Melbourne Cup: Tom Waterhouse says we’re all in the dark

Tom Waterhouse says only a dozen punters in the country know how to win regularly on the horses.

Tom Waterhouse during yesterday’s Call of the Card at Crown ahead of the 2018 Melbourne Cup. Picture: Aaron Francis

In his new guise as a professional tipster, Tom Waterhouse made the biggest splash on the punting scene yesterday ahead of the Melbourne Cup while declaring only a dozen punters in the country know how to win regularly on the horses.

Mr Waterhouse placed bets to win $1 million on 26-1 hope Rostropovich at yesterday’s Call of the Card lunch at Crown casino, ­enthralling a crowd of more than 1000 who had come to see where the smart money was going.

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While Mr Waterhouse was making a scene, the biggest volume of bets in the room went to colourful owner Marwan Koukash’s Magic Circle, which is firming in the betting with rain forecast before and even during the race.

“If it rains then it could easily be the equal favourite,” Mr Waterhouse said of Magic Circle, while noting that many professional punters in the room had been reluctant to take the 6-1 odds offered by bookmakers for the Lloyd ­Williams favourite Yucatan. Representatives from Sportsbet even tried to place a bet to win $500,000 at the event at $9 with bookmaker Warren Snowden, who knocked the online betting brand down to a win of $200,000, and there were plenty of other bets of $1000 or more across the room.

Tabcorp, the country’s biggest bookmaker, will take about 15 million bets on the Cup, worth an estimated $120m.

The company’s thoroughbred trading manager, Sally Snow, said Yucatan had been “ice cold in the betting in the last 24 hours” due to drawing an outside barrier in 23.

She noted there had been “so much hype” around Magic Circle and its owner, and in a nod to the once-a-year punters admitted the outsider but well-named Who Shot Thebarman was likely to be the second-most backed horse.

One-time bookmaker Mr ­Waterhouse has turned his epony­mous brand into a tipping service while he sits out a two-year non-compete agreement following the $300m sale of the William Hill brand he headed for about three years to BetEasy majority owner The Stars Group in March.

He has managed to convince some members of his tipping service to shell out up to $120,000 ­annually for membership — trips to prime race days in Australia and overseas are part of the service — in return for a lot of betting ­advice.

“Most people don’t know how to win at betting. There’s probably only about 12 people in the country, professional punters, who win consistently,” he said.

“They don’t know how to do the form or how to stake them ­correctly, how much money to have on them.

“And they don’t know how to get on at the best price. You’re ­always going to have bad days but if you consistently do it, stake ­accordingly and get on at a good price, the odds suddenly can convert in your favour.”

Mr Waterhouse has a slew of bets on other outsiders and was still chasing bets to win up to $1m on Avilius, which was offered at odds of 13-1 by bookmakers at the Call of the Card.

But he was reluctant to plunge on mother Gai’s hope Runaway, one of the few local horses in the race. “I’m not backing it … though it doesn’t mean it can’t win.”