Archive of activity to June 2012

 

Back to Home Page

Back to other previous posts

On this web page :-

Damaged repaired after laying of a winner at odds of 100.0
Lay the 5F "Dash", Epsom Derby Day
The time of year when horse racing draw advantages really come into play
Lay The Draw (football) and "Back Fitting"
2 new Dutch and Hedge spreadsheets
New Laying web site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . laybets.net
Videos for Dutching to Break Even on some runners.
Dutching to "Break Even" spreadsheets
Horse racing markets F/C, RFC, and W/O
Arbing or Arbitrage
Laying an Each Way bet.
The best programme on television
Allowing for bookie turnover
Betting almost everything in Betfair
Trading Betfair Multiples refunds
Trading an All Red screen
Dutching and Hedging with balanced stakes
Bet First or Lay First demonstration video
Lay the winning team in a football match, a Dutching strategy
Trading Correct Score with 0-0 insurance using a bookie refund

My websites.

betformulas.co.uk
Formulas and maths of trading

betandlay.co.uk
Football trading

betandlay.co.uk/strategies
Strategies for horse racing and football trading

startingstalls.co.uk
A very accurate analysis of U.K.  horse racing draw advantages.

.

For previous posts, click "The Spoil Heap" tab at the top of this web page.
June 8th 2012.  Damage repaired.
I've now broken even on my recent horse racing lays described below in the posts from May onwards, before commission deductions, so no worries there now.
Follow this link to see just how little financial damage was caused overall by my hitting that winner at odds of 100.0.
Jun 2nd 2012.  Dash it all - - - - A lay of a winner at odds of 100.
You can see from the screenshot in my previous post below that a horse that I layed at odds of 100 in the Epsom Derby Day 5F Dash won today.
That's got to be some kind of an achievement. . . . . hitting a winner with a lay at odds of 99/1. . .  ..Wow !
I don't know anyone else who has managed to do that . . . Lol.
I had layed the 6 horses drawn in stalls 1 to 6.
Result :- Stone Of Folca won from stall No. 2.  Stall 16 2nd and stall 15 3rd.

I had other trades today that were profitable, so my total loss today was minus £72.68 after commission deductions.
That might look a bit naughty, but if I am laying at big odds as I am at present, I can expect a series of small gains as I hit losers, plus the occasional big loss when I hit a winner.
That is what happened today.
This is the first winner that I have layed since I started laying in early May, so this is my first big loss.
I don't lay every day, but select my races.

So why am I putting myself through this ?
A few years ago, I started to trade bookie sign-up offers for new bookie customers.
If you're not familiar with trading bookie sign ups to guaranteed profit with zero risk, follow this link and then follow the link down that web page "Win every time with the one trading strategy that never ever loses".

After doing bookie sign-ups for a few very profitable months, I moved on to bookie refunds and free bets that are available to existing bookie customers.
I built a range of spreadsheets for trading all sorts of different bookie refunds to guaranteed winnings with zero risk.
I've concentrated my efforts on bookie refunds for the past few years and done very well out of them.
Unfortunately, bookies are not as naive as they used to be.
They have tightened up their refund offers so that many refund offers cannot be traded to guaranteed winnings these days with zero risk.
Also a lot of their offers now involve mobile phones.
I have no use for a mobile phone, so I don't have a mobile phone, which means that those are not available to me.
The combination of fewer offers that can be traded to guaranteed winnings, mobile phone offers, and a few of my accounts being closed or having the stakes limited, have made me look to trading just within Betfair for my monthly profits.
As you probably know, making a profit from trading just within Betfair isn't easy.

Having traded bookie refund offers for guaranteed zero risk profits for several years, I am now back to doing a bit of gambling.
The sport that interests me most has always been horse racing, and I prefer laying to betting - - - so here I am pushing a bit of laying in my blog.
I've been open about what I am doing, and how I am going about it, using draw advantages to find some of my lays.
My losing lay today at odds of 100 might look like a failure, but all I can say is that it is just a dent in my profits so far, which are now back to looking modest rather than spectacular for the series of small stakes that I have been using for my lays, mostly at big odds.

If I had been betting, I would have expected to hit a less winners than losers.
I am laying, so I expect to hit more losers with my lays than winners, which is what has happened so far.
I'll be sticking to my existing strategy and will continue to lay badly drawn horses, preferably ridden by inexperienced jockeys.
I also look to lay other horses using another selection method.
So far, I haven't hit a winner with that 2nd laying method.
Now that I am back to doing a bit of gambling rather than trading, I must take these hits on the chin - - - that's gambling.
It's a lot more nerve racking than trading bookie refunds with zero risk.
I just hope that one day it will pay half as well.
Good luck with your gambling, if that's what you do.
Howard.

Jun 1st 2012.  The 5F "Dash", Epsom Derby Day 15:15 tomorrow.
Using my "Be A Bookie" spreadsheet, I placed my lays of stalls 1 to 6 tonight as I suspect that the odds of the badly drawn runners in this race may lengthen by tomorrow.
Below, is a screenshot of my lays in Betfair.
The odds of Our Jock shortened slightly just as I placed my lay, so my trade looks a little unbalanced against that runner.
The liabilities of minus £86 may look at bit huge, but for total lay stakes of almost £14, the combined odds that I have layed are 86 divided by 13.84 which is about 6.2 or so..
For 6 stalls that have produced near enough zero winners in races of 13 or more runners, on good or better going during the last 20 years or so, those look like ok odds to me.
That's the theory anyway. . . . . Lol.
Of course, I hope all goes according to plan, and that the winner comes from the top half of the draw, or at least a horse drawn in a stall numbered 7 or bigger.
To lay at shortish odds, we don't necessarily need to look to lay horses that are the shortest prices in the betting.
All that we need to do is lay horses that have the least chance of winning, providing that we can come up with a reason for them to lose of course.
2 of my runners are the complete outsiders in stalls 2 and 5.
Fingers crossed for a nice result, Howard.

May 29th 2012.  This time of year.
If you are interested in horse racing, now is the time of year when draw advantages really come into play here in The UK.
Draw advantages are at their best once the ground dries out.
The recent very hot weather has dried out our racecourses.
Things really got into swing at Haydock last Saturday, with two 7F races being affected by the draw in a big way.
Follow this link for a description of the draw in 7F races at Haydock.
That web page shows some old results from the 10 seasons 1977 - 2006, but the bend that causes that draw advantage hasn't gone away.
The write-up below the chart on that web page is unaltered since I put it together just before the 2007 Flat Season started.

These races favour low drawn horses on good or faster ground.
The first 3 horses home in both races on Saturday, 4:40pm and 5:15pm, were drawn in the bottom 6 stalls.
Starting prices of the winners were 11/1 (Betfair 16.0) and 33/1 (Betfair 65.0)
That course and distance is on my list of Stalls To Follow that I provide with some of my laying spreadsheets.
My Stalls To Follow list is just like a list of horses to follow, but this is a list of the very best draw advantages in UK horse races.
The list is based on those old 1977 - 2006 results, but many of the draw advantages described have been on the list since I first put it together way back in 1982.
These draw advantages don't disappear unless drastic work is done such as new drains being laid, or course re-alignments.
Re-alignment took place at Haydock for the start of the 2009 season, mainly on their straight course, but that doesn't appear to have reduced the affect of the bend in 7F races.

