Laziness: how guarding against the punter's number one enemy will help you gamble safely

This is Safer Gambling Week and Racing Post readers have shared how they keep their betting under control. You can share your betting approach at editor@racingpost.com.

It has been interesting during this Safer Gambling Week to read in the Racing Post about how readers keep their gambling in control, and the suggestion that resonated with me most was the one that came from Alan Potts.

I suppose that's not too surprising considering the professional punter has also spent many years as a tipster, but Potts's advice to write down your reasoning is as solid as it can get.

Potts reckons you need only write 50 words or so of explanation but I'd take it further than that and suggest you write down all the pros and cons you can think of – not to justify the bet to yourself, but as though you're trying to persuade someone else.

Let's face it, you've pretty much already made the decision, so you're not going to take an awful lot of persuading, but if you make it an exercise to try to talk somebody else – imaginary or otherwise – into a bet you'll soon get a feel for the strength of the case you have made.

This would certainly help to guard against laziness, which is the punter's number one enemy.

We've all no doubt had occasions when we've had bets without doing the normal amount of homework – and I dare say we've all done that a fair bit more often than we'd like – and the attempt to justify a bet will remind you just how much work usually goes into digging just one out. And that will remind you that you simply haven't got the time to come up with bets in every race.

Specialising is another way you can keep yourself in control because it enables you to dismiss a whole host of races as potential punting heats at a stroke and therefore concentrate on what you're good at.

I know of people who like to specialise at distances – we have different handicappers by various distances at the Racing Post and so, for instance, does the BHA – but I tend to do so by class.

It may be a little snobbish, but I don't go anywhere near races below Class 4 unless I absolutely have to (sometimes it's unavoidable if I'm tipping on a day when the racing is of a low quality) and even then I would keep the bets very small.

It has reached the stage these days that I don't watch any live racing from Sunday-Wednesday unless there is something decent on.

I will, of course, stick on replays in an evening or in the early hours of the morning (depending on how shambolic my sleep patterns are at the time), but I won't get involved during the day, and if I'm not watching live I simply don't bet.

That allows me to head into the latter part of the week, when the better racing is on, full of enthusiasm and well and truly over whatever happened the weekend before.

There tends to be less temptation to get too gung-ho after a good spell when you've had a few days to cool down and, just as importantly, less temptation to go in desperate search of that winner to bring a losing spell to an end.

We all have losing runs - I know from bitter experience that trying to justify your bets is not going to stop that - but keeping a level head when things aren't going well is vital.

The first two weeks of the jumps season proper were pretty poor for me, but I fared much better last week. Hopefully Cheltenham from Friday to Sunday will be even better still. But even if it isn't, I'll be over it by this time next week.

Safer Gambling Week:

Safer gambling: how do you stay safe while enjoying a betting habit? 

'If you don't find races you feel strongly about then don't bet' 

'I'll never repeat the mistake of trying to buy money cheaply' 

'Betting small stakes is just as much fun as making big bets' 

'Write down your reasons for placing a bet and it will make you think twice' 

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