In my experience to date,
“Trading” and related strategies are the ONLY way to
guarantee
long term profitability on Betfair and the other Betting Exchanges.
Laying horses to lose is
no more profitable than backing them. The
effect on profits are akin to backing in reverse.
Simply put; The effect of laying is a long winning streak of
small wins
interspersed with a large loss as oppose to backing which is a
long
losing streak of small losses interspersed with a large win.
Laying horses is a relatively new type of bet, and therefore has a novelty
“excitement” factor that draws a lot of new punters onto the Betting
Exchanges.
Punters can
experience “Quick wins” due to the
unsurprisingly high ratio of losers to winners in any
horse race.
It is not till a failed lay
bet is experienced that
reality bites.
Indeed many novice punters pots will only be able to sustain a run of 3
failed lays before they are broke.
The idea that there are 16 horses in a race and all you have to do is
pick one that has no chance of winning, and
watch the profits roll
in,
is an extremely potent aphrodisiac for punters looking for something
new.
You sign up with Betfair or Betdaq, you get hooked, and if you don’t know what you are doing
you go bust as with any other “gambling” venture!!
The reality of laying horses is that most selections above 4/1 are
NOT
financially viable as a potential lay.
And from my own experience I can
tell you that horses from 4/1 upwards that look like nags pre-race
frequently DO win horse races.
With so many race meets every day of every year the
quality of a lot of meets is so poor that there is absolutely NO WAY of accurately sorting
out the wheat from the chaff.
It is a lottery, pure gambling, especially through the winter months
when the reasons for turning out horses in different scenarios are often
muted and many horses are not running to form.
Horses that pundits and tipsters make out are ready for the knackers
frequently go on to win races.
Horses after all, are JUST animals.
You can study the form, the conditions, the track, the pundits and
tipsters spotlights, the breeding, stall numbers, jockeys, owners,
trainers, the list goes on, but I will tell you this from experience.
Feel free to waste thousands of pounds verifying this information for
yourself or you can take it from me.
Any horse that makes it to the stalls can win any race on its
day. And
any horse that is a dead cert can lose. That is the reality of betting
on animals!
Horses
do NOT wake up the morning of a race and think “my form states
that I am favourite for the 2.30 at Chepstow today so I had better get ready
and win it!!”
Yes,
you can make some slow progress laying horses, admittedly, and you can
lose money quite slowly if that is your bag. There is a chap who does a free lay roundup of
likely losers everyday at
http://www.parlaysuk.com
The data is computer generated and he tests a variety of laying systems
and analyzes the data very carefully.
However you will never be able to lay the horses on
Betfair at the SP odds posted
on the site.
In fact you will
never get a lay price at SP full stop.
Do not waste money on paid tips on the internet for
laying horses.
There are
1 or 2 sites that seem to have credentials for selecting horses
to back, but even with the best you will be paying way over the odds
with no guarantees and you should always back up any tips with your own
research.
If you are thinking of trying the dubious world of
paid tipsters please visit
the site below before you go any further:
http://www.Racing-Index.com
This excellent website provides a wealth of Betfair
sport and racing information and other Betting Exchange
resources.
The
Racing Index also
has a system whereby tipsters who come and go like Gordon Browns cabinet have to “proof” their tips on a daily basis.
The site is independent of the tipsters
themselves so punters can see exactly how
their proposed tipster is performing. To really get a feel for who knows
their game and who is bluffing study the figures over a prolonged period
of at least 6 months.
But ultimately, the results vary month by month, and they usually
average out to a small profit or loss and you then have to factor in
your subscription fee.
You
will find my FREE Daily Tip Sheet performs just as well as any of
the tipsters.
I
make no pretentions and take no responsibility for the outcome of my
tips. I also make a host of caveats and tell you precisely how you can
use the betting tips to your advantage should you wish to have some fun with a pure
gambling racing strategy.
When I was starting
out punting I found using the current leader of the
Naps * competition and Tom Segal's Pricewise tips to be just as efficient at getting a good
supply of hopefuls as any of the paid tipsters.
* Newspaper and Press Assoc, Society.
As an aside it’s interesting to note that the winner of the Naps
competition usually posts around a 30 point profit per season.
The Naps is a competition run by the Racing Post, www.RacingPost.co.uk,
where experienced racing journalists for different rags compete against
each other to fictional £1 level stakes.
They must provide one daily
tip over the course of an entire season.
It can be projected that to £1 bets, the best racing journalists
average around £30/40 profit for an entire season. The rest all make
less profit, break even or make a loss.
Ask yourself:-
If these guys cannot consistently pick
horse race winners when it is
their job, how on earth will chancer's who have thrown together a
website, and claim dubiously to know trainers, owners, stablehands and
bookmakers perform any better?
While
desperate punters still pander to these con artists these sites
will come and go taking your money with them.
What
is Dutching - Why Should We Use It?
In a nutshell it relies on backing the most likely 3 or 4 horses to win
a race and calculating a set amount of profit that you want to make
should any of these horses win, by varying your stakes across the
differing odds offered on each horse.
There are free and accurate calculators available on the internet that
do all the math for you.
Just
as with laying horses on Betfair, the aim is to look for suitable types of race and really
focus on those where you are backing the only horses which have any
real
chance of winning the race, and the total cost of doing so is not
prohibitive.
The last factor to look for in choosing a race to "Dutch" is
for the spread of
prices being in a certain format or “shape”.
The free calculators
can be a great pointer as to what to look for.
I
particularly like Dutching and have developed my
own strategy using Bet Angel Professional
Dutching bot.
It
is unique
and i am very excited about its
potential.
I
got involved with Dutching several years ago as i realized that this method
was proving far more profitable than backing or laying
single horses, for myself and several of my colleagues over the long
term.
Also
as the Dutching win ratio is more consistent
than backing/laying a single horse to win or lose so reducing
the disastrous psychological effects of extended losing runs.
But
i also noticed that to be successful it requires a great deal of
skill and focus as you
have to find the correct race where the layout and spread
of the odds
across the race are suitable, all major contenders are going to run to
form and so on.
You have to watch out for non runners which can mess up proceedings
in advance of a race if a favourite pulls out.
I
noticed the potential of the excellent
Betfair dutching
robot provided by Bet Angel professional and so began the development
of one of my most important and ground-breaking techniques.
The
betting software looks at races
individually and tells you automatically if it is going to be a viable dutching
opportunity, it does the math for you based on your requested profit level
and even allows you to modify the profit levels for an individual horse.
For example when there is a race favourite that you really fancy you can
increase the profit from the Dutch should that horse come home first,
request a lesser profit for the second favourite and request a scratch
on the third favourite.
The tool below is a simple but effective no frills dutching calculator
with full instructions and provides a good introduction to Dutching:-
http://www.ukhorseracing.co.uk/tools/DutchingCalculator.asp
Later
in this series I will outline a method that you can employ using
freely available real time websites and data to assimilate, filter and
identify horses to trade.
Then I will show you how to use another free tool from http://www.BetAngel.com
to trade far more effectively than you would with the Betfair interface.
The aim will be to show you how to make a profit on
the Betfair betting exchange at your
first few attempts
Bet Fair and Bet Well folks!!
Mike J Davies