If you bet or lay in UK horse races and don't pay much attention to the Draw, it may be worth taking a look at this vital information from now until our wet weather sets in, maybe towards the end of September.
Follow this link for some "Lay The Draw" videos.

Whatever you do, don't take any notice of newspaper draw advantage advice or what television presenters have to say on the subject.
Putting draw advantage information together for analysis is a very big job.
In my opinion, most newspaper advice is based on guesswork, and television presenters use shortcuts such as 10 results for one race of the last 10 years - - - - not a very good basis for an analysis if you are going to risk your money on it.

My favourite race of the year takes place this Saturday - - - -  the 5F "Dash" at Epsom immediately before the Derby.
I'll be laying a few low numbered stalls, unless rain changes the going to good to soft or softer.
Here's the link for Epsom 5F races.
In races with 13 runners or more, not many winners start from stalls 1 to 6, the yellow bit on the draw advantage chart.
Good luck with "The Derby Day Dash" if you have a go at it,
Howard.

May 18th 2012.  Lay The Draw and "Back Fitting".
I recorded a laying video today and hit a very good race.
There were 3 possible races today at Thirsk over 5 & 6 furlongs for older horses, but one stood out as the odds were very wrong from a Draw Advantage point of view.
In the Thirsk 2:55 race, 3 of the first 5 horses in the betting were badly drawn, with 2 of them being ridden by jockeys claiming 3 lbs.
The options were to bet the well drawn horses, or lay the badly drawn ones.
Either way, the odds looked very much in my favour.
As I was looking to do a video for my new laying web site, I decided to lay the 2 shortest priced horses that were badly drawn.
In my video, I get the going wrong.
I used the going forecast from my newspaper, but after that race, I saw that the going was a bit softer that I expected.
Fortunately for me, everything went ok.
As I predicted in my previous post, we never see a losing trade in a video, so it was nice to see that happen for me today, with an excellent result.

Back Fitting.
Besides looking to lay badly drawn horses, I also look at lays in other races.
There are plenty of web sites and lay tipping services that provide a "lay of the day" or something similar.
It amazes me that mostly these tipsters concentrate on short priced lays.
I can see the logic . . . . . Of course  - - - -they don't want to hit a loser or 2 with big liabilities.
Just one of those would frighten all the customers away.

In my opinion, this is a mistake.
If they were tipping bets to win, I am pretty sure that they would be tipping horses at shorter prices rather than long prices.
Surely, if we are looking to hit plenty of winners whilst betting, we would be looking to bet shorter prices, so if we are looking to hit plenty of losers whilst laying, we should be doing the exact opposite and looking to lay plenty of losers at long prices.
These Lay Tipping services never seem to do that.

I'm monitoring a lay tipping service at present that tips horses with odds shorter than 4.0.
I started last week, and there have already been 3 losers and 2 winners from the first 5 tips.
I can't see any future in that.
My guess is that the selection process for finding these lay tips has been worked by "Back Fitting" a few years results - maybe only one year as past results provided only cover one season.
If you aren't familiar with Back Fitting, it is a simple method of looking at past races and filtering out poor results by selecting winners from past races that "Fit" a selection process based on those past results.
We all do that of course every time we look at a newspaper and select our horses, whether we are looking for a winner or a loser.
We know what works for us.
We might look at the betting forecast, previous form placing, trainer, jockey etc., etc., and make our selection.
Whilst we are doing that, I would guess that we all base our decisions on our experiences of past races.
We are "Back Fitting" our selection process, based on results of past races.

So, my question is, "If we look for winners in the first few horses in the betting, why are these Lay Tipsters also looking at short priced horses when they look for losers ? "
Surely when we look for horses to lose, we should look at a selection process that works regardless of the odds, and look to lay the horses that are most likely to lose.
A selection process that concentrates on what may help a horse to win or cause it to lose regardless of the odds might be better than Back Fitting of past races and looking to make things fit at short odds.
As always, good luck with your trades,
Howard.

May 12th 2012.  Draw Advantage videos including Lay The Draw.
I've put 2 videos together recently.
One describes how to interpret the Draw Advantage charts on my old startingstalls.co.uk web site, plus a 2nd video shows how I do a "Lay The Draw" trade in horse races.
View my efforts here on my old Draw Advantage web site, and LTD here on my laying site laybets.net.

Ideally, we need dry conditions if we are following draw advantages, but I used a race at Chester for an LTD demo that looked ok, even though the going at Chester was very wet this week.
I haven't updated my draw advantage info for a few years.
I won't bore you with the gory details, but my draw advantage web site didn't generate any cash, so I stopped updating the info.

Once things dry out a bit on the racecourses, I hope to get on with some laying of badly drawn horses.
Nothing serious - - - just for a bit of interest.
My intention is to add a bit of video content to my laying web site by
making a video or 2 of my lay trades.
Whilst I'm doing that, I won't have any losing trades of course  . . . . Lol.
We never see losing trades in videos do we ?  . . . .so I'm looking forward to some profitable video trading . . . . . Lol again.

As always, good luck with your trades,
Howard.

May 7th 2012.   2 new Dutch and Hedge spreadsheets.
It still needs a bit of tidying up, but my new laying web site
laybets.net is now up and running.
To go with that, I've put some new laying spreadsheets together.

I've also included 2 new Dutch and Hedge sheets that show the effect of betting and laying across 2 Betfair markets.
Video demos of these sheets can be viewed here or via the link above on the left.
When we bet and lay across 2 different but related markets, Betfair is unable to combine the 2 markets to show our overall position.
These sheets get around that problem.
As you know, when we trade within a single market, Betfair subtracts our losses from our gains and only applies commission deductions if we have profit.
When we trade in 2 or more markets, that doesn't happen.
We pay commission on total winnings in any individual market, regardless of whether we make a loss elsewhere or a profit or loss on the whole trade or not.
For example, we might bet the scores 0-0, 1-0 and 0-1 in Correct Score.
We might wait for some time to pass in the game and then also bet Over 1.5 Goals in the Over/Under 1.5 Goals market.
By doing that, we have bet all possible scores, but one of those markets will be a winner for us whilst the other is a loser.
Betfair will deduct commission from the winning market and ignore losses in our losing market.
Our losses will not be deducted before our commission payments.

Before commission deductions, we might see a profit across the 2 markets combined, but as our winnings and losses are not combined, we can easily finish up a loser on the whole trade.
Betfair is the only winner from this.
Betfair gains extra commission every time that we trade across more than one market and have winnings.
These 2 new spreadsheets show the staking for Dutching and Hedging in 2 markets.
There is a Dutch Bet first, Lay 2nd sheet, and a Dutch Lay first, Bet 2nd sheet.

Copyright notice.  In the videos below, any Betfair content shown is for demonstration purposes only, and is presented with the kind permission of The Sporting Exchange Limited.  © The Sporting Exchange Limited.

The videos below demonstrate these 2 spreadsheets.
Follow this link to view these videos individually on YouTube. or watch them here on this web page.

  1. Video 1 demonstrates the spreadsheet inputs and how the spreadsheets work using the Bet First spreadsheet.

  2. Video 2 demonstrates the Lay First spreadsheet.
    Spreadsheet inputs for this sheet are as demonstrated in video No. 1.
    For a BIGGER VIEW of these videos, click the small icon bottom right with 4 square corners.
    To move from one video to the next, click the "Next" arrow, bottom left of the YouTube screen.

