Without one, you will undoubtedly struggle and almost certainly fail.
The markets, betting or investment, are accurate and ruthless. To “beat” the market you have to have an “edge”, you have to know something that the market does not know. That can often be possible in the short-term, but the market learns and adapts and “edges” can often disappear.
Markets and the prices they proffer are the summation of all the current knowledge. They are the balance of supply and demand. They are incredibly accurate!
In the investment world, this balance between supply and demand and the constant flow of information and knowledge is on-going and never-ending. Prices react almost seamlessly to the relentless flow of news and opinion.
In the betting markets there is a time limit (the kick off of a football match or the start of a race). Up until that time there is a flow of news, information, opinion and the market reacts. The market is at it’s most accurate right at the end of this journey, the moment before the race or match begins.
Therefore, if you want to give yourself the best chance of success against the markets, you need your strategy to mitigate the strength of the markets. You need a proven “edge” that is unlikely to be arbed away by the market over time, and, you need to bet/invest before the market is at it’s most accurate.
In the investment world this means having a strategy that you can prove outperforms simple “buy and hold”. In the betting world this means having an “edge” that few others have and betting at early prices before the market fully accounts for whatever that “edge” is.