Archive of activity to December 2010

 

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On this web page
Exchange refunds and bonus payments.
Where am I in the Betfair queue ?
Accept profit ? Cashout  in Betfair.
After timing, or having it both ways ?
End of laying demonstration.
Start of the £1000 laying challenge.
4 ways of betting and 4 ways of laying.
The £1000 Laying challenge
Testing Betting and Laying staking Plans.
3 Lay Staking Plans profit / loss comparison.
Lay Of The Week and "Both Sides" Win and Place markets.
2 Staking plan spreadsheets added, and some cash lays.
Progressive staking methods compared . . . . Percentage of bank, level stakes, etc.
The 5F "Dash" - - - -  Epsom Derby Day 15:15 tomorrow . . . . . and my claim to fame.
Percent of bank staking for Roulette.
Percent of Bank Lay Liabilities and Percentage of Bank Bet Profit Target staking plans.
Percentage of Bank staking plan.

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

betandlay.co.uk/bookie
Be A Bookie.
Laying strategies and spreadsheets for Betfair trading

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

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28th December 2013.  Exchange refunds and bonus payments.
If you are a regular user of Betfair, it cannot have escaped your notice that Betfair appear to be desperately trying to generate liquidity.
I've been a regular Betfair user for quite a few years.
Betfair used to offer an occasional free bet, refund, or bonus payment, but such concessions were few and far between.
Look at what is happening now.
Over the past few months, Betfair has been offering existing customers more and more free bets and bonus payments.
Over the Christmas and New Year period, December 26th to January 5th, a range of daily bonus payments and free bets are available via Betfair's "11 Days Of Win-ter" offers.
Nothing like this has been seen in Betfair before, so what's going on ?

We can only assume that Betfair turnover is down.
The Ladbrokes take-over of Betdaq must be having a significant effect on Betfair turnover, otherwise, why encourage customers with increased offers of extra winnings and free bets ?

This is good news for Betfair customers of course.
Any bookie offer of a percentage added to our winnings, a refund of losses, or a free bet as an incentive to place a few bets, offers an opportunity of a risk free trade with guaranteed winnings.
I have a range of spreadsheets available for bookie refunds and exchange refunds available on my Bookie Refunds web page.
Those spreadsheet files contain links to video descriptions of the spreadsheets.

Occasionally, I receive e-mail enquiries asking how to make money from trading.
I always suggest bookie New Customer sign-up free bets as a way to build up a betting bank, and after that
as the next step, the on-going bookie free bets, refunds and bonus payments that are available to existing bookie customers.
A write-up about that lives here in a previous post, dated April 20th 2013.

My dad died about 20 years ago.
He enjoyed betting on horse races all his life.
When he was alive, he wouldn't have believed that one day bookies would offer free bets, but here we are today with free bets and bonuses being offered all over the place as Internet bookies compete for our custom.
Has there ever been a better time to be a punter ?  - - - - - - I don't think so.
To put it bluntly, in my opinion, there is now no excuse for losing.
Follow this link to download a free spreadsheet for keeping track of your monthly profits,  . . . . . or losses.
A video on that web page describes that free P & L spreadsheet.

A few years ago, an owner of a company that I worked for told me that to be successful, we don't need to invent something new.
All that we need to do is copy what others are already doing.
The wave of recent Betfair refunds and bonus payments that started in September may be just the start of a tsunami.
If you aren't already riding the crest of this on-going Betfair wave, plus other bookie refund offers, maybe it's time to get involved.
If we are really lucky, Betdaq will up the stakes . . . . Lol.
Betdaq already offer a zero commission daily horse race and weekly football match of course, besides 3% commission.
All very nice.

The beauty of free bets, refunds, and added bonus trades is that they break all "normal" trading rules :-
It doesn't matter if we hit a winner or a loser.
It doesn't matter if our bet odds are smaller than our lay odds.
Stake correctly, and we can have guaranteed winnings with zero risk to our cash.
Stake correctly and our profits will always go up and never down.
We are trading a mathematical certainty of course when we trade bookie sign-up free bets, and bookies free bets and refunds that are available to existing bookie customers,
Howard.
P.S.  Note that not all bookie refund offers can be traded to guaranteed winnings, but there are refund offers every week that offer mathematical certainty trades.
With a bit of practice, we can easily identify the better trades.
If we use a spreadsheet to show the staking, we don't need to worry about the maths of course.

23rd December 2013.  Where am I in the Betfair queue ?
When we place a bet or lay in Betfair, it would be nice if there was some indication of our position in the queue, so that we have some idea of how near we are to getting matched.
I have suggested to Betfair that they already have the technology to show us how much has been matched, and how much is waiting.
Betfair also know exactly when our bet or lay gets matched, so with those bits of information, I imagine that they could put something in place that would update and tell us how much is in front of us in the queue.

So far, we don't have that information, but when we place a bet or lay, we can work out how much needs to get matched before our bet or lay will get taken.
Of course, while we are waiting to get matched, other Betfair users may cancel their bets or lays, which will move us nearer to the front of the waiting queue.
If you are not familiar with how to work out "roughly" when you will get matched, this is how you can do it immediately after placing your bet or lay :-

  • In your Betfair market, click on the graph icon to the left of your selection to bring up the graph, plus the "Traded and available" figures.
  • Pull down the slider on the left so that you can see where the blue and pink meet and you can see what has been matched in the right hand column.
  • Now, against the odds that you are hoping to get matched, note the Waiting figure in blue or pink, and the Matched figure.
  • Your bet or lay will be part of the blue or pink figure.
  • Multiply the Waiting figure by 2, and add the "Traded" or Matched figure.
    The "Traded" figure is an addition of the bets and lays that have been matched so far.
  • When that total "Traded" amount appears in the Matched column on the right, you stake should have been matched.
    If other Betfair users cancel their stakes, you will get matched before that amount is matched.

Example.
In Match Odds, Chelsea are available to Bet at odds 3.15 and lay at 3.2.
We decide to offer to bet £10 at the lay odds of 3.2.
We place our bet and it joins the queue to get matched at 3.2.
We click the Graph icon and scroll down to see on the pink highlighted row for odds 3.2 that £3,227 is waiting to get matched, and £69,164 has already been matched at odds of 3.2.
Now get your calculator out : 2 x 3,227 = 6454 + 69,164 = 75618.
Now, to some extent, we are able to see how far we are from the front of the queue.
If no-one cancels their bet at odds of 3.2 we will get matched when the "Traded" figure on the right gets to £75618.
If anyone cancels, we will get matched earlier.
Anyone joining the queue will be behind us of course.
Note that the figures shown will only update if you exit what you see for Chelsea and then go back in.
We can do that easily by taking a look at the other team or the Draw, and then looking again at the Chelsea graph and figures.

I monitor my trades in this way sometimes.
It's a bit rough and ready, but better than waiting with no indication at all of how much is being traded and what is happening to my trade.
Good luck with your odds movements, Howard.

10th October 2013.  Accept profit ?  in Betfair.
For some time now, Betfair have been offering us an exit to profit or loss on the normal Betfair screens.
That appears to the right hand side, just above the market and is an offer to hedge our trade for us at the odds that are currently available.
In my opinion, it is best to ignore this facility, and just trade as normal, so if it appears I usually get rid of it by clicking the "x" beside it.
I find this facility a hindrance as the "Accept" button is very close to the Refresh button for refreshing the odds.

I had an enquiry this week from a spreadsheet customer who was trading a free bet with a Best Odds Guarantee bookie.
The odds for his horse had drifted.
Betfair offered to hedge his lay for a profit of over £5 within Betfair, and he was unsure whether to take that profit on his lay.

His reasoning was that he could then lay his free bet a 2nd time, very close to Race Time, knowing that if the bookie odds were also bigger, he would be paid out at the bigger S.P odds if the horse won.
If it lost, he would still have his successful lay.

Here is an example of that with some nice easy odds and stakes, and assuming that the bet stake IS returned with any winnings.
Suppose we have a free £10 bet at odds of 2.0 with our bookie and we have also layed £10 at 2.0 in Betfair.
The free bet costs nothing, so if we hit a winner we win £10.
If it loses, we have a £10 successful lay, less commission.
The Betfair bet odds drift to 3.0, so Betfair offer us an exit for a profit of £3.33 before commission.
If the bookie odds also drift to 3.0, we could take that £3.33 and lay again at 3.0 and come out with £10 win or lose, plus the extra £3.33.

That may appear to be all ok as the Best Odds Guarantee bookie pays us out at the bigger odds, BUT, what if we hit a winner and the bookie odds don't follow the Betfair odds ?
We still have our £3.33 profit from the first lay and bet within Betfair, but win or lose profit from our 2nd lay at the higher odds close to Race Time will depend on what happens to the bookie odds.
As we all know, bookie odds don't always move as much as Betfair odds.

We may find ourselves with a bet at odds of 2.0 that has drifted a little or even not moved at all, and lay odds that are now much worse than 2.0.
Whatever the lay odds close to race Time, we would need to take them to complete our original lay and bet trade.
That could cost us more than the small profit that Betfair may be offering.
I was caught out by this quite some time ago and I've also had another look at it several times since.
In my experience, it is far better to stick with the original trade that I was happy with, and ignore what Betfair are offering.
The example above is very simplistic for demonstration purposes.
Being tempted by a small profit that appears to be a small unexpected bonus can easily chip away some of our original profit rather than adding to it.
Ignoring Betfair's offer may also save you from getting your calculator out and wracking your brains in the heat of battle.
For what it's worth, that's my view.
For information, the odds of my enquirer's horse stayed the same with his bookie, but the Betfair lay odds didn't come back down.
He would therefore have been worse off if he had been tempted by the Betfair Hedge "Accept ?" offer. 
Howard.

2nd Sept 2013.  After timing, or having it both ways ?
As described below, the lay tips that I have been paying for have slowed almost to no tips at all.
One problem has been that tips have been eliminated by non-runner rules applied by the tipster :-
In draw affected races, if there are 2 or more non-runners, that becomes a "No lay race".

On Saturday, there were 3 lay tips, 2 at Chester and one at Beverley.
All 3 races were judged to be draw affected by the tipster.
All 3 races had 2 or more non-runners, so became "No Lay" races according to the tipster's rules.
All 3 lays tips hit a loser, but despite the rules that I, as a customer was supposed to work to, the tipster claimed these 3 lays as winning tips the following day.
You and I cannot be expected to show a profit from that kind of tipping.
Personally, I subscribed to this tipping service specifically for the lay tips, which had supposedly hit over 30 consecutive losers around the time that I started my subscription.

I'm not happy about the after-timing over the weekend, and the tipster ignoring his own rules.
He cannot have it both ways.
These tips either follow the rules or they don't.
We cannot possibly be expected to lay something if the tipster's own rules clearly indicate that a tip becomes a no-goer.
To prove my point, here is a quote from an e-mail I received from this tipping/ratings service dated August 2nd :-
"If two or more horses come out of a race in which we have a perceived draw bias, it's a no-bet race as far as I am concerned, especially when it comes to laying one."

The rules are clear enough, so 2 or more non-runners in the 3 Saturday races made all 3 races no-lay races.
I'm not happy about those 3 lay tips being claimed as good tips the following day, despite the non-runners in 3 draw affected races.
It's back to my own personal lay tips for me.
Perhaps paying for tips is just a lazy way of betting or laying.
Surely, we get far more pleasure out of our own tips coming good.
A tipster is only as good as his last tip.
Those last 3 lay tips were a bit naughty.
Apologies for moaning, and good luck with your own selections,
Howard.

24th August 2013.  End of laying demonstration.
Once again, the laying tips that I have been following have dried up.
My subscription to Post Racing began on July 10th and renewed on August 10th.
Following the lay recommendations, I layed 17 runners between July 11th and Aug 9th.
From August  10th to today, August 24th, there have been just 4 recommended lays.
Members were advised today that due to rainfall, the change to the going means that the ratings provided may be unreliable.
I haven't been following the ratings, - - - - - just the lay recommendations which I assume will dry up as the ground gets wetter.

However, on the plus side, my laying demonstration of 4 different laying spreadsheet methods, showed what happens if we hit a winner early in our laying sequence, and later on, what happens if we hit 2 winners close together.
Follow this link to view the comparison of 4 different staking plans

The method that I used "Lay to a Percentage Liability of a Profit Target" proved to be the method with the lowest lay liabilities, and the most profitable for the odds that I layed.

If I hadn't increased my Profit Target after getting half way to my £200 profit target, my profit would have beaten the other 3 laying methods by a bigger margin.
The screenshot below shows what would have happened if I had not reset the profit target to £200 at cell K18 on Aug 7th.
Level stakes showed a profit of less than 2 points after commission, but this method shows a profit slightly better that 2 points after commission, assuming £40 per point as shown at cell F4 below :-

With K18 set back to £200 in my laying demonstration, the profit at I26 (Eye 26) and in my Betfair account was plus £77.13.
Probably just as important as the profit was the level of lay liabilities throughout the 21 lays.
Laying at level stakes for instance, produced lay liabilities that were far bigger.
With a set liability, liabilities were minus £80 from August 11th to August 6th, and minus £90 after an increase on Aug 6th, again far more than most of the liabilities shown above, and also for less profit by August 17th.

This method of "Laying to a Percentage of a Profit Target" produced a better return on investment (column M), a better profit (column I (Eye)), less risk (column F), than the other 3 methods demonstrated, and better than a level stakes profit.
I hope that using a source of lay tips, plus my cash, has shown which method comes out best, with no after-timing or cheating involved.
From my point of view, I am happy to have come out at the other end not having lost my shirt . . . . Lol.
Onwards and upwards. . . . . . Once again, I'm now looking for my another source of some decent lays,
Howard.

6th August 2013.  Start of the £1000 laying challenge.
At last.  Today we saw the first lay of the £1000 laying challenge.
The first lay tip hit a loser at Ripon.
I
started 2 laying sequences with this first lay, and have put a web page together to show the progress of my lays.
Follow this link to view the progress of my £1000 Challenge lays.
Putting those results on view may encourage me to stick with it.

The lay tips that I have been using to compare 4 different lay staking plans seem to have dried up, so I have put another web page together showing 4 lay staking plans with some other lays that I am putting my cash on.
These tips are from the member's daily newsletter ratings service.
There may not be a lay recommendations every day, and also there are rules to follow concerning non-runners and going conditions, which may eliminate some of the tips.

Follow this link to view the comparison of 4 different staking plans using ratings service daily newsletter lays.
I have put my cash on these lays, staking with my liability set to 40% of a £200 profit target.
As my profits grow, what is left still to win of the profit target decreases, so my stakes go down.
When I hit a winner using that method, the loss should cause less financial damage than other methods, unless I hit a series of consecutive winners.
Using this staking method, my profit may be reduced slightly when compared to other methods, but I prefer staking with a little less risk.
Hopefully, this staking method will reduce the risk a bit for me.
Today, my profit reached the half way point - - - -  £100 of my target of £200.
The staking plan has
reduced my stakes quite a lot, so for my next lay I will reset my bank to increase my staking and hopefully increase profits further if I hit more losers with my lays.
To view the progress of my comparison of 4 lay staking methods follow this link.
Now that we have a few results to look at, we can see which if the 4 staking plans loses the least when we hit a winner, and which produces the most profit from a good set of results.
As always, good luck with your trading, Howard.

31st July 2013.  4 ways of betting and 4 ways of laying.
The £1000 Challenge was due to start on Monday July 29th, but so far there hasn't been a tip.
Our man "Ron", is waiting for a short priced runner to be rated badly by his selection method.
The going also needs to be correct. . . . . . I assume unsuitable for his selection.
As you know, we have had a long hot spell and now the monsoons have arrived.
A bit of patience is required whilst we await our first lay tips.
I don't mind waiting.
It is better to wait for a genuine potential loser rather than just going ahead and tipping something for all the wrong reasons.
While we are waiting, I'm still doing my normal trades of course.
Once the lays start, I hope to put a web page up so that you can have a laugh at my expense if I lose a few quid chasing my pot of gold.
My intention is to set off several laying sequences, staggered so that if I hit a winner with one runner, the other sequences will remain unaffected.
My £1000 Challenge web page will show the progression of my separate sequences.
That's the theory, but if we hit winners, that will be more expensive than just running a single sequence.
I hope I can stand the strain . . . Lol.

Today, I put 2 spreadsheet packages up on my Staking Plans web page.
These 2 files each contain 4 separate spreadsheet staking plans - - - 4 different ways of betting, and 4 ways of laying.
The idea is to input some results from past selections, or better still, paper trade some races so that we can see which staking method pays best and which proves to be the least risky for our selection method.
Bank sizes and Profit Targets can be altered in these spreadsheet staking plans, so a bit of flexibility is available.
I've added a video to compare the betting sheets, with a suggestion at the end for reducing stakes and maybe extracting a bit more profit.
I haven't put a laying video together for the 4 laying methods as all 8 sheets have a very similar layout.
I felt I would be repeating myself, and putting a video together takes me quite a while - - recording, editing and uploading.
I'll put something in here when the lays start coming for both the £1000 Challenge lays and the other comparison that I am doing.
Those lay tips also dried up a while ago.
As always, good luck with your trades, Howard.

17th July 2013.  The £1000 Laying challenge. . . . . now with a video description of a spreadsheet for the staking.
The tipping service that I subscribed to last week gives occasional horses to lay.
The last run of successful lays ended at lay number 33, when that tip hit a winner.
The chap who puts up these tips intends to expand his lay tipping and proposes a £1000 challenge, starting in late July.

The idea is to start with a small lay stake and keep re-investing all winnings from successful lays, with the intention of getting the profit up to £1000 before making a withdrawal.
That is his "Rolling Lays" Challenge, - - - - sticking with it when the stakes get a bit huge, with the risk of busting out for zero profit.
In line with that, I've put a spreadsheet together that allows us to extract some profit at any point so that this need not be an "All or nothing" exercise.
Using the staking shown in this spreadsheet, we can stake to extract our initial lay stake after the first successful lay, and extract more profit at any point after that whilst we try for our grand of profit.
The £1000 Challenge may only be a bit of fun for small stakes, but may be worth trying.
If we can hit a string of successful lays and get some BIG stakes, (
- - - - - We should be so lucky ! ), it will be interesting to see what happens when a boatload of punters all try to lay the same runner.
In preparation for that, I've included a spreadsheet for laying at different odds if we cannot get all our stake matched and need to place several lays at different odds to get all our stake on.
This is all speculation at present, but I'm certainly looking forward to chucking a tenner or 2 at it . . . Lol, to see what happens.
A description of my "Rolling Lays" spreadsheet is now on
my Staking Plans web page.

Follow this link for a video description of the spreadsheet.

 If "Ron" can repeat his excellent run of 32 successful lays, there should be a bit of profit there somewhere - - hopefully a grand - - Lol.
Good luck with that if you have a go at it, Howard.

13th July 2013.  Testing Betting and Laying staking Plans.
At present, I'm testing betting staking plans as well as lay staking plans, using my cash in Betfair.
I now have have 4 spreadsheet betting staking plans as well as the 4 spreadsheet lay staking plans described in my previous post below.
The comparison of lays that I am doing on a web page is rather slow moving as the tips are a bit few and far between.

To test my betting spreadsheets, I have subscribed to a tipping service that provides both bet and lay tips.
This 2nd source provides tips at various prices.
These bet and lay tips have done ok for me so far.

Also, after paper trading some lays for about 3 months, I have started to lay my own selections which are all at BIG prices, mostly at lay odds of 10.0 or bigger.
To sum up, I am now laying tips from 3 different sources, - - - my own lays, the lays shown on my
lays comparison web page and lays and bets from a £££ paid tipping service.

The 4 betting staking plans that I have put together are more or less the betting equivalent of the laying staking plans.
These 8 spreadsheet staking plans will soon be available individually on my Staking Plans web page.
I will
also combine all 4 betting sheets as a package and all 4 laying sheets will be combined as a package.
That will take time as I need to put some videos together.

Using staking plans for my bets and lays isn't something that I've done very often before, but I am certainly finding it interesting.
Although my bets and lays have had their ups and downs as I have hit winners and losers, I am in profit today on all except the one on my
lays comparison web page.

If following a staking plan is new to you, I am hoping that these plans allow us to select a plan that suits how we want to proceed.
If you prefer a bit of caution as I do, you may prefer to limit your bet losses or lay liabilities, or work with the decreasing liabilities of betting or laying towards a Profit Target..
If you have a method that produces a lot of winners perhaps at short prices, you may prefer to compound your profits by betting or laying a percentage of your bank.
That is a very well known method for growing a bank of course, but if you have losing trades, perhaps recovery of losses may be slower than a Profit Target method.
Profits may grow quicker whilst we hit winners, but recovery from losses may be slower.

My laying of horses at BIG odds introduces another element - - - big liabilities, but hopefully with lots of small profits in between hitting the occasional winner with a lay.
I'm using a profit target staking plan for those lays so that liabilities may not cause too much damage (I hope) when the inevitable winner comes along.

Whether we are betting or laying, what we really need to know about staking plans is - - - - which method will suit our odds, our strike rate, and which will cope best with recovery from a losing trade or 2.
Testing these sheets using my cash should clear that up a little for me.
As always, good luck with your trades, Howard.

3rd July 2013.  3 Lay Staking Plans profit / loss comparison.
Today, I've put some odds into 4 different Excel spreadsheet staking plans so that we can compare the profit and loss of each one to see which performs best.
I put the results of those staking plans on a web page today, and I'll be updating that with more results over the next week or 3.

As you may have read in my previous post below, over the past couple of weeks, I've been following a "Lay Of The Day" tipping service and laying those tips in Betfair, with my cash.
That has given me some genuine Lay odds
that I have actually put my money on, to use for this demonstration.
Follow this link to view the comparison of the 4 staking plans and see where the tips come from.
Using odds that I have actually layed eliminates any after-timing or cheating that may make things look better or worse for any one of the staking plans.
As I lay more runners, I will be updating those 4 staking plans on that web page.
These are the 4 staking plans that I am comparing :-

  • Lay to a set liability.  (The odds and stakes shown in this one carry my cash in Betfair).
  • Lay to a Liability equal to a Percentage of a Profit Target.
  • Lay a Percentage of a Bank.
  • Level stakes.

To start all 4 staking plans at the same level, I've set each one up with a lay liability of -£40 for the first lay, if it had hit a winner.
The Lay Of The Day tips hit a winner with the 4th lay, so profit and loss in all 4 staking plans looks pretty level up to that point.
After that 4th race, profit and loss differs quite a bit, so to put some sense into the returns, I have added a "Percentage Return On Investment" column to each staking plan.
Percentage Return On Investment is Profit or Loss expressed as a percentage of Total Stakes (%ROI).
We can now compare actual profit or loss and the % Return On Investment throughout each spreadsheet for perhaps a clearer view of the merits of each of the 3 staking methods.

I have been laying these tips in Betfair using the Set Liability method, but so far, that has not been the most profitable of the 4.
Before I put this comparison together, I expected Level Stakes to come out best, but that isn't the case so far.
With only 7 lays
so far (hitting 5 losers and 2 winners), it's early days, but the "Lay to a Liability equal to a Percentage of a Profit Target" method is still in profit whilst the other 3 are each showing a significant loss.
Perhaps a few successful lays may see those rolls reversed. . . . . We will see.
If these tips hit some winners and things look bad, I'll stop laying them of course, but at least we'll still be able to see which of the 3 performed best under those conditions.
If I need to make an exit, I won't hide anything . . . . . . I have nothing to hide . . . . . You will have all the gory details.
At worst I'll be able to put the blame on poor tipping, or blame myself for not researching the past results of those tips sufficiently before putting my money on them.
If I'm lucky, I might even make a profit,.
As always, good luck with your trades, Howard.

29th June 2013.  Lay Of The Week and "Both Sides" Win and Place markets.
The Lay Of The Day tips that I have been using to demonstrate a lay staking plan have been a bit slow.
So slow that they have almost become a "Lay Of The Week" tipping service.
Never mind  - - - - - if there isn't anything worth laying, I don't mind waiting around for a while whilst we await the right opportunity.

I haven't been idle whilst I've been been waiting for a few lay tips.
I've been tidying up a few spreadsheets ready for upload to
my Staking Plans web page.
I've just uploaded a Betting staking plan  - - - - "Bet to Add a Set Percentage to a Betting Bank".

The theory behind that staking plan is compound interest.
We all know how Compound Interest can mount up, so why not use that for a few favourable results if we get a bit lucky and hit some winning bets ?
Using this method, we stake to a Profit Target each time . . . .  The Profit Target is a percentage of our betting bank.
We might set our staking to increase our bank by 10% each time that we hit a winner, or 20% or more, etc..
The effect of doing that is that big odds carry a smaller stake than short odds, but whatever odds we bet, the profit is the same.
For example, to increase a £100 bank by 10%, we would bet for a profit target of £10.
Bet odds of 2.0 (evens) would need a stake of £10, but at odds of 11.0 (10/1) would need a stake of only £1.
If you have a selection method that uses big odds or odds some way above 2.0, this staking method may be of interest.
Hit enough winners and profits may "compound up" in a similar way to compound interest.
That's the theory, but losing bets will slow things down a bit.

I have another staking plan in the pipeline, just awaiting a video, and then after that, I hope to put another "Both Sides" method up.
"Both Sides" if you are not already familiar with what I did a while back, is betting and laying the same runner, but using only a single stake, rather than a bet and a lay.
To do that, we run a bet staking plan and a separate
lay staking plan.
We then look at the 2 stakes involved, take one from the other and stake the difference on the bigger side of the 2.
For example, if our bet stake for our runner is £1 and our lay stake is £3, we would take one stake from the other and stake £2 on the lay side.
If the bet stake was £4 and the lay stake £1, we would bet £3 on our runner.
The bets could be with a bookie or in an exchange.

Something else that I am going to look at again is combining horse racing markets.
A couple of years ago, I built a range of spreadsheets  for combining different horse racing markets, so this kind of thing isn't new to me. . . . . I'll just be taking another look at it.
I already have spreadsheets that combine "Without the Fav", RFC, F/C, Win, and Place, each with another horse racing market.
I don't think I bothered with A versus B, but I did use A - B successfully to trade a bookie refund offer 3 years ago in the 2010 Cheltenham Festival meeting.
The offer, from Blue Square (now taken over by Betfair) was "Place a £1 bet and if my horse beats the Bookie's selected horse, I get a £5 Free Bet".
The strategy was :-
Look in Betfair at the A - B markets for the race concerned.
Find the bookie's horse in the A - B market and bet the other horse with the bookie.
If the bookie's horse was the "A" horse, Lay the B - A in the A - B market - - that is lay my horse to beat the bookies horse.
Balance the staking and I had a small guaranteed, zero risk profit whatever happened in the race.
The 3 possible outcomes of that are shown below, with some profits.
Note that the refunded free bet is included in those returns, so if that happened, those wouldn't be the final profit.

Lose + A-B Lose + B-A Win + B-A
0.91 0.91 6.91

My bet and lay odds were bet £1 on my horse at odds of 11.0 with the bookie, lay B--A at 2.54 in Betfair, commission at 4.8%.
If the bookie horse won, (the Lose + A--B outcome), the profit of £0.91 would be a return of 91% profit on my initial £1 bet.
A small profit but an excellent return on my £1 investment.  - - - - -  You won't get interest like that at your local bank.
Potential profits make look small, but every bit adds up at the end of the month.
Unfortunately, I haven't seen a similar offer for over 3 years.
Maybe bookies are a bit smarter now than they used to be . . . . Lol.
Howard.

25th June 2013.  2 Staking plan spreadsheets added, and some cash lays.
I've now added 2 more staking plans for laying to
my Staking Plans web page :-
Lay a Percentage of a Profit Target,
Lay to a Set Lay Liability.

Video descriptions for those are also available on that web page.
For the past couple of weeks, I've been doing some lays using cash.
I have been using the
Lay to a Set Lay Liability spreadsheet, with the liability set to -£40 if I hit a winner.
It is early days, but so far I have hit 1 winner in 6 lays.
I don't have a lay every day.
The biggest lay odds that I have layed have been 11.0 and the shortest odds so far 1.99.

So far, I am £17.70 in profit including my minus £40 loss.
Follow this link to see where my tips come from and the progress of my lays.
Eventually I hope to use the odds that I have layed to do a video comparison of the different lay staking plans that I now have available.
If I can manage a decent profit, we will then be able to see which works best with the genuine odds that I have layed.
If I make a loss, maybe we can see which staking method loses the least . . . . Lol.
The horses that I am laying are Lay Of The Day tips.
If I can get far enough into profit, I may chuck some of my own lays in as well.

If my profits grow, my strategy is to increase my liabilities by £10 each time that I reach my current lay liability of profit :-
Starting with a set liability of £40, if I get to £40 profit, increase the liability to £50.
If profit gets to 40 + 50 = £90, increase the set liability to £60.
If profit gets to 90 + 60 = £150, increase the set liability to £70, . . .  and so on.
I may be prepared to lose £100 following these tips, but if things are looking a bit naughty before I get £100 into the red, I'll implement my exit strategy . . . . . Lol.
My exit strategy is that if I trade into the red and things look bad, I'll pack it in . . . Lol again.
From that you can see that I may make a  strategic withdrawal (a retreat) at any point if results don't live up to my expectations.

As always, good luck with your trades,
Howard.

11 June 2013.   Progressive staking methods compared . . . . Percentage of bank, level stakes, etc.
I have deleted my post dated June 7th, as it was rather poor.

Over the past few weeks, I have been looking at staking plans, particularly for laying.
Below is a comparison of several staking methods for Laying.

  • Laying for a Fixed Liability (of minus £40).
    Stake sizes are decided by the size of the odds.
  • Laying to a Percentage Liability of our Bank.
    S
    take sizes are decided by the size of our bank.
  • Laying to win a set Profit Target, using a set percentage of the on-going profit or loss.
    Stake sizes are decided by the profit needed to reach the profit target.

I put a video together to compare the Profit Target method with the "Percentage of bank" method.
Follow this link to the YouTube video

After uploading my video to YouTube, I put a "Fixed Liability" spreadsheet together so that I could do some comparisons between those 3 methods and laying at Level Stakes.

Laying to a set Level of £40 liability in every race paid better than laying to a percentage of our bank.
Both of those paid better than laying to a win a set Profit Target.
However, using the Profit Target method, stake sizes go down as profits increase.
If we are confident of our lay selections, once our profit reaches say, 50% of the target, we can reset the spreadsheet to start again with bigger stakes again.
Doing that can boost profits, providing that we continue with favourable results.
In the video, I demonstrate the benefit of doing a "Restart".

Note that in that video, one of the results was a Dead Heat.
In the 2nd spreadsheet shown in the video, "Lay to a percentage liability of our bank", the red Adjustment shown is incorrect.
I had copied odds and results plus the Adjustment from one spreadsheet to the other, but the different staking method in the 2nd sheet meant that the Adjustment was incorrect.
The lay stake in the 2nd spreadsheet in the video should be £9.93 for a liability of minus £17.36.
That changes the overall profit to +£156.29 at row 41 in the sheet.

Below is a summary of the profits from the 3 different staking methods.
Profit from the Profit Target spreadsheet after a restart after a profit of £100 was reached, demonstrated in the video is shown on the right.
Odds for the 38 lays in the video were taken from
"Lay Of The Day" on the bettingexpert.com web site.
10 of those lays hit a winner, one of which was a Dead Heat, so lay stakes were halved for that result.
Lay £1 on every runner for a £1 Level Stakes lay profit = +£7.95.

Stake :-

Fixed Liability

20% liability of £200 bank Lay 20% of a bank for a Profit Target of £200
Stake to liability of :- Set at -£40 liability Liability varied up and down Liability varied up and down
Profit £178.96 £156.29 £150.53
£200 after a restart.

The 2 staking plans to the right both started with a £40 lay, and the lay stakes varied according to whether the bank went up or down as the races hit a winner or a loser.
As they both started with first race liabilities of minus £40, I set the Level Stakes method to liabilities of minus £40 for every lay.
To compare Level Stakes with those profits, maybe we should divide the profits by the 7.95 points profit or something, but I don't think that information tells us very much, so I have left that out.
I'll be adding a "Restart" facility to the Profit Target sheet so that we can leave all results in the sheet and carry on staking as if we had cleared the sheet and started again with the bigger stakes shown in the video.
My intention is to correct the staking in the video and put these 3 different staking methods on
my Staking Plans web page.

These staking plans rely on a good selection method for hitting losers of course.
Warning.  In the video, I use odds taken from results of free tips for "Lay Of The Day" on the bettingexpert.com web site.
There are some complaints on that web page that the odds shown may not have been available, so if you decide to follow those tips, be careful, Howard.

31st May 2013.  The 5F "Dash" - - - -  Epsom Derby Day 15:15 tomorrow . . . . . and my claim to fame.
The best race of the year takes place again tomorrow - - - the race before The Derby, a 5F handicap for older horses at 3:15.
Pure speed is what this race is about, and daring riding - - maybe, as this is the fastest 5F in the country.
This is by far my favourite race of the year.
Unfortunately, television coverage concentrates on The Derby, so the build-up to this race and the coverage afterwards is rather poor.
If you take an interest in this race, make sure that you know the colours of your jockeys, and which stalls they will be starting from, as the action won't last very long.

As last year, I'll probably be laying the horses drawn in stalls 1 to 6, depending on the going.
Follow this link for a description of the draw advantage in races over 5F at Epsom for horses aged 3 yrs & older.
I hit a winner at odds of 100.0 last year with one of my lays, so I am hoping for a better result this time. . . . .Lol.
This race attracts lots of runners these days, so I am hoping that last year's winner was probably the first winner in about 20 years to win this particular race from a starting stall numbered 1 to 6, on good or better going, so with a bit of luck, the stats should be on my side this year.

The starting stalls in Epsom 5F races NEVER used to be placed against the Stands' Side running rail in 5F races, but since the late 1980's they have ALWAYS been placed against the Stands' Rail.
If you can be bothered reading about a bit of history,
follow this link to read about what caused Epsom Racecoure to take such drastic action. . . moving the starting stalls from the Low rail or middle of the course, to the "High" rail on the Stands' side.
Read that, for my claim to fame . . . .Lol.
I like to think that I caused Epsom Racecourse to take those measures in an attempt to eliminate the strongest Draw vantage in the country - - follow this link.
No-one knew the very strong draw advantage in Epsom 5F races until I came up with a few very basic (and very obvious - to me at least) stats.
I would guess that your newspaper tomorrow will recommend a High Draw advantage over the 5F course.
That is the TOTAL OPPOSITE of the draw advantage advice that your newspaper and all other newspaper used to give, even though just 3 horses were winning the majority of these races.
I won't bore you any further with that.
Just follow the link above for a bit of decent information from the past.

Last year's winner of this race, "Stone Of Folca", has a much more favourable draw this time in stall 15, so with a bit of luck, maybe he'll win again and do me a favour this time, instead of creating a disaster . . . .Lol again.

Tonight, at about 8:45pm, the Lay odds of those 6 runners in stalls 1 to 6 combined (32.0, 60.0, 48.0, 44.0, 60.0, 20.0) are 6.32 if one of them wins, so maybe a lay of those 6 horses may represent good value as there may have been only one winner in the last 20 years - - - if the going is good or faster.
If we were to bet the 6 best drawn horses in the Top 6 stalls, stalls 20 to 15, the combined bet odds of those would be 2.07, almost even money.
The winner could come from stalls 7 to 14 of course, but if we were to choose between betting at even money in a 20 runner handicap, or laying at 6.23, I'd be more optimistic about laying odds of 6.23 and hoping for a loser rather than betting at 2.07 for a winner.
OK, I've convinced myself . . . Lol. . . . I'll go ahead with the lays of stalls 1 to 6 tomorrow.

Betfair markets are supposed to be very efficient of course, so I may just be kidding myself by looking at the odds like that.
The draw advantage may be factored into the price - - - now that everyone knows about it of course.
That bit of speculation is just my opinion, and having an opinion is what betting and laying is all about.
Wish me luck with my lays, Howard.

June 1st race result.
After the race today :-
I didn't trade in this Epsom 5F race as the going forecast this morning was Good/G-soft.
Even without a financial interest, the race was exciting to watch with both the winner and the 2nd coming from a long way back.
The horse from stall 19 won with stalls 1 and 5 in 2nd and 3rd places - - - perhaps a clear indication that going softer than good is not what we should be looking for if we are looking to lay badly drawn horses in stalls 1 to 6.
Hopefully next year's race will be run on faster ground.
Good luck next year, Howard.

May 29th 2013.  Percent of bank staking for Roulette.
I've now combined the 2 sheets described below in my previous post so that they can be traded using just one spreadsheet.
The idea is to bet one runner, and lay another different runner in the same race, football match, etc..
If we can get a decent run of results, it is possible to get both staking plans into a winning position.
What we require is separate betting and laying selections, but in the same event :-

For example, we might simply bet the 2nd favourite in horse races, and lay the favourite.
If we hit the winner with our bet, we also have a successful lay (of the fav), for a winning bet, plus a successful lay.

That would be a profit for both staking plans, but other combinations see a profit in one staking plan only, or a loss in both :-
If we don't hit the winner with our bet or our lay, we have a successful lay which may be bigger than our losing bet.
If we hit the winner with our lay, we have both a losing bet, plus payout of lay liabilities on our lay.
We don't have to lay something at short odds of course, so if you have a selection method for hitting winning bets, you might consider laying something in the same horse race, football match, etc., that you would expect to lose.
The bet stakes in this spreadsheet aim for a profit that is a percentage of your betting bank.
The lay stakes can be set to a liability that is a percentage of your betting bank.
Those can be set independently in the spreadsheet, so you may set them the same, maybe to win or lose 10% of your bank, or you may set them at different levels, maybe to add 10% if we have a winning bet, or lose only 5% if we hit a winner with our lay.

The aim is to get both percentage staking plans into profit, or one of them to show a profit that is bigger than the loss of the other.
If you have a betting selection method, you might favour the bet side, and if you prefer to pick losers, you may favour the lay side.
If you can combine both in the same race / event, you may set them both to the same level and see what happens.
With the right results, it is certainly possible to get both staking plans into profit at the same time.
Things can go the other way of course, with both showing a loss.
I have played about with a few results and this bet and lay 2 runners, to bet and lay targets spreadsheet looks quite promising.

Roulette. . . . . . . .
After thinking about combining more than one Percentage of Bank stalking plan the other day, I decided that 2 betting Percentage of Bank staking plans for Roulette may work for even money staking as the odds are continually at 2.0 apart from the Green zero.

As we all probably know, Roulette is notorious for favouring one side of results over the other.
If betting Red and Black numbers, we may see one colour dominate for quite a while and then the other.
My theory was that as one side of the staking hit most winners, a Percentage Of bank staking plan would see stakes increase on that winning side and show a steadily increasing profit.
Whilst one side is winning, the opposite side will be losing and stakes will be deceasing.
Gains would be getting bigger and bigger, whilst losses would be getting smaller and smaller.
With that in mind, I put a spreadsheet together to Bet 2 staking plans at the same time - - - maybe one for Red and the other for Black, or Odd  / Even, or Top Half / Bottom Half of the numbers.
My theory was that one side would dominate at some point whilst the other would be losing, and that bet winnings on one side would be bigger than bet losses on the other.

With "favourable results", that is exactly what happens using percentage of bank staking on 2 bets in the same market at odds of 2.0.
However, testing the sheet with a few fictitious results showed that if results favour both sides for a while with no side dominating, both staking plans can get into a losing situation for an overall loss.
Chuck in the occasional Green Zero result, and things could get slightly worse, but my guess is that Green Zero wouldn't have a massive effect of the progress the staking of our wins and losses.
What really matters is how the red and black, or other Even Money results come in bunches.
If we could guarantee that one side would dominate, all may be ok.
I didn't use cash whilst testing.
I also considered other markets with only 2 possible outcomes, such as Over 2.5 Goals in football matches..
The "Bet 2 Outcomes" Roulette sheet can include commission deductions so would be suitable for trading anything that has only 2 possible outcomes such as Over/Under Goals, or, if you have a selection method that involves 2 selections that are successful on a regular basis, it may work ok, especially if the odds are bigger than 2.0.
You might bet just 2 selections from Match Odds for instance, or 2 horses in a horse race.

I may put 3 Percentage of Bank Bet sheets together for trading such as Match Odds and see how 3 selections perform.
If we simply bet the Home Team, Away Team, and the Draw in selected matches (if we have a suitable selection method), perhaps 2 of those staking plans may get into profit whilst the 3rd shows a loss.
Suitable games for that may involve a strong favourite team, with perhaps the outsider losing most games whilst winners come from the Strong Favourite team and the Draw.
Your selection method may not be quite as naive and basic, - - - - That's just a bit of speculation.
You could of course bet 3 horse in horse races if you have a good selection method, and if you are able to hit enough winners from your 3 runners, maybe one or even 2 of your 3 staking plans could get you into profit if your 3rd makes a loss.

I'll be working on different combinations of these "Percentage Of Bank" staking plans in the coming months, so we will see what I can come up with.
So far, I have : -

  • Bet a percentage of bank, Lay a percentage of bank. - - - 2 separate spreadsheets in the same file,
    available on
    my Staking Plans web page
  • Bet 2 selections using a percentage of bank, suitable for Roulette for example.
  • Bet and lay 2 runners in the same event.  Bet to a profit target, plus Lay to a set liability - both in the same spreadsheet.
    Laying to a set lay liability offers control over lay liabilities, whilst betting to a profit target offers a set profit from bet winnings.

I'll keep you updated on progress.  I feel some videos coming on . . . . Lol,  Howard.

May 27th 2013.  Percent of Bank Lay Liabilities and Percentage of Bank Bet Profit Target staking plans.
I put 2 more spreadsheet staking plans together today which are based on using a percentage of our betting bank.
I decided that if we Lay a percentage of our bank, at different sized odds we don't have control over the size of our lay liabilities, so I put a staking plan together for laying to a set lay liability each time that we place a lay.
Using this new sheet, we can set our lay liabilities at say, 5% of our bank, so that lay liabilities remain pretty constant.
Then if we hit a winner with one of our lays, 5% of our bank is our payout on every lay regardless of the size of the odds that we lay..
If we simply lay a percentage of our bank, lay liabilities could be bigger or smaller percentages of our bank as we lay at different sized odds.
This new spreadsheet stabilizes our payout.

Once I had put that together, I decided that betting to a profit target each time could work very well.
That can stabilize our winnings.
I put a spreadsheet together that aims to win a set percentage of our bank every time we hit a winner, rather than just staking a percentage of our bank.
If we can hit winners, our bank will increase by a set percentage each time.
As you know, a series of percentage increases can really add up if we can hit a few winners.
I put odds of 6.0 into the sheet and found that after several losers, bet losses could be recovered by just a single winner, even after commission deductions.
If we can then hit a winner or 3 in succession, the bank starts to increase again.
The laying sheet works best if we can lay at short odds of course.

I've been looking at combining both sheets to see what happens, using some odds from horse races, but these staking plans will work in any markets of course - - - horses, football, etc..
My intention is to put these 2 new spreadsheets
on my Staking Plans web page and put a video together for them.
The
Staking Plans web page is expanding a little now.
As always, good luck with your trades, Howard.

May 13th 2013.  Percentage of Bank staking plan.
I would guess that most of us are familiar with this topic, so nothing new here then.
I had a request some time ago from a spreadsheet customer for a sheet for recording a "Percentage of Bank" staking plan.
He had a lot of results to input, so I put a sheet together with over 2,000 lines for his results.
Recently, I've had another request for a similar sheet that would be suitable for someone who may be at work whilst several trades take place.
If you are at work, or just need to bet or lay several events that are taking place at the same time, such as several football matches, you cannot keep up with several events during the day and stake sizes that change due to a winners or losers, so I have put a sheet together that gets around those problems.
The date column triggers an update of the staking, so if we want to update after every event we simply input the date.
If we cannot monitor every bet or lay, or we have several bets running at the same time, we can maintain the same stake for several events by simply leaving the Date column blank.
Once we input a new date, the staking looks at the results, updates our Total Bank and sets the next stake to the percentage of our Total Bank that we have set in the spreadsheet.

This Excel file has a Betting sheet and a separate Laying sheet for betting or laying a percentage of our bank.
I used a Percentage of Bank sheet for betting some horse races a while ago.
I found that whilst I was hitting winners, my bank grew quite quickly, and after a loser, it recovered ok once I hit a few more winners.
At that time, I was betting very short odds with a high strike rate in the Place market of horse races.

This Excel file has a Bet sheet and a Lay sheet.
Both of those have a graphical display to show progress of profit or loss from our bets or lays.
Also included is a "Coupled Odds" sheet.
If we decide to Dutch a few runners in a race or football match etc., this sheet shows the combined odds of our runners.
If we decide to bet or lay more than one runner, we can use the Coupled Odds sheet to show the combined odds of all our runners and then input the Coupled Odds into the Percentage of Bank sheet as a single entry on one line of the sheet.
Win or lose with our Dutching, that single line in the Percentage of bank sheet will work just as well as a single bet or lay entry.

My trading buddy and I are using this sheet at present, trading some football matches.
This spreadsheet package is now up on my Staking Plans web page.
As always, good luck with your trades,
Howard.

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