Firstly I'll say welcome and thanks for joining up. Hopefully you are all sensible adults who understand that even if you spend your whole life, (as I have), trying to bet on things where the price is a little bigger than the true chance of that thing happening, you will still find that you have losing days and winning days and sometimes you have losing weeks and even occasionally losing months. I very much hope this won't be one of those but if it is I hope you'll all be sensible enough to take it on the chin and you won't have gambled more than you can afford to lose. I also hope I don't need to stress that the Betting Emporium team will be having one of the busiest weeks of the year, working long hours and they'll be no need to email or post on social media any abuse at all even if the odd photograph goes the wrong way or if we bet one that simply runs poorly. If you do think you are one of those people that won't manage to behave like an adult or if you are really just looking for a way out of any financial problems you might have then I would urge you strongly to not sign-up.
 

 The first question a lot of people ask is how much they should stake. To an extent it's one of those "It depends" questions but I will predict that with seven races a day we'll have at least one bet in most races and although our range of bets varies from 1 Point bets to 50 Points bets we will probably average about 14 Points on each horse so that's 7 Points each-way or 14 Points to win and hence around 28 Points a race. There will be some races where I can't see much of an edge which we'll have no bet in and some where we stake a lot more, perhaps as much as 70 Points. If we estimate that we will bet 1,000 Points in the week then that might be a decent guess. If you bet £5 a Point you really need to accept that it's possible to lose £5,000 and you ought to be reasonably comfortable, (maybe not happy), with that. Generally I would hope to have about a 20% Return On Investment in racing and my current one this year is around 15% personally. Sadly we had a pretty rotten run last year at the big meetings with Betting Emporium, (small losses rather than massive leaks and a photo here or there the other way would have helped a lot), and the ROI for racing is now "only" +7.7%. If we get 20% this week then you'll win £1,000 betting a fiver a point and if it stays at 7.7% then you'll make £385. I would suggest that giving us £100 of that is fine but if you think that we are taking too big a chunk then you'll need to bet bigger or not subscribe and maybe you haven't got £10,000 to risk and bet £10 a Point. You may also think we are very unlikely to lose £3,000 betting £5 a Point like this and so you'll happily try to get by on £2,000. It's possible that you'll be fine but I just warn that we could start the week really badly and back loads of winners on Friday and Saturday after you have run out of money. I clearly hope we'll just win from the start but I'm pointing out how these bankroll decisions are quite personal and you'll know best how comfortable you are with the swings we will have. I would say that if you bet £1 a Point and we have a great week getting a 20% ROI which I'd settle for then you'll win £200 and give us £100. Some people may feel that is fair as we worked hard but others may feel they are giving away too much. Possibly £1 a Point is a bit small if you are hoping to make a profit and you have to pay us. Like I said, these are personal decisions which I'll leave up to you but hopefully I've got you thinking in a professional way.

 In terms of when you should expect to see the write-ups and what they'll be like and where they'll appear on the site I can give much clearer answers. The first race each day is 2pm and this will appear on the site at 8.30am under "Tips" (find the link to Glorious Goodwood Full Package). The following races will appear in chronological order at 30 minute intervals and with seven races each day you'll have the last race by noon unless I get really distracted in which case the latter ones may be delayed. I really do try to put them up on the dot so everyone has the chance to get the prices at the same time and although I realise that some people would like to get them all at the same time and all much earlier you have to realise that I like to do my work on the day itself, I like to wait until the market has really settled for the maidens and the bigger field handicaps that come later in the day and I like to speak to a couple of pros and run ideas past them and they don't want me annoying them at 5am. If you follow @bettingemporium on Twitter you'll see a tweet each time a new write-up appears and also if any changes are made due to late non-runners and if you have ticked to get email notifications you'll get one each time a race goes up.

 The write-ups themselves will be around 500-800 words and will cover every runner in the smaller fields and the main contenders in the bigger fields. There might be odd races where I don't suggest a bet but I'll still do a write up. I'll sometimes mention horses that I think are a good lay and those which could be good for a place bet or a match bet but I won't include those in our results and figures. Hopefully those of you using exchanges and spread betting companies will enjoy that. The bets themselves will appear at the bottom of the write-up for those that don't care about the why and just want to gamble. I will always only talk about prices that are currently available and bets will only be suggested at prices offered by at least two firms, preferably where one has got betting shops. I needn't mention the names but there are firms we can all see on Oddschecker who don't really lay any bets at all and we will never mention those. The plan here is to win by betting on horses that anyone with a few accounts or local shops could get on and not just boosting our ROI by claiming "mythical" bets on out of date prices or "ricks".
 

 Hopefully we'll have a winning week but even if we don't I hope we'll all learn a little and we'll feel that we had some good bets. If you are impatiently waiting for it all to start my best suggestion as to how you should be spending your time is that you open up some new betting accounts. There is always a colleague or family member to help with this who might like a free bet and if you use the links on the site there is a lot of free money out there. Free Bets page

Best of luck if you decide to join us for the ride. You can subscribe to the full 5 day Goodwood package here for £99

Don't forget that Matchbook now cover horse racing and are 0% commission until the end of July. New accounts also get a free £30. Open your Matchbook account here