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All Excel spreadsheets are now available on
my updated
betandlay.co.uk website.
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This web site will also cease in early May 2024.
A very accurate analysis of U.K. horse racing draw
advantages.
24th
October 2016. New spreadsheet for trading
Correct Score using
several bets per selection.
I have sheets for placing single bets to Dutch & Hedge 2 Betfair
markets and show the effect of commission across the 2 markets.
In the past, I have messed about with that to accommodate more
than one bet per score or other selection, but the sheet always
seemed to get a bit messy.
I hope I have put a tidy sheet together this time.
My new sheet can accommodate single bets or more than one bet.
Enter single
odds to see Dutching bet stakes, or, use another part of the
sheet if you prefer D.I.Y. - - "Do It Yourself" staking . . .
Lol.
You can even combine Dutched stakes with D.I.Y stakes . . . no
problem.
For example, you
might start a trade with Dutched stakes, and then chuck in a few
D.I.Y stakes
off the top of your head.
I put this new sheet
on my football web site today, with a video to describe the
sheet and what it can do.
This sheet can accommodate any
number of bets.
Input odds and stakes info for your bets, and the sheet combines
those to show combined bet odds.
We can now see what odds we need to lay at for a successful bet
and lay Hedge of any score, or anything else we have bet such as
Under / Over Goals, etc. in another market.
If you have seen my other sheets on that web page for betting
single Dutched bets and laying to equalize, you will see that
this new sheet uses the same layout.
I am hoping that this sheet might
help football traders to keep track of the progress of their In
Play trading.
We all watch plenty of footy trading videos, and no-doubt you
get just as lost as I do whilst watching some of those.
Personally, I like to be able to keep track of what is going on
in videos and in my trades, so if this sheet helps me, maybe it
might help someone else as well.
As always, good luck with your trades, . . . and keep 'em nice &
tidy . . Lol,
Howard.
My profit from that trade was very
small, but the video demonstrates several aspects of what to
expect from betting and laying an accumulator with games all
kicking off at the same time.
We don't always need to lay
every team.
We can also get away with
laying just 2 of the 3 teams.
If goals go in our favour,
we can show a profit if we hit all winners, or any
combination of losers.
I hope those are all demonstrated
clearly in the video.
Good luck with laying your accumulators if you have a bash at
that,
Howard.
18th
October 2016. Odds movements posts removed.
If you have visited my Blog recently, you will have seen a few
posts about tracking the odds in Betfair.
I have decided to abandon that.
What I was doing worked ok in small markets such as mid week
horse racing or a football match which didn't involve massive
liquidity in the markets.
That method wasn't as reliable if there were large amounts of
cash in the market such as big races in horse races, or big
football matches.
Yesterday for instance, there were massive amounts of cash being
traded in Match Odds of the Liverpool - Man Utd game.
Also, it was difficult to keep up with updating the spreadsheet
towards kick-off or Race Time.
It's back to the drawing board with that one,
Howard.
30th
September 2016. Bet Win
and Bet Place markets . . . . . or bet Each Way . . . .
Which pays best ?
Today, I put a spreadsheet on my
Combine Horse Racing Markets web page for betting in both
Win & Place markets in Betfair.
That may not sound too thrilling, but the odds in Betfair's Each
Way market do not always keep in step with the odds in Win &
Place.
Bet an equivalent
market in a football match, and I doubt that you will get a
better deal in an equivalent market to cover the same bet.
For example, if we bet 0-0, 1-0 & 0-1 in Correct Score, the odds
available for Under 1.5 Goals will be near enough the same.
The Each Way market odds in
Betfair don't always keep in step with Win & Place odds for all
runners.
I expect that the Betfair Each Way odds are the mid point
between bet and lay odds of the combined Win & Place markets.
Look at those early - - well before Race Time when there are
gaps between bet an lay odds in those 2 markets, and there may
be a substantial difference between the returns from 2 separate
bets in Win & Place markets, and a bet in the Each Way market.
A slight juggling of the stakes may be required, BUT . . .
. if we compare the potential winnings from a Win bet plus a
Place bet with an Each Way bet, there can be quite a
significant difference between the winnings on offer for some,
but not all horses.
Take a
look at an interesting video via this link.
For a BIGGER VIEW of the video, click the small icon bottom right
with 4 square corners.
An introductory video plus that video are on
my
Combine Horse Markets web page along with a brief write-up.
Now that summer is drawing to a
close, I hope to get on with putting more spreadsheets up on
that web page for combining 2 or more other Betfair horse racing
markets.
As always, good luck with your trades, Howard.
10th May
2016. It's that time of year again.
My change of tax code for the tax year 2016 / 2017 arrived
yesterday, so I will be paying less tax from now on.
No sign yet of a refund for last year, so fingers crossed for a
result sometime . . . . soon I hope.
The going at UK racecourses is
drying out fast, so now may be a good time to consider draw
advantages if the going description is good or better.
Avoid 2 year old races if considering the Draw, as those races
are much less predictable from a draw advantage point of view.
It is best to concentrate on races for horses aged 3 years and
older.
My old Draw Advantage info is still available if you are
interested.
Follow this link for all UK turf course and distances.
Just be careful of the re-numbering of the stalls on right
handed courses such as Beverley and Sandown.
That info is quite old now, but
unless there has been an alteration to a course, or drainage
work carried out during the last few years, the very strong draw
advantages described for some courses will still be ok.
I use that information for selecting badly drawn horses to lay,
mostly at double figure odds.
I see no point in laying something that is expected to run well.
When looking for a horse to lay, I don't simply choose the worst
drawn horse.
I look at the worst drawn half dozen or so and pick one out from
those.
An inexperienced rider is a plus for me.
I try to avoid big fashionable stables and top jockeys.
Give me a badly drawn horse from a small yard with an apprentice
up and I'll go for that if the odds are below about 25.0.
I like to wait for the right opportunity so I only lay
occasionally.
So far, in my current laying sequence, including Cheltenham,
I've layed only 22 horses. . . . . All have lost. Average
odds 17.62.
Over the jumps, I look to lay
horses from small yards that are running in big races against
plenty of runners from the big stables.
In my opinion, those are up against stiff opposition. . . . . .
The big yards target the big prize money, especially in races on
a Saturday.
Small yards don't have much success in those races. That's
what works for me.
The liabilities of my lays at
double figure odds may not suit everyone, but if you can get a
few successful lays under your belt, hitting a winner with a lay
isn't as painful as you might expect.
I see myself as a layer rather than a bettor.
Bet, and we will probably hit plenty of losers with the
occasional winner.
Lay, and we hit plenty of successful lays with the occasional
unsuccessful lay.
It's all pretty much the same in the long run.
To succeed, both need a decent selection method.
As always, good luck with your trades,
Howard.
24th April
2016. A £212 nailed-on certainty.
This is nothing to do with gambling, but every £££ bit helps,
whatever the source.
The info I have is that application for this may only be
available on-line.
Apply
for the married persons allowance and you can get £212 back from
the Inland Revenue.
I think a Civil Partnership may be ok as well, so you may not
need to be married..
If either you or your partner have more than £11K of income
and the other doesn't pay tax, one can let let the other have a
tax allowance on their behalf.
Here is the Inland Revenue link for sign-up :- https://www.gov.uk/marriage-allowance
Not only that, you can claim a
refund for last year, the 2015 - 2016 tax year.
Just fill in the simple details on-line and the tax office
will offer to send you a £212 cheque for last year, and
allow you £212 extra off your tax this coming year, and
subsequent years.
That looks good to me.
My wife and I filled in her application earlier this week in
about 5 minutes, and later that day we received an e-mail
confirming a successful application.
We are now looking forward to seeing our postman with a brown
envelope . . . Lol.
Good luck with that if you qualify for it,
Howard.
5th April
2016. Trade across 2 Betfair horse racing markets.
We are probably all pretty familiar with betting and laying in
more than one football market, but I expect that most Betfair
traders won't have traded horses across 2 markets.
Mostly, we just hedge or Dutch one horse racing market.
I may have mentioned this in a
previous post, but I have a range of strategies for trading
across 2 horse racing markets in Betfair, with spreadsheets to
show the staking.
I have now decided to put these on a web page.
I made a start on that today,
with a video for betting and laying 2 horse racing Place
markets.
That is bet in the normal place market, and lay in the other
place market that Betfair now provide, that pays out to an extra
place.
So, if there are 10 runners in our race for example, the
strategy is to bet in the place market that pays out on 3
places, and lay in the place market that pays out on 4 places.
If we do that, our bet odds will be bigger than our lay odds.
Stake correctly, and we can have profit from every bet and lay,
except a bet and lay that hits the 4th place horse . . . the
"Extra" runner paid out in the market in which we place our
lays.
We can bet and lay more than one runner, for payout on only that
one runner if we are unlucky and hit a 4th placed runner with
one of our bet and lay trades..
I recorded a couple of live
trades this afternoon for a 2nd video but I cocked up the
recording..
The trades went ok - - - - I didn't hit a 4th placed
horse, but I didn't hit my record button in the middle, so that
cocked up the recording.
The beginning and end are ok, but the middle bit is missing.
I'll have to try again
Anyway, there you have a taster
in that video.
If you are interested in trading horses with a bit of
imaginative staking, these strategies may be of interest to you. Note that these trades are just the same as any other
trade in Betfair :-
Things may look ok with some potential for profit, but there
will always be one outcome that will cause a red trade.
That scenario is exactly the same if we trade football or
anything else in Betfair.
A goal at the "wrong" time, no goal, or not enough goals in a
football trade can cause big problems.
The problem with these 2 market
horse racing strategies is the finishing position of our horse,
win, 2nd, 4th, 5th, placed, or lost.
One of those will always cock up our trade.
if you have a selection process that sorts those out a bit, we
all want to hear from you . . . . Lol.
A new web page will eventually appear on
my
strategies web site with a selection of these 2 market horse
racing strategies.
I'll be posting on here with updates about progress.
As always, good luck with your
trades,
Howard.
20th
February 2015. 23rd June . . .
E.U. vote
I have thought long and hard about putting anything in here
about the In / Out E.U. vote on June 23rd.
The In/Out Betfair market has favoured a "Stay In" outcome since
I first looked at it before Christmas, and I still cannot
believe that a "Stay In" result is still an odds -on favourite.
I made a £13 profit from a bookie's
free bet refund offer on Saturday, so this afternoon I bet a
tenner of that profit on the "Out" result at odds of 2.9. . . .
thinking they were very good odds.
Unbelievably, the "In favour of leaving" odds this evening are
now bigger at Bet 3.05, Lay 3.1.
This quote from the front page of
today's Daily Mail "The odds on Britain voting to quit the
Brussels Club instantly tumbling to 2/1" after Boris Johnson
decided to vote "Out" show a complete lack of betting knowledge
in the Daily Mail editorial department.
That bit of text may suggest to anyone who doesn't have any
basic betting knowledge that the odds for an "Out" vote have
tumbled to favouritism.
As you and I know, for a 2 horse race such as "In" or "Out",
surely odds of 3.0 (2/1) for one outcome, must mean that the
odds for the other outcome "Leave" are a very short odds
favourite at way below evens.
Current Betfair odds are "Stay in
the EU", Bet 1.47, lay 1.48, and "Leave the EU" Bet 3.05, Lay
3.1.
I don't see much of an instant tumble there towards favouritism
in the Leave odds.
I apologise for this post looking like a tipping service, but my
tenner is on the outsider here. . . . "Out"
I have yet to hear just one good
reason for me to vote "Stay In".
Just watch the news and take note.
Add together the good things that you see and hear concerning
the E.U. and add together the negative points.
Personally, I'm struggling to come up with a good point that has
come out of the E.U. in living memory, let alone recently.
All looks very negative indeed to me.
I'm out of there on June 23rd,
Howard.
8th January
2016. Loss recovery.
I had 2 e-mail enquiries last week asking if I had a spreadsheet
for recovering losses.
I had a sheet for that, but it was an aggressive staking method
that looked to recover the loss when we hit the next winner.
Hit losers, and the stakes could grow quickly if we bet using
short odds, until recovering all losses with the next winner.
Both of my e-mail enquirers were
Dutching, so the odds of their combined bets odds were likely to
be rather short.
Both asked for a staking plan that spread the recovery over
several races, so I expanded my sheet to show a lower profit
target that would recover a loss over any number of winners that
we input.
Put that new lower profit target into the sheet, and the loss
will be recovered more slowly.
Once the loss is recovered, the sheet carries on staking to hit
the profit target that was last entered into the sheet.
If we bet to recover a loss, we
may hit more losers whilst we are doing that.
If we set the sheet to recover a loss over say, 4 winning bets,
that is what it will do if the next 4 bets are all winners.
If we hit more losers during the loss recovery staking, the
original loss and any subsequent losses will be recovered, but
it will take more races.
Once the loss is recovered, the sheet carries on aiming for the
last profit target that was set in the sheet.
The spreadsheet is available on
my Staking Plans web page with a video to demonstrate the
sheet.
As both of my
e-mail enquirers
were Dutching, they would need to use a single input of the odds
to use this sheet.
I may put a video together to demonstrate how to tackle that
using a Combined Odds spreadsheet.
That would then be a 2nd video to go with the Loss Recovery
sheet.
I have included a Combined Odds sheet in the Loss Recovery file.
As always, good luck with your trades,
Howard.
30th
December 2015. Bet or Lay a Trixie . . . 3 doubles & a
treble.
A few months back, a spreadsheet customer asked me for a sheet
for betting and laying Trixies.
Things got a bit more complicated than that, but the 2 basic
sheets look ok so I have put them up on
my
Multiples web page.
I have put both the betting sheet
and the laying sheet in the same file.
I may tweak the video later as the commentary is perhaps a bit
duff towards the end.
My videos tend to be informative (I hope) rather than slick.
It isn't easy putting a decent video together. . . . There are
always plenty or "er's" and some hesitating in my commentaries,
even after editing . . . . Lol.
Anyway, I hope you find the bit about the Break Even odds of
some interest.
Good luck to all in 2016,
Howard.
20th December 2015.
Lay an accumulator videos.
An e-mail enquiry last week caused me to look back at some old
videos that I have on YouTube that describe some trades that I
did some time ago when I was laying accumulators.
I did quite well out of those, but after a while, I moved on to
other topics and stopped trading accumulators.
Seeing the profits in those videos re-kindled my interest.
I sell an Excel file for trading accumulators, but that lives on
my Bookie Refunds web page, so I don't think it will be
reaching much of an audience these days.
Since uploading this Blog post, the Lay Accumulators file
is now also available on
my
Multiples web page. as of December 23rd.
If you wade through the videos
below, you may realize the potential of betting a football
accumulator and then laying the teams "In Play".
You might use a bookie for your bet if there is a refund on
offer, particularly a refund of a percentage losses, or even a
One Leg lets You Down offer might be worth considering, but I
don't have a strategy for "One Leggers".
In my experience, bookie football odds can be some way short of
Betfair lay odds, so betting an accumulator in Betdaq might pay
better.
Betdaq accumulators use exchange odds rather than the Sportsbook
odds of Betfair and bookies.
Hit all winners and there is commission to pay on a winning acca
with Betdaq of course.
The idea is to bet your acca with a
bookie or Betdaq and lay the other end of it using a spreadsheet
to show the lay staking.
If we hit all winners, we need our total lay payout to be less
than our bookie bet winnings.
If we hit a loser, we need the total of our good and bad lays
combined to pay more than our losing bet stake.
If we can manage both of those, we have profit whatever the
results.
That may look impossible as bet odds will be lower than lay odds
before our events take place, but it can be done, as my videos
show.
If our trade involves a bookie refund, getting into profit is
less risky, especially if we can get away with betting and
laying just a double rather than a treble or 4 timer.
I used to avoid anything bigger than a treble when trading
bookie accumulator refunds.
There are 2 ways to tackle laying an
accumulator :-
1. Select events with time between each so that we can lay
them one at a time - - ideal for bookie refunds.
One event ends, so we know the result and can work out our stake
before we lay the next event.
2. Select games that all kick
off at the same time or very close, wait for our teams to get in
front, and lay them at low odds.
If
no refund or bonus is on offer, this
method is best.
Waiting for goals from our teams carries risk, but payout can be very nice if 2 of our teams
manage to lose after we have layed them at low odds. It
does happen !
The thing to avoid here is don't lay at all if you are a goal
short of a good trade - - - - don't risk huge lay
liabilities.
It is much cheaper to simply write off the losing bet stake of
your accumulator rather than risk huge liabilities whilst you
wait for one team in your acca to score.
I learned that the hard way.
My videos that show trades have been
on YouTube for a couple of years, but were previously not set as
"Public" and visible.
I have also been short of a video that describes my sheets, so I
put one together today.
Video 1 demonstrates the 2 spreadsheets
in my "Lay an Accumulator" Excel file.
How to lay bookie accumulator refund
offers - - uses the Profit Target sheet.
Video 2 describes the Dutching sheet again
(an earlier version),
but demonstrates laying a treble at about 5 minutes onwards.
Video 3 describes 5 of my trades and
shows the stakes in my account. Note that this spreadsheet file is now also available on
my
Multiples web page.. Note also that Dortmund only scored one goal, not 2 . .
. . a mistake in my commentary.
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 double arrow icon, bottom
left of the YouTube screen.
After Christmas, I hope to expand
the number of spreadsheets on
my Multiples web page.
I have a couple of sheets as well as this one ready and waiting.
As always, good luck with your trades,
Howard.
26th November
2015. Football. . . . .
Lay the Draw exit strategy.
We've all probably had a go at LTD and come unstuck when a goal
has gone in and the odds of the Draw didn't lengthen enough, so
we had a red trade.
As far as I know, no-one has ever come up with a solution to
that problem, but a few years ago, I found a footy Forum where 2
or 3 members were discussing laying the 2 teams to make an exit without too much damage.
That would be a lay of the draw, followed by lays of the 2
teams, thus laying all 3 outcomes.
Merthod.
The idea is to lay of the Draw in a game that has a strong
favourite team.
If the outsider scores first and the odds of the Draw don't
lengthen, lay a chunk on the "Outsider" team that is winning.
Then, if the strong favourite team equalizes, lay both teams to
exit the trade.
After one
goal, if we
cannot bet the Draw to a hedge profit, we certainly can't simply
lay both teams to Dutch all 3 outcomes to profit either.
To apply this Dutching exit strategy, we need a 2nd goal to get
the score to 1-1, whilst we lay the teams
in 2 stages at 0-1 and 1-1.
To show the staking, I put a
Dutching spreadsheet together for placing several lays on 3
selections. . . That was in 2009.
I could then lay the 2 teams in 2 stages and that worked a treat.
Bear in mind that this is an exit strategy that aims to exit a
trade with zero loss, or reduced loss.
There were times when I traded into profit using this method,
but mostly it was damage limitation.
If we use the
balanced staking of Dutching, this is the logic of the exit
strategy and how to stake it, assuming that the outsider of the
2 teams has scored first and the odds of the Draw are smaller
than when we placed our lay :-
After the
first goal we lay the winning "Outsider" team to break even or for a very
small profit.
If the score remains at one goal, or the outsider team scores a
2nd goal, do nothing.. . as our loss is zero.
If the score gets to 1-1, lay the strong favourite team and also
lay the outsider team again to complete the Dutching of all 3
outcomes.
That completes Dutching of all 3 outcomes . . . . . . We have layed all 3 for an equal profit or loss whatever the result.
If goals are scored and we can do that ok , we will have layed
the outsider team at slightly lower odds than if we had simply
layed both teams after the first goal.
When the 2nd goal goes in and we lay again, that first lay of
the Outsider team at lower odds reduces the overall odds of our
lays on that team.
Those lower combined odds on the Outsider team help us to lay
our way out of trouble.
That is the logic.
Example.
Lay the Draw for £20 at odds of 3.9.for liabilities of
minus -£49.
These are the lay odds of the 2 teams before kick off - -
- - Fav team 1.74 & Outsider team 5.9.
At 36 minutes, the
outsider of the 2 teams scores first - - - The odds for the Draw
are 3.45 when the market resumes
The odds of the 2 teams are now 2.5 for what was the Favourite
team, and 3.2 for the winning Outsider team.
In the
spreadsheet below, I entered odds after the goal of 3.2 and 2.5
for the 2 teams in the yellow row halfway down the sheet.
The sheet then showed that lays of the 2 teams at odds of 3.2
with a stake of £24.38 and at 2.5 for £31.20 would equalize the
trade for a loss of minus
-£2.43
whatever the result.
That would be very similar to the loss if we had bet the Draw to
exit for an equal profit or loss.
Use the exit
strategy.
To use the exit strategy, we need to lay the winning Outsider
team to break even.
The spreadsheet below shows our £20 lay of the Draw at the
bottom of the left hand section and a first £9 "Break even" lay
of the winning "Outsider" team at the bottom of the middle
section.
Now we can see that if
we lay Dutch the 2 teams at those odds for the stakes
£15.38 & £31.20
shown top left and also along the
yellow row in the spreadsheet we still lose minus
-£2.43 whatever the result.
The position of the whole trade so far is shown at the top in
the middle - - minus -£49 for the
Draw, plus £0.20 for the Outsider.
The 2 successful lays make a profit of plus £29 if the Fav team
wins.
3.90
0.00
DRAW
-49.00
3.20
15.38
-2.43
Outsider
0.20
2.50
31.20
-2.43
Fav Losing
29.00
Cuurent
Position
Odds
Lay Stake
IF Layed
Odds
Lay Stake
IF Layed
Odds
Lay Stake
IF Layed
3.70
0.00
1.50
32.80
4.88
3.70
21.08
4.88
3.75
0.00
1.51
32.58
4.38
3.75
20.80
4.38
3.80
0.00
1.52
32.37
3.89
3.80
20.53
3.89
3.85
0.00
1.53
32.16
3.42
3.85
20.26
3.42
3.90
0.00
1.54
31.95
2.95
3.90
20.00
2.95
3.95
0.00
1.55
31.74
2.49
3.95
19.75
2.49
3.90
0.00
3.20
15.38
-2.43
2.50
31.20
-2.43
4.05
0.00
1.57
31.34
1.60
4.05
19.26
1.60
4.10
0.00
1.58
31.14
1.16
4.10
19.02
1.16
4.15
0.00
1.59
30.94
0.74
4.15
18.80
0.74
4.20
0.00
1.60
30.75
0.32
4.20
18.57
0.32
4.25
0.00
1.61
30.56
-0.09
4.25
18.35
-0.09
DRAW
Outsider "Winning"
team
Fav Losing team
Lay odds
Stake
Liability
Lay odds
Stake
Liability
Lay odds
Stake
Liability
3.90
20.00
-58.00
3.20
9.00
-19.80
Below. . . . Later in the game, the Fav team scores an equalizer
to get the score to 1-1.
We now need to complete the lay Dutching of our 2 teams at the
new odds of 7.4 for the Outsider team, and 1.86 for the fav
team.
Enter those odds in the yellow row, and the sheet shows in the
pink column against those odds, the stakes required to equalize
the trade for minus -£0.42 whatever
the result