  3. Video 3.  Bet in Correct score using an insurance bet to cover a 0-0 result.

  4. Video 4.  Lay in Under 2.5 Goals in Correct Score using insurance against a 0-0 result.

 

I have seen plenty of YouTube and other examples of trading football matches by trading Correct Score with other markets such as Under/Over, Match Odds, etc.
The traders that I watched all seemed to "Ad Lib" their way through their trades, guessing their stake sizes as they went along, and often needed to remember winnings and losses in other markets whilst they were doing that.

These sheets use balanced staking for an equal profit or loss whilst Dutching and then either betting or laying individual selections to Hedge those selections.
In my opinion, balanced staking always makes it easier to keep track of where we are, and avoids individual selections being losers whilst others are winners.
An "Adjust" column allows us to change stake sizes if necessary.

Not everyone will want to use balanced staking.
My next project may be to produce a couple of sheets for Ad-libbing stakes without any balanced staking.
That is, input our own stakes into the sheets and the sheet will show our position across 2 related Betfair markets.
I've already put things together for that but a bit of tidying up is still required on those 2 sheets.

If you trade football matches and use more than one Betfair market whilst you are doing that, these Dutch and Hedge sheets may help you to keep track of your whole trade.
Trading in 2 or more markets is what many of us do, but it costs us in extra commission payments, even if we make a loss.
To get around that, my advice is to trade only in a single market such as Correct Score if you can.
The list of Betfair markets available for football matches is enormous.
Betfair are not stupid.
Betfair know that these extra "shortcut markets" save us time and effort in the heat of battle.
These markets may be convenient, but it can be difficult to keep track of our overall position and I would guess that every time we use them, we are paying extra commission.
As always, good luck with your trading, and watch those commission charges,
Howard.

April 10th 2012.   New Laying web site    laybets.net
Today, I started to build a new laying wed site.
The aim of this new web site is to fill a gap in the market.
There are no end of betting web sites and betting systems out there that cover betting and all that goes with it, but relatively few web sites that encourage us to Lay.

Losing multiples of our stake when we are laying rather than just a single stake (as when we are betting) introduces a fear factor in my opinion that most of us avoid like the plague - - - including me.
The aim of my new web site is to overcome that problem to some extent and show how we can reduce our risk with a bit of imaginative staking.
To achieve that, I've been working on some new spreadsheets recently which will form a big part of this new web site.
These new spreadsheets use Double Dutching - - - that is, they use 2 methods of Dutching within one spreadsheet.
This
Double Dutching innovation allows us to reduce our lay liabilities whilst maintaining profits or increasing profits if we don't hit a winner with one of our lays.
The different facilities of the different sheets that I have built are quite interesting . . . . . at least to me.
It will take time to chuck some videos together for these new sheets, but if you follow the link below, these new sheets will be available on this new site in the next few weeks.

View  laybets.net   here.

Things will look a bit rough to start with.
I always say that my web sites and spreadsheets are functional rather than pretty, so don't expect an eye-catching masterpiece.
To encourage you to take a look, there is a free Excel spreadsheet available on the Home Page for keeping track of your trades each month.
A video describes the spreadsheet inputs and how the sheet works.

As always, good luck with your trading,
Howard.

March 31st 2012.  5% of bank staking plan.
If you happened to see a couple of posts that I put up recently and now see that they are missing, I've deleted them.
I built a spreadsheet in December 2011 for betting 5% of a bank and keeping track of the trades.
I tried converting that for a series of lays instead of bets, but it proved unsuitable.
Apologies for wasting your time if you waded through my ramblings about that.

It's great that the Flat racing season is back - - my favourite time of year.
The build-up towards Cheltenham every year is just great, but flat racing is my favourite sport.
Good luck with your trading,
Howard.

March 6th 2012.  Videos for Dutching to Break Even on some runners.
The videos below demonstrate how we can reduce HUGE liabilities on laying BIG priced selections down to an acceptable level, whilst retaining a decent sized total lay stake.
Normally, when we lay one or 2 runners at BIG odds, we expect to have a small lay stake but big liabilities.
The videos below show how we can get around that by laying other runners to Break Even.
  • That allows us to keep our profit from successful lays at a good level if we don't lay the winner.
  • If we do hit the winner, our liabilities are way below what we would normally expect against big priced lays for such a large lay total.
  • A negative is that if we hit the winner with one of our Break Even lays, we have zero profit, but we also lose nothing.
  • Just for interest, the race shown in the 2nd video was won by a horse drawn in stall 2.
    That horse would not have been layed in my example.
    I wonder what the result would have been if these horses had been carrying my cash ?

To make this method work, we still need a supply of losers, but if we have several selections that we expect may lose, this is one method of laying BIG prices but with small liabilities.
A betting spreadsheet is described in the 3rd video below.
If you are interested in buying either of the spreadsheets shown in these videos
 follow this link.

Copyright notice.  In the 3 videos below, Betfair content shown is for demonstration purposes only, and is presented with the kind permission of The Sporting Exchange Limited.  © The Sporting Exchange Limited.

  1. Demonstrates the spreadsheet inputs and how the Lay spreadsheet works.
  2. An example of Lay Dutching several runners in Betfair.
    Our liabilities on big priced runners are greatly reduced by other lays.
    The winner of the race in this 2nd video started from stall No. 2 but laying in other races at Lingfield using the system shown is not recommended as a winning method.
  3. A betting version of this "Break Even" Dutching spreadsheet.

 

Good luck with your trading, and particularly your laying if you decide to lay a few outsiders at BIG prices,
Howard.

March 2nd 2012.  Dutching to "Break Even" spreadsheets.
After writing the post below concerning combining horse racing markets, I put several spreadsheets together for different combinations of betting and laying a selection of horse racing markets.
To cut a long story short, nothing really came of that.
All that I proved to myself was that it would probably be cheaper just to bet or lay in a single horse racing market.

However, things moved on in a BIG way this week.
An e-mail enquirer asked me recently if I had a spreadsheet that could be used to Dutch several selections, making an equal profit on some runners whilst breaking even on others.
I have a range of spreadsheets for Dutching in different ways, but I didn't have a "Break Even" sheet.
It didn't take long to put 2 "Break Even" sheets together, one for betting and another for laying.

Once I started to play about with some odds, I found that the Laying sheet in particular showed a great deal of promise.
Using this new Laying sheet, we can lay an "Outsider" or 3 at big odds for the usual small £££ lay amounts, but huge, frightening liabilities.
Now here comes the interesting bit :-
If we then add some short priced runners and lay them to break even, we can add quite substantial lays to set against the huge liabilities of our outsiders.
There are 2 benefits from doing that :-

  • One.  If we hit the winner with one of our lays on an outsider, our liabilities are greatly reduced.
  • Two.  If we don't hit the winner at all and all our lays are successful, our profit is greatly increased.
  • The cost of doing that is that we may hit the winner with one of our "Break Even" lays.
    That will cost us zero £££.
    We will not even have any commission payment on a "Break Even" result.

Screenshots showing an example of that live on this web page, near the top  - - - -  follow this link.
There are screenshot examples on there showing both betting and laying to Break Even.
I suggest that it might be worth taking a good hard look at the possibilities involved with Laying to Break Even on some runners.
This is a very simple strategy, but it looks to have a great deal of potential.

Having put those 2 sheets together, I will be looking at other ways of Dutching to Break Even.
Also, trading strategies involving "Break Even" lays could be quite interesting.
I already have one or 2 ideas for that.
As always, good luck with your trading, and particularly your laying, maybe of some outsiders at BIG prices . . . .  .Lol,
Howard.

January 30th 2010.  Horse racing markets F/C, RFC, and W/O.
I've been looking at Betfair horse racing markets, and in particular, I was looking for an "Insurance bet" to cover a bet or a lay.
As you know, we have that option in football matches if we use the 0-0 score in Correct Score.
If we are betting, we can place a small bet on 0-0 to recover our losing bet on something else, or if we are laying, we can place a small bet on 0-0 to recover our lay liabilities if the score remains 0-0.
Use either of those methods, and we can sit back and wait for a goal before making our next move.
If the score remains 0-0, we can break even with zero loss.

Those insurance bets rely on nothing happening in the game.
The result at Kick-off is 0-0, so if nothing happens and the final score is 0-0, we have a winning bet to cover our losses on other bets or lays.
Unfortunately in horse races there is no such comparable bet that we can use, but just as in football markets, there are equivalent markets that we can take a look at.
Equivalent markets allow us to bet or lay in one market, and bet or lay the same thing in a 2nd market.
That applies to both football and horse racing, and probably other sports.
Follow this link for a list of some equivalent markets in football matches.

I know of only one equivalent market in Betfair horse racing markets :-

  • Bet a F/C and that is the same as betting a single runner in the W/O market.
    If we bet a horse in the Without market, our horse can finish 2nd to Betfair's excluded runner and we still have a winning bet.
    That is exactly the same as a Straight Forecast which is what the F/C market is - - 2 horses to finish 1st and 2nd in that order.

We could bet in the W/O market and lay in the F/C market to cover the same 2 runners.

  • If our W/O runner wins we have a winning bet and a successful lay of the F/C.
  • If our W/O runner is 2nd to Betfair's nominated horse in the W/O market, we have a winning bet in the W/O market and F/C lay liabilities.
  • If our W/O runner is unplaced, we have a losing bet in the W/O market, but a successful lay in the F/C market.

Note that we cannot do that in reverse - - -  Lay in W/O and bet in F/C.

  • If our W/O runner runs 2nd and Betfair's nominated horse is not the winner, we would have a losing bet in F/C and lay liabilities in W/O, so don't be tempted to bet a Forecast and lay in the W/O market . . . . . that can very easily be a loser for you.

If you compare the odds in these 2 markets, you will find that there is no profit to be made as the W/O bet odds should always be smaller than the F/C lay odds.
I've messed about with that on and off over the last couple of years or so, but this time I looked at combining the 3 markets of Win, Place and either F/C ( 7 runners or less with Place markets paying to 2 places) or RFC (8 runners or more with place markets paying to 3 or 4 places).

My theory was that potential profit from laying in the Place market could be used to trade these 3 markets to an overall profit.
If we lay in the Place market and get our Place Market book percentage above 100%, we have a profit if we hit just 1 placed horse but a loss if we hit 2..
If we lay in the Place market to over a 200% book, we have winnings if we hit 1 or 2 placed horses but a loss if we hit 3.
For a demonstration of profits from laying in the Place market, take a look at these 2 videos - - - -
Lay the Place market.
With that lay profit in mind, I looked at Betting several Forecasts and laying both Win and Place, knowing that :-

  • Once I layed over 100% in the Place market, I would have winnings in the Place market to offset losses in the other 2 markets.
  • Lay over a 200% book in the Place market (3 places), and over 300% (4 places) and we can have profit if 2 or 3 horses that we have layed are placed.
    Laying in the Place market may not be as dangerous as you expect.

To start with, I was looking to bet say, Forecasts 3-4 and 5-6, and lay horses 3,4,5, and 6 in the Win and place markets.
Once I had built a spreadsheet for the staking, it looked like that worked an absolute treat, with green in all 3 markets.
Alarm bells started ringing as this looked too good to be true, which of course it was.
Eventually, I asked myself "What would happen if I had placed horses from different forecasts that I had bet" ?
If horses 4 and 6 finished 1st and 2nd, I hadn't bet the Forecast for that, so I would have both win and place liabilities, but no winning Forecast bet to cover those liabilities. . . . .  . a Big Red.

I realized that I needed to bet all possible forecast combinations for all the runners that I layed, but I had only looked at betting 2.
As an example, if I layed horse numbers 3, 4, 5, and 6 in the Win and Place markets, I couldn't just bet the forecasts 3-4 and 4-3 plus 5-6 and 6-5.
If horses 4 and 6 finished 1st and 2nd, I didn't have a bet on the 4-6 forecast.
I needed to bet the additional forecast combinations of 3-5, 5-3, plus 4-6, 6-4, plus 3-6 and 6-3, plus 4-5, 5-4, to give me full cover.
That lot may look like a complete losing set up, but in a 7 runner race, with the profit from laying in the Place market to over a 100% book, we only have a loss in the Place market if we hit both the winner and the horse that finishes 2nd with our lays.
If horse 1 or 7 finishes 1st or 2nd, we have profit from laying in the Place market.
In this example, we have Place market profit if only one of our horses is placed so if we do not bet all forecast combinations, the spreadsheet only shows a loss, if we hit 2 placed horses that we have layed in the Place market.
All other possible outcomes can show a profit.

If we bet the Forecast market and lay in the Win and Place markets, there are several different possible outcomes for our trade :-

A B C D
1st & 2nd Winner only 2nd only All unplaced
8.35 -38.85 11.15 61.68
F/C wins      

As you can see from the table above, we can have winnings against 3 of the 4 possible outcomes if we bet just the 2 forecasts, 3-4 & 4-3 and lay only those 2 runners.
The only losing outcome is if one of our 2 horses wins the race and our other runner is unplaced.
Any other result, and we have profit.
However, if we bet more than one forecast, and lay more than 2 runners, it is possible for us to hit both win and place with horses in 2 separate forecasts, so now there are 5 possible outcomes.
Column B shows the profit or loss if we hit the winner and a placed horse that we have layed that is not covered by one of our bets in a forecast.
If we bet all possible forecasts, we can ignore column B and only lose if we hit the winner and nothing else is placed :-

A B C D E
1st & 2nd Win & Place Winner only 2nd only All unplaced
8.35 -88.32 -38.85 11.15 61.68
F/C wins Not the F/C      

If we bet in the RFC market and lay both win and place, we need additional columns for 3, or 4 placed horses.
Things get bigger, with more possible outcomes for the trade :-

1st & 2nd 1st & 2nd 1st & 3rd 2nd & 3rd 1st 2nd 3rd Winner only 2nd or 3rd only All unplaced
59.80 -36.07 -36.07 63.93 -136.07 63.93 163.93 263.93
RFC wins Not the RFC Not the RFC Not the RFC Not the RFC      

I've left figures in here that show losses if we don't bet all combinations in the RFC market.
If we don't bet all RFC combinations for the horses that we lay in the Win and Place markets, and lay the Place market to a 200% book, it may be possible to have losses only in the yellow
highlighted cell.
All other cells could show a profit as they only involve 1 or 2 placed horses.

So, where do we go from here ?
There may be possibilities for these trades if we can bet in the F/C or RFC markets without full cover for all our lays, but as described above, there are risks involved if we hit placed horses that are not covered by a bet in F/C or RFC.
A video description of these trades may help to make things clearer.
I'll take a look at creating a video for these F/C and RFC spreadsheets.

My explanation of what I was trying to do may not be crystal clear, but I hope you enjoyed this quite unusual F/C and RFC topic.
Laying the Place market
to profit is what prompted me to delve a little further into Straight and Reverse Forecasts,
Howard.

January 17th 2012.  Arbing or Arbitrage.
I've been concentrating on my trading for the last few months, but things dried up quite a bit in December for what I have been doing, so I'm looking for something new at present that is risk-free.

You are probably aware that we refer to 2 different trading methods as "Arbing".
Get it right, and both methods provide guaranteed winnings with zero risk.

  • Arbing by betting with a bookie and laying at shorter odds in Betfair.
  • Arbing by betting (Dutching) every runner to a book percentage less than 100%.

Ultimately, I expect to get around to some "Arbing" - - betting on horses with a bookie and laying the same runner at lower odds in Betfair.
The big problem with Arbing is bookie account closures and bet stakes being limited by the bookies.
As you probably know, bookies don't like Arbers.

Last week I was looking at Arbitage by Dutching all the runners in horse races, placing 2 or 3 bets with bookies, and the rest in Betfair to bet every runner.

The theory was that I might be able to get my book percentage heading down below 100% by using the bookie odds if they were bigger than Betfair odds, and then hope to bet everything else at odds of say 10% or 20% bigger than the bet odds available in Betfair.
That would give me a book percentage well below 100% for guaranteed winnings whatever the result.

I only paper traded a few races, so no cash was involved.

After comparing bookie and Betfair odds and betting 2 or 3 of the runners (on paper), I looked at the Betfair graphs to identify which of the other horses could be shortening in the betting.
I then bet those at the available odds, but offered to bet at 20% bigger odds on all the other runners - - -  - again, all on paper.
To get matched, the bet odds for my other Betfair runners needed to move to the Blue, bet side of the Betfair market.
In races where I got all my bets matched, I showed a reasonable profit that looked bigger to me than the profit from a straight bet and lay with bookie and Betfair of just 2 or 3 runners.

 
That seemed to work ok for a race or 3, but as you can guess, it was very difficult to bet to profit in every race, and the losing races wiped out any profit that I had made on profitable races.
Betting on all the runners that I thought were shortening in the betting and hoping to get matched at higher odds on those that I thought were drifting was just gambling on odds movements of course, but it was worth a try. . . . .  . .at least on paper.
 
I built a sheet for the staking, with no commission deductions for the bookie bets, but commission taken off the Betfair bets.
As expected, it came to nothing as I was simply guessing which way the odds would move.
Nothing new there I'm afraid, even though I tried to swing things in my favour a bit by using bookie odds as well as Betfair.

Just for good measure, I watched the "In Running" odds of my runners that were still un-matched at Race Time..
Quite often they would get matched In Running, but if I hit a winner with one of these un-matched bets there was a good chance that it would never get matched In Running.
I hit one of those surprisingly early in my paper trades.
Not all horse drift in the betting before they hit the front and win their race.
If I hit the winner with an unmatched bet, all my other bets were losing bets, giving me a very big loss.
It would be cheaper to bet these un-matched bets at unfavourable odds close to Race Time for an overall loss than take such a big hit.

The problems that I encountered there are the same for every Betfair trader of course.
No-one can consistently predict which way the odds will move.
We may get it right for a race or 3 and show a profit in each race, but when the losing races come along, they wipe out all our hard earned profit in one go.
All very frustrating.
I'm sure you've been there - - - I have, several times.
At least I only lose on paper these days when I get involved in predicting odds movements.
Back to the drawing board once again,
Howard.

November 2nd 2011.  Laying an Each Way bet.
Earlier this year, I built a spreadsheet for Arbing an Each Way bet.
Follow this link for a video demo of the Each Way Arbing sheet
That is bet Each Way with a bookie, and lay both the Win and Place markets in Betfair to equalize the trade.
Commission is built into the calculations.
Get the odds right, and we cannot lose, just the same as when Arbing the win market with a bookie bet and Betfair lay.

An advantage of an Each Way Arb, is that it is not essential to make a profit from both the win and place parts of the trade.
For example, the win part of our trade might only break even or maybe make a small loss, whilst the place part of the trade makes a profit that puts the whole trade into profit.

Bookie place odds are decided by the bookie win odds of course.
Betfair Place odds are totally independent from the Win market, so if the lay odds for a place fall some way below a 5th or a quarter of the bookie bet odds, we may be able to make a successful Each Way Arb.
As part of their marketing, bookies often offer a 3rd the odds for a place, and also pay out on extra places.
The bet odds that they offer may take that into consideration, but Each Way Arbing is certainly something worth considering if you haven't looked at it before.
Suitable odds are not as easy to find as for win only Arbs, but opportunities are there if you are prepared to look for them.
Just one or 2 extra bits of profit here and there can help towards a decent profit at the end of the month.
Also, our bookie sees us as a customer who is betting on something other than just win only selections, so by betting Each Way, we may even look like a better customer . . . . . . . if anyone is taking any notice of that kind of thing.

The sheet shows the lay stakes needed to equalize the trade over all 3 possible results - - - if our runner Wins, is Placed, or Unplaced.
A 2nd sheet within the same Excel file, biases the staking to break even if our horse is unplaced.
That gives a bigger profit if our horse wins or is placed.
If our horse is unplaced, our 2 lays recover our losing bet with the bookie, so we lose nothing.

Pro traders use the "Break even" method to make bigger gains in the long term.
I am told that Arbing takes advantage of "Value" odds, so to bias the staking to favour a payout from the bookie should pay better than simply trading for a smaller profit by equalizing the trade for a profit whatever the result.
I have never pretended to be a pro trader.
I have done some Arbing, but nothing serious, so I cannot confirm that trading to Break Even on losers pays better than making a smaller profit whatever the result.
However, I am assured by several pro traders that profiting from winners only when Arbing the win market, and win and place only if Arbing each way, is the way to go.
Good luck if you have a go at Each Way Arbing,
Howard.

October 28th 2011.  The best programme on television.
This topic may not be appropriate for my Trading Blog, but it has a hell of a lot to do with banking and trading on a global scale.

If you are unclear about the reasons behind the "Occupy Wall Street" campaign that is sweeping America and is gathering momentum in other countries including the UK., I suggest that you start to watch The Keiser Report on the Russia Today Channel on your television.

If you follow that link, don't let the political description of this television programme put you off in any way.
This is worth watching, even if like me, a few weeks ago, you held no strong political views.
Watch, and get yourself indoctrinated. . . . . . You won't regret it.

I came across the The Keiser Report  whilst surfing my TV channels looking for something worth watching, and have been a regular viewer of it every Tuesday and Thursday since.
This is my favourite television programme at present.
Go to Sky channel 512 or Free View channel 85, Tuesday and Thursday 5:30, 9:30, or 11:00 pm.
Max Keiser, the presenter, may seem a bit "Over the top" at first, but once you get used to his style, the man talks a lot of sense. . . . . unlike those he targets and describes in his television programme.

Watch a programme or 2 and you won't need me to explain here what is going on right in front of your eyes, in your back yard.
The topics are varied, but revolve around the same 3 things, massive fraud, corruption, and war mongering.
Good luck with The Keiser Report,
Howard.

October 28th 2011.  Allowing for bookie turnover.
No doubt you have a few on-line bookie accounts, and have bet with the bookie and layed the same selection in Betfair to extract guaranteed profit from your deposit and free bet trades combined.
If you are not familiar with that, follow this link and watch the video demo nearest to the top of this web page.
When we open new bookie accounts, the terms and conditions of their sign-up free bet offers, often include turnover requirements.
A typical example might be,
  • Make a deposit and we will add a 50% bonus.
  • Before a withdrawal can be made, the bonus must be bet 4 times at odds of 2.0 or bigger.
  • If the turnover requirements are not met, the bonus will be withheld.

My advice is, don't let turnover requirements put you off trading a bookie sign-up bonus, or any other free bet bonus.
If necessary, we can bet with the bookie and lay the same selection in Betfair for a small loss for quite a large turnover of bookie bets, and still come out at the other end with a profit.
All we need is enough money in the bookie end of our trade to cover a series of small losses.
If we are unlucky and hit a winner with our free bet, we can get that extra money in there very cheaply.

The best way to make a profit from any bonus is to hit losers whilst trading both our deposit and free bet.
However, if we a winner with the free bet part of the offer, we will need to meet the turnover.
To cover that, all we need to do is adjust our staking to favour a win result, slightly more than a lose result.
Then if we are unlucky and hit a winner, we have extra winnings in the bookie account to cover losses from further bet and lay trades whilst we meet the turnover requirements.

Here is an example of a "Normal" free bet trade.
Assuming the the free bet is Stake Not Returned with bookie winnings, it pays best to bet and lay at BIG odds.
To keep the calculations nice and easy for this example, we will assume bet and lay odds of 11.0, which is bet 10/1, Lay 10/1.
So, for a free £10 bet with the bookie, we would normally lay £9.13 for a win or lose profit of £8.68 assuming Betfair commission of 5%.
Win = Bet £10 x 10 = +£100 with the bookie, Lay £9.13 x 10 = -£91.30 liabilities = +£8.70 profit.
Lose = Zero with the bookie as this is a free bet, but a successful lay of £9.13 less 5% commission = +£8.67.

Now if we need to turn over another £30 before we can withdraw, that could almost eliminate our £8.70 profit if we had hit a winner.
To get around that, if we reduce our lay by £1 and lay £8.13 instead of £9.13, we bias our staking to favour a win outcome for £18.68 profit or a lose profit of £7.72 after commission.
Now if we are unlucky and hit a winner, we have £18.68 in our bookie account instead of £8.68.
Meeting turnover now, looks a lot less of a problem.

Here are the maths of that :-
Win = Bet £10 x 10 = +£100
with the bookie, Lay £8.13 x 10 = -£81.30 liabilities = +£18.70 profit.
Lose = Zero with the bookie as this is a free bet, but a successful lay of £8.13 less 5% commission = +£7.72.
If we hit a loser, our insurance of a slightly smaller lay has cost less than £1.

Most of my Excel Hedging spreadsheets have a "Adjust" input that allows us to bias the staking to favour a win or a lose outcome.
This is an example of how that can be used.
Good luck with meeting your bookie turnover,
Howard.

September 17th 2011.  Betting almost everything in Betfair.
I heard of a football system last week that went something like this :-
  • Bet Over 1.5 goals
  • Bet 1-0 and 0-1 in Correct Score.

You can see from that, that we are betting every score with more than one goal (Over 1.5 Goals), plus 1-0 and 0-1.
In short, we are betting everything except 0-0.
If we were to do that in the 2 markets, Under/Over, and Correct Score, commission would be more expensive than if we had simply bet all those scores except 0-0 in Correct Score.
If we use 2 markets and hit the winning score with our bets, the losing bet or bets in our 2nd market are not deducted before commission is taken by Betfair, so betting in 2 markets when we can bet in a single market is not a good idea.

Of course, Betfair provide these extra markets that bunch several scores together, probably for that very reason that it pays them better, and also for our convenience.
It is quicker and easier for us to bet a load of scores in one go rather than muck about placing a lot of small bets, but we pay for the privilege in the form of more commission.

If you ever think of covering all but one or 2 scores, you might consider this :-

  • Betting all but one score is the same as laying that single score.

If we bet all but 0-0 and the game ends 0-0, all our bets are losers - - - we have big liabilities.
If we lay 0-0 and the game ends 0-0, we have big liabilities of almost exactly the same as the bet liabilities described above.
So, if you have a strategy in mind that involves betting nearly everything, maybe across more than one market, you might consider a lay or 2 which might do almost exactly the same thing, but could be a lot simpler to set up and could be cheaper in commission.

Example.   These odds are taken from Betfair for tomorrows Manchester United - Chelsea game.
Bet Over 1.5 Goals at odds of 1.32 for £75.76.
Bet 1-0 at 8.8 for £11.36 and 0-1 at 16.0 for £6.25.
Place those bets and if there are any goals, we win £6.63 before commission.
If the game ends 0-0, we lose the total of our stakes = £93.37.
The 0-0 lay odds are 13.5.
Divide £93.37 by 12.5 for the same liability and we can lay 0-0 at odds of 13.5 for a stake of £7.47 with liabilities of £93.37.

If we lay 0-0 at odds of 13.5 for £7.47, we have lay liabilities of exactly the same as our potential bet losses of £93.37.
If the game does not end 0-0, our profit is slightly bigger at £7.47 instead of £6.63 before commission if we had bet all scores except 0-0.
Chuck commission deductions across 2 markets into the Betting equation and laying 0-0 becomes even more attractive.
Apologies if you are familiar with this, but sometimes it pays slightly better to look at things from a different angle.
Good luck with your laying, Howard.

August 28th 2011.   Trading Betfair Multiples refunds.
I've had 2 customer queries recently concerning trading multiple bets by betting for example, a treble, and then laying for a profit.
Unless there is a nice juicy refund involved, I don't see any future in betting a multiple and then laying each individual runner, in the hope of laying at lower odds than the bet odds of the multiple.
If we lay in that way, if we hit a loser, that is end of trade.
Each time we hit a winner, the lay liabilities from that winner need to be recovered when we lay the next runner, so as we hit winners and our bet stake increases, our lay stakes also need to increase to keep pace with our lay liabilities.
If we can lay at lower odds than our bet odds, we can have profit.
If our lay odds are bigger than our bet odds we will lose, in just the same way as a straight bet and lay of an individual runner.

If we attempt these multiples trades 2 things will cock up our trade, Time and Commission.

Time.
If we bet a treble of 3 horses in races just 15 minutes apart, that would give us time to sort out our staking between races, and hopefully avoid problems of a race starting a little later than advertised.
If we are able to take bet odds at the time of placing our treble bet, there would be a minimum of 30 minutes between placing of our treble bet and our 3rd race taking place.
30 minutes or more is a very long time between placing a bet and then placing a lay..
We might get lucky and see our lay odds reduce, but you don't need me to explain how the odds could go against us and leave us with lay odds some way above the bet odds that we took.
Even if we place our bet in Betfair Multiples, we would still need to lay at less than Betfair Starting Price, which from my experience, is not easy to do.

Commission.
As you probably know, working out winnings on a double or a treble simply involves multiplying the decimal odds and stake.
3 winners at evens with a basic stake of £2 is £2 x 2.0 x 2.0 x 2.0 = 8 x £2 = a total return of £16.
We win £2 on the first runner, add our £2 stake to that, and bet £4 on our 2nd runner for another £4 profit.
Add that £4 profit to our £4 bet stake of our 2nd runner and we have  an £8 bet riding onto our 3rd runner.
That gives some idea of how quickly the stakes increase, just at odds of 2.0.

 If we bet a £2 treble and then lay each selection in turn until we hit a loser, unless we select horses at very short odds, our lay stake could easily get quite big.
When we eventually hit a loser, we have commission to pay on our successful lay.
Any profit that we hope to make, could easily be wiped out by our commission payment, unless we have been very fortunate and been able to continually lay at lower odds than our bet odds.

The nice juicy refund method.
About 18 months ago, I used to trade Betfair trebles,
usually about once a week, to take advantage of Betfair's "Midweek Mania" refund.
At that time, Betfair offered a different refund each day, Monday to Friday, with one or more of them being a Betfair Multiple bet.
The offer was something like "We at Betfair think that Big Fella, will win the 2:30 at Kempton today.
Place a Betfair Multiple of at least 3 selections that includes Big Fella, and if Big Fella loses, we will refund your Betfair Multiples bet stake.
Maximum refund £10".

Betfair still offer a refund on Betfair Multiples, but these days the offer is a refund if just one of your selections is a loser.
If we bet a treble now, that means that we need to hit 2 winners before we could qualify for a refund on the 3rd runner..
I used to trade Betfair's Midweek Mania refund offer by putting their selected horse as the first runner in my Betfair treble.
I could then trade that runner first in anticipation of it losing, and adjust my lay stake accordingly for guaranteed winnings if it lost.

If it won, I carried on and layed my other 2 runners in turn until I either hit a loser and made a profit, or completed my treble with 3 winners, again for a profit if I managed to get lay odds below Betfair Starting Price, which is used for Betfair Multiple returns
The refund available on the first runner gave some leeway to play with for my remaining 2 runners, as I always reduced my first lay stake in anticipation of the refund.
I hope that makes sense.

For example, suppose we place a £10 bet at evens (odds of 2.0), and expect a £10 refund if we hit a loser, but no refund if our horse wins.
We have bet £10 at odds of 2.0, but in anticipation of the £10 refund, we can afford to lay only £5 for guaranteed profit before commission.
If we hit the winner, we win £10 but have lay liabilities of only £5, so our profit is £5.
If we hit a loser, we have a losing £10 bet, but a successful £5 lay, plus a £10 bet refund, so our profit is £5.
I used to start to lay my Betfair multiple using that method, but with commission built into the lay side of my calculations.
Unfortunately, Betfair have now closed that loophole by making their refund payable only after at least 2 winners.
That example shows how my first lay stake was quite a bit lower than the bet stake on my first runner.
If Betfair's nominated horse lost, that was end of trade.
If it won, my liabilities carried forward onto my 2nd horse were quite a bit smaller than my bet winnings that were carried forward onto the 2nd horse in my treble, so I had some slack to play with on my remaining 2 lays.
Once I hit a loser, that was end of trade and I usually had a nice profit.
I found those trades a bit of a challenge if I hit winners, but well worth doing.

If we were to attempt to bet a Betfair Multiples treble refund now in a similar way, we would need to anticipate our refund on our 3rd runner.
I don't think it would be a good idea to bet our treble and then start to lay our selections one at a time in the hope of hitting 2 winners before we could trade for guaranteed winnings on our 3rd runner.

There is no point of course, in betting a multiple say, with a bookie, and laying the same runners in Betfair Multiples.
Betfair Multiples uses Betfair Starting Prices for the returns, and we all know that bookie bet odds are probably always less than Betfair S.P.
Even if we started our treble with an Arb, with bookie bet odds bigger than Betfair odds at the time, we would be gambling that the Betfair S.P. would be smaller than the bookie odds that we took for our first runner.
If we hit a a winner with that first runner, the rest would be just a gamble that our bet odds would be bigger than our lay odds at Betfair S.P..
It would be far safer just to Arb by betting and laying that single runner.
Unless a nice juicy refund is involved, I wouldn't trade any multiples.
Good luck with your trading, Howard.

July 21st 2011.  Trading an All Red screen.
If whilst we are trading, the odds move against us and to equalize our trade would mean trading to a loss, it may be tempting to place a bet or lay to reduce our current liabilities whilst we wait for the odds to move back in our favour.
This video demonstrates the effect that placing a bet of lay at unfavourable odds will have on our position.

Although we will be reducing our total exposure, a partial trade out at unfavourable odds will leave us with exactly the same potential loss at the current odds, and will also make it harder for us to exit without any financial damage.
We could be making our situation worse rather than better.

This video uses my Hedge 3 Bets Spreadsheet.
Follow this link for a video demonstration of my Hedge 3 Bets spreadsheet and other hedging spreadsheets.
The spreadsheet shows the bet or lay stakes required to equalize our trade for an equal profit or loss whatever the outcome of the event we are trading.
Bet stakes are shown highlighted in blue, and lay stakes in pink.

 

Good luck with your trades when you get into a red situation, Howard.

July 3rd 2011.  Dutching and Hedging with balanced stakes.
Betfair's "What If" facility allows us to see what the effect would be of our bet and lays before we submit them.
With the "What If" facility switched on, we can work out to some extent what size stakes we should use for our bets and lays if we increase or decrease the size of our stakes before we submit them.

A far better (and quicker) way of trading in my opinion, is to balance our staking throughout our trades so that our profit or loss for all our selections is entirely predictable at all stages of our trade.
If we are betting or laying more than one runner or football score etc. and guess the size of our stakes, our profits/loss will be unbalanced which can lead to big problems.

The further you get into a trade, the bigger those problems are likely to be unless of course you are used to Ad-libbing your way through your trades, which I would guess, most of us aren't.
I've watched plenty of on-line demonstrations of trading Betfair football markets, and I would guess that in all of those demos, the stakes were unbalanced.
In every instance that I can remember, and most of those demos have been live trades, the staking seemed to me to be very much guesswork rather than planned, balanced staking.

The video below demonstrates the advantages of balanced stakes against the guesswork of ad-libbing your way through a trade.
The spreadsheets I use in the video are my Be A Bookie spreadsheet for the Dutching and Hedge 3 Bets spreadsheet for laying my bets to Hedge out of the example trade.
Note that those 2 sheets don't include commission in the calculations.
I also use a Dutch and Hedge sheet that I don't sell at present.
If you are interested in a spreadsheet that covers both Dutching and Hedging on the same spreadsheet,
E-mail Me and I'll sort you out with a sheet that will combine both Dutching and Hedging.
In my opinion, there is very little advantage in guessing the size of your stakes at any point in a trade.

Copyright notice.  In the video below, Betfair content shown is for demonstration purposes only, and is presented with the kind permission of The Sporting Exchange Limited.  © The Sporting Exchange Limited.
For a bigger view of the video, click the icon with 4 small arrows, bottom right hand corner.

 

Good luck with your Dutching and Hedging, Howard.

June 15th 2011.  Bet First or Lay First demonstration video.
I've been looking at improving my Trade the Winning Team football strategy, but the only improvement that I could come up with was to bet scores just within the Correct Score market.
If we do that, we can reduce the number of scores that we cover..
The strategy is to lay the Winning Team in Match Odds in order to cover all the draw scores, plus all scores for the Losing Team.
Then when we bet scores for the Winning team in Correct Score, we have the equivalent of bets on all but a very few scores.

If we change the strategy slightly and bet just within Correct Score, we can eliminate some un-necessary bets by betting just a few of the Losing Team scores and draw scores, rather than covering them all using a lay of the Winning Team in Match Odds.
Then, if goals are scored and we need to bet more scores to keep ahead of what is happening on the pitch, we are slightly better off.
That is only a slight improvement on the original strategy, so unfortunately, nothing much gained there.

For quite a while, I've thought about putting some videos together to demonstrate one or 2 things of interest concerning Betfair trading.
Below, is a demo video concerning trading rising or falling markets.

When we trade odds movements, we need to Bet First if we anticipate a falling market, but Lay First if we anticipate a rising market.
If we are looking to equalize our trade for an equal profit or loss whatever the outcome of our event, this video demonstrates the advantage of a Bet First trade, rather than a Lay First trade.

  • There are 3 advantages that a Bet First hedge in a falling market has over a Lay First hedge in a rising market.
    1. Our liability is limited to our bet stake if the odds move against us..
    2. Our profit can be multiples of our bet stake if the odds move in our favour.
    3. The profit per tick if the odds move in our favour is bigger than the loss per tick if the odds move against us.
    The opposite applies if we Lay First in a rising market. There are 3 disadvantages.
    1. Our liability can be multiples of our lay stake if the odds move against us.
    2. Our profit cannot be more than our single lay stake if the odds move in our favour.
    3. The profit per tick if the odds move in our favour is smaller than the loss per tick if the odds move against us.

In this demonstration video I use part my Hedge 3 Bets spreadsheet.
The spreadsheet shows the stakes required to trade for an equal profit or loss whatever the result of our trade.
For a bigger view of the video below, click the icon with 4 small arrows near the bottom right hand corner, just to the right of the word "YouTube"


 

As always, good luck with your trading, Howard.

May 18th 2011.  Lay the winning team in a football match, a Dutching strategy.
If you have visited my Strategies web site http://betandlay.co.uk/strategies/Football.htm
 you may have seen that I have a Lay The Winning Team strategy for Betfair football trading..
This a Dutching strategy that involves betting the with the intention of hitting the winning score in football matches.
As part of that strategy, we Lay the Winning Team in order to cover a lot of bets with a single stake.

The strategy is to step into the game well into the 2nd half or towards the end after 70 minutes or so.
In the Correct Score market, bet the current score, plus other scores 1 or 2 goals up from the current score.
If more goals are scored, bet more scores to keep ahead of what is happening on the pitch.

To cut down on the number of bets required, we lay the Winning Team in Match Odds as insurance against the game ending with a Draw scoreline, or a win for the "Losing Team"
The liabilities of that lay can be very small.
As an example, a £100 lay at odds of 1.09 has liabilities of only
-£9, but can cover a lot of scores in Correct Score if we lay one of the teams.

A Match Odds lay of the Winning Team is the equivalent of betting all the draw scores, 1-1, 2-2, 3-3 etc. in Correct Score, plus all the possible scores of the Losing Team.
When we then bet some scores of the Winning Team, we have the equivalent of a lot of Bets of all but a few scores in Correct Score.

A problem with this strategy is that if goals are scored and we need to bet more scores to keep ahead of the game, we can trade into an overall red position . . . .  .a losing trade.

An answer to that could be to reduce the number of bets involved in my Trade The Winning Team strategy,
To achieve that, we could either place all bets in Correct Score, or use an equivalent market that covers just a few Correct Scores rather than the large number of scores that the Match Odds lay covers..
Cut down on a lot of un-necessary bets and we will improve profits and have more to play with if we need to bet more scores.

Also, as part of my re-think of this Trade The Winning Team strategy, I have built a new spreadsheet which includes a Hedging facility.
So, if a goal is scored and the odds move in our favour, we may be able to Bet in Match Odds and Lay in Correct Score to exit our trade and show a profit overall that covers any losing bets that we may have in Correct Score.

That all sounds very nice in theory, but I need to watch the odds in quite a few games and do some trading before I can see a way of improving this Winning Team strategy.
I have a couple of testing buddies lined up for this new sheet who have e-mailed me with some very positive feed-back on the existing method.
If we can add some improvements between us, things could get very interesting.
Good luck with your trades, Howard.

April 26th 2011.  Trading Correct Score with 0-0 insurance using a bookie refund.
A suggestion that keeps cropping up in my e-mail in-box is that a bookie 0-0 refund could be used as a free insurance bet if we are trading the Correct Score market in a football match on Betfair.
The theory is that we could :-
  • Bet a score such as 1-1 with a bookie who offers a refund if the game ends 0-0.
  • After a goal is scored, we lay 1-1 to profit, providing of course that the 1-1 Lay odds drop below our bookie Bet odds.
  • If the game ends 0-0, the bookie refunds our losing bet stake.
    The 0-0 refund is in effect free insurance against the game ending 0-0.

If there is no score, the bookie refunds our bet stake . . . . so in effect, by betting with a bookie who offers a 0-0 refund, we can trade with a free 0-0 insurance bet.
In theory there is nothing wrong with getting a free 0-0 insurance bet.
However, it is cheaper to trade just within Betfair :-

  • Bet our 1-1 score in Betfair,
  • Place a small bet on 0-0 in Betfair to recover our bet stake if the game ends 0-0 instead of betting with a bookie who offers a 0-0 refund
  • After a goal, Lay 1-1 to an overall profit that also recovers our small 0-0 insurance bet.

In the video below, the calculations do not include commission deductions.
I have set the spreadsheet up to see the £3 insurance bet on 0-0 as a losing bet.
The £3 is deducted from the profits shown in the Betfair part of the example shown.
Both examples are trades of 1-1 at the odds available for the Champions League Semi-Final between Real Madrid and Barcelona, April 27th 2011.
The bookie odds quoted are taken from the Bet365 web site as Bet365 offer a refund if football matches end with a score of 0-0.

Copyright notice.  In the video below, Betfair content shown is for demonstration purposes only, and is presented with the kind permission of The Sporting Exchange Limited.  © The Sporting Exchange Limited.
For a bigger view of the videos below, click the icon with 4 small arrows near the bottom right hand corner, just below the " T " in the word "Tube"

 

Due to the very poor bookie bet odds, these 0-0 bookie refunds may not be your best trading option,
Howard.

April 14th 2011.  A bit of tidying up.
I'm very busy at present with other things not related to my trading.
Once I get that out of the way I hope to get back to some trading and maybe a bit of spreadsheet building again.
I've had a clear out on here as this web page was getting a bit long.
To see my most recent posts, click the Spoil Heap tab above.
Howard.

Contact me
Copyright © H. Hutchinson 2009 All rights reserved
Copying text or any other kind of content from a web site is a criminal offence.