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Product Description
Pacemaker International - 28 April 2002
Racing Post - 18 April 2002
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Customer Reviews
Stephen Mainwaring’s review is odd. He seems to reject an ‘Americanisation’ of the book as though trivial terminology matters in the slightest. This book is written squarely for the British market, not the American, and a superb job it does too.
Having read Mordin’s first book, Betting For A Living, and found that quite the most revealing book I had ever read to the point, I find Winning Without Thinking a superlative advance on his thinking. The author will, I’m sure, be the first to admit that the title is a misnomer, because thinking is very much what he advises. But it is a clever title none-the-less. Yes you have to think like mad, but having thought, then must put aside all the usual ‘conventional’ reasoning for picking a selection and just believe the elements you have isolated even if from a normal point of view it may look dubious. This is the ‘without thinking’ part, a trusting of your methods and judgment. As Sherlock Holmes said (no doubt I paraphrase), “when you have removed the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, has the answer”. That is exactly how Mordin urges us to think, pointing out that if you behave like the crowd you will suffer the same fate as the crowd – namely, you are absolutely bound to lose money over the long-term.
This is a powerful treatise built on the sort of experience of an utter professional who is erudite, humorous and possessing insights into the game greater than any other I have ever read. I agree wholeheartedly with the Pacemaker review which states: “this sort of counter-intuitive thinking is thrilling to read”. That is exactly right, and I thoroughly recommend this book.
The book is about systems - systems for use with british racing. But if you are a Mordin fan you are not going to read anything new in this book.
Winning Without Thinking is a collection of what Mordin considers to be his best systems. But reading between the lines reveals few clues to making it big at horseracing.
One major grievance with this book is Mordins hyping up of Racing System Builder and Raceform. With all the hyping it makes you wonder if Mordin has become so americanised that he has sold his systematic soul for a slice of the commercial branding pie.
For die hard Mordin fans the book has nothing new to offer. Only new converts to 'Mordinism' and new punters who believe that winning systems can be made will enjoy this book...
Back in the mid eighties I set to beat the track. Studying and being mentor by the Greats like Mark Cramer, Dick Mitchell, Howard Sartin, Tom Brohamer and William Quirin. I did not, however, became a consistent winning player until I read and applied the seminal work by the Great Professor William T. Ziemba. So much so was my admiration for Dr. Ziemba work, That I started trading derivatives in the Options, Futures, currencies and Interest Rates markets.
This is a great read for any true speculator. Here is what William T. Ziemba wrote about Nick's work:
Winning Without Thinking
Dr. Z's Mathematics of Gambling
by William Ziemba
I recommend Nick Mordin's, Winning Without Thinking: A Guide to Horse Race Betting Systems (Aesculus Press, UK). I have known Nick since he wrote an article about the Dr Z "place and show system" for the British race fancier. Nick has an extraordinary eye for thoroughbred condition and is a great student of European and North American racing. His background includes long stays in England, South Africa, and the Saratoga and Belmont areas. He presents a computerized approach to betting that exploits odds mistakes, as in the Dr Z systems, Roman's work on dosage for the Kentucky Derby and other races, Kelly and fractional Kelly betting systems, and his own systems based on behavioral finance biases.
In plain English Nick discusses systems with positive expectation after transaction costs. Technical material is reprinted at the back of the book including technical papers underlining the theory. These include Roman's 1981 Daily Racing Form article on the dosage system with an updated list of Chefs de Race, the Kelly 1956, a 1999 article by MacLean and myself on growth versus security tradeoffs through factional Kelly strategies, and the 1986 Bolton-Chapman paper that was published in Management Science, pioneering the Hong Kong factor model approach to estimating probabilities of horses chances of winning. Additionally there is an updated application to Hong Kong and Benter's paper on his Hong Kong syndicate, the world's most successful betting operation. The latter two are reprinted from Hausch, Lo, and Ziemba's Efficiency of Racetrack Betting Markets, Academic Press, 1994, now back in print.
Nick observes the following:
* Horses do not improve with first time blinkers.
* 3-year-olds do not do better against older horses late in the season.
* Horses carrying more weight win more frequently.
* Fillies need more pedigree stamina than colts to win at any distance in the top class.
* Horses that weigh more do better and colts, weighing about 100 pounds more, usually dominate fillies, especially in longer races.
* Horses defeated as favorites in top races and then stepped up in class in their next race do well.
* Wide margin (five or more lengths) maiden winners win frequently the next time out.
* Female jockeys win more than males and are usually under bet.
* Well-bred horses win less often than poorly bred ones in low class races.
* French and German horses win more than expected in England and the US.
* The breeding emphasis on speed has led to lower racing times in longer races over time; longer distance runners are slowing down by 0.13 of a second per year while sprinters are going 0.03 seconds per year faster.
* Higher-class races have closer finishes.
* Fillies are pushed harder earlier in their careers and as very few colts become stallions they race longer than most mares.
So, good reading, good betting, and good luck!
This story was first published in the Winter 2002-2003 issue of Gambling Times Magazine.
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