If you are the kind of investor who likes to restrict your bets but still have a bet every day and still have a chance of a big collect, I have an idea for you that might turn the small change into a big bundle now and again.

You have to decide on your own selections . . . this is a staking system, although there are many ways of making your own selections via a system. For example, The Money Ladder's first selection of the day might be your choice.

Or you might like a plan that specifically chooses one and only one horse, because it operates on the richest race of the day, or the one with the least homes in it, or the one with the, well, I could go on all day here.

You could stick to the best-priced favourite. But you need to restrict your bets to one a day for this idea, and the choice of how to do it rests with you.

ONE A DAY... EVERY DAY
When you wake up on Tuesday morning you start the ball rolling. Did I say 'Tuesday"? Yes, I did, because there are few reasonable betting propositions on Mondays except for a few country cups and the odd holiday programme.

If such meetings do occur, then you can extend the doubles bets from 10 to 15 (see later). Just follow the same principles below. Let us say, though, that Tuesday is the start of the serious racing week, and we want a bet every day on our phone account from Tuesday to Saturday.

We cannot find the result until the evening on most days because there is this thing called "work" that we have to be at most of the day. Fair enough, we want something that we can study and build up without even being present at the TAB or even hearing the results until after the nine-to-five job finishes.

Here is how we go about it. We start with the assumption that there will be five single bets during the week:
Tuesday ............... bet 1
Wednesday ......... bet 2
Thursday ............. bet 3
Friday .................. bet 4
Saturday ............. bet 5

Each bet is for a win only (although there is no strict rule here, it is always your choice).

Each single is as follows:
SINGLE BETS .......... six units each

Each double (we will explain in a moment) is as follows:
DOUBLE BETS ......... one unit each

The cost for each week will be 30 units of singles and ten units of doubles, a total of 40 units. Let us assume that  Wednesday produces a winner while the first bet, on Tuesday, loses. Here is how it operates:

Tuesday:
One single, six units (at $1 a unit).
Four doubles, four units (at $1 a unit).
Total outlay Tuesday 10 units.

This is a loss, since we are simply deciding that it will be! We have also decided that Wednesday's selection will win, and pay $5, so here it is:

Wednesday:
One single, six units, returns $30.
Three doubles, three units, returns $15.

Now what we do is to apportion that $15 three ways, to the horses racing on the next three days (the rest of the week, in other words). They get $5 each on top of their basic $6 single bet. So Thursday's bet is $6, plus the $5 for the double, i.e. $11.

There will also be $2 on it for the doubles to come (i.e. Friday and Saturday). If it loses, then the bet will be the same on Friday ($11) plus a dollar for the final double (total $12), and if that also loses then the bet will be the same on Saturday ($11).

But let's assume that Thursday loses and Friday wins. OK, we have $13 on Thursday and lose it. On Friday we have a $6 single, the $5 double from Wednesday's win, and a $1 for the Friday-Saturday double. Total $12. It wins at $6.

Now we have had a win single of $36 to add to our previous win single of $30 and our two win singles have resulted in $66 so far for the singles bets.

The double has come in (we had $5 on the Wednesday-Friday double and the Friday horse pays $6) and we receive $30.

The Friday-Saturday double is alive with $6 on it (a dollar which paid $6). So the Saturday bet will be $6 (single), $5 (from the Wednesday double) and $6 (from the Friday double). Total $17 on the Saturday horse. Note that there are no more doubles bets as this is the last horse in the weekly cycle.

Mat does it all come down to? It's very easy really. There are five singles at $6 each. There are 10 doubles at a dollar each. One single win at $6.70 would cover the whole week. Two winners at $2.90 would make a nice profit.

In fact nearly 10%. So two favourites at less than 2/1 can make a pretty decent profit. Not bad, eh? Makes you wonder what a couple at 10/1 might do. Well, work it out. $6 on each, plus a $1 double all up. Would you believe a return of $253?

All you are doing is betting $6 the singles and $1 the doubles as follows. Call Tuesday A, Wednesday B, Thursday C, Friday D, Saturday E. The doubles bets are AB, AC, AD, AE, BC, BDBECD, CE, DE. Ten of them at a dollar each, worked out each morning.

Very easy with one bet a day and very possibly turning a small win into something very beautiful later in the week. If you want to include Mondays, as I mentioned above, the doubles go up to 15 (you have to include an F in your doubles workout) and the singles go up by one bet, a total of $11 extra for the week.

It's worth a try or two, isn't it?

By The Optimist

PRACTICAL PUNTING - DECEMBER 1989