

Lack of discipline is the big hurdle for punters trying to turn a losing hobby into a winning full-time activity. Bookmakers know that. That's why in every betting office you can bet on numbers, lotteries, ball games, racing from all over the globe with horses nobody has heard of before and even now computer-animated races or, as they like to call call it, ‘virtual racing’.

Bookmakers just believe its just a case of punters sitting there all day betting on whatever is put in front of them and, sadly, they are right in many cases .They are simply thrill seeking and don't care what they bet on, as long as they can bet. There is no methodology at all and many betting office regulars are simply a bunch of headless chickens prepared to pay long term for the warming buzz of the occasional win.

Even more experienced regular gamblers who are savvy enough to turn down bets that they know are stupid always let themselves down by continually bleeding their profits with a fun tenner here and a fun tenner there.

It takes great discipline to not bet at times. It takes discipline to walk away from a horse when the price isn't right. It takes discipline to say no to that small fun bet. It takes discipline to keep your money in your pocket and deny yourself the emotional buzz of watching your runner.

Punters come in all shapes and sizes. Even the shrewder punters who could win at the game fall into the trap of lack of discipline of study. After a winning period they forget that what made them winners in the first place was the effort they put in. They fall victim to over-confidence, laziness and indiscipline.

Being a long-term successful punter is like swimming against the tide. It takes an effort to stay still, even greater effort to move ahead and as soon as you relax or slack off you start to go backwards.

7. Emotion

Betting is a lonely game. It’s also a highly skilled game. Emotion undermines success in many ways. There is comfort in knowing that, as a sheep, when you are wrong it’s not your fault as you were simply doing what everyone else was doing. With betting, the laws of market supply and demand dictates that, long term, the sheep will get fleeced. Emotion neutralises discipline and long proven successful practices.

The result of any isolated race has little or no relation to races just before that or just after that. Races should be viewed in isolation from each other. We are all emotional in betting but the players at the top of the tree have this down to a fine art and can control those emotions. Other punters have long since been conditioned by bookmakers to expect to lose rather than win. They have a built-in psychological factor that makes them feel like losers and they have been conditioned to losing by years of doing so.

Over 95 per cent of punters are flawed emotionally. Examples of emotive gambling include punters following a horse, trainer or a jockey blind . The “hype” horses are cannon fodder for emotional punters. They may also follow tipsters blind as they hate the thought of missing out on a winner.

They pay no attention to the changing conditions of a race that may follow non-runners or the ground changing. They misunderstand confidence and can't cope with a lack of confidence. Emotion also prevents people from advanced betting subjects such laying, hedging and arbitrages. Emotion forces some punters to bet horses with certain names that remind them of loved ones. Names such as Long Tall Sally and Susan's Pride attract many to them just for a name that's relevant to them.

Most punters have a grudge against their own money, winning and being successful is alien to them. Emotional punters lose their heads in barren times and fail to capitalise on winning runs. They mess about with systems and staking plans that make no sense. The more emotion you can rule out of your betting, the more successful you will become. You have to view everyone in the game as your enemy and as people trying to take your hard earned money away from you in the same way as you would a pickpocket. Once you can master your emotions you have made the first big step to betting profitably.

8. When the grass seems greener

The grass is rarely greener on the other side. The truth is that the grass that isn't working for you has not been grown, cultivated or looked after properly. Many punters change approaches and methods so quickly that they don't give any method a true test. If they find a system that works initially, they don't continue after a few bad results. It is the same as gamblers who write down every bet they have. Once they have a few losers, they often lose the heart to do this, so they move on to another area.

They are like children with new toys at Christmas . They never stay with any method long enough to prosper. They always feel the ‘grass is greener…’ when, in truth, the grass they are using has been abused and left to deteriorate. They want the next big new idea or method and that doesn't work either as the fault lies not in the grass, but the gardener.

They have no long term consistency in their betting and are constantly tinkering with what wasn't broke or moving on in search of the holy grail before a full evaluation of what they are currently examining has been completed.

A competition to win best garden will be won by the person who can spend most time in the garden and master its challenges, the gardener who is prepared to care about his garden and invest in the tools that will help his garden grow and keep the weeds at bay.

It's the same with betting. You will do far better long term if you can make a concentrated effort of learning and research in one key area rather than flitting from this to that.

9. Laziness

Most punters are lazy!

They have religiously followed a doctrine of poor planning and lack of research. They refuse to study and spend hours looking at how they can win at betting. They refuse to invest in the game and invest in their own learning. You cannot refuse to spend money, just look at the racing for 30 minutes and expect to win long term. You simply can't get away with it, winning money at betting is the hardest trade of all. If it was that easy, then millions would do it .You must either invest in your betting or pay someone to do just that.

Natural human tendency is to try and get away with the least amount of effort. Lazy punters are cannon fodder for the bookmakers. They make little or no effort in their selection process make no effort to extract maximum returns from their bets. Those who put the most work in are the more likely to succeed.

My philosophy is simple. I believe that if a bookmaker, journalist or odds compiler spends three hours on a race, then I'll spend six hours on that race to gain the edge.

The famous golfer Gary Player once said: "The harder I work the luckier I get.” That is also true about both golf and betting. Most people can't spend 12 hours a day studying betting as they have families, jobs and lead their own lives. That is what you pay us for. We do that study for you and re-invest money in our betting so that we can find every edge possible to help you win.

10. Stupidity

Amazingly most punters fail to learn from their mistakes. They continue for years making the same basic errors time and time again. It’s pure stupidity!

Strive to improve your betting performance by continually learning from the mistakes and weakness is your game. Your bookmaker may have been laughing at you for years but you have it in your power to improve your betting and, hopefully, wipe that smile from his face for good.

This article was taken from the Mathematcian Betting website. If you wish to read similar material or subscribe to The Mathematician's private service, you can do so by clicking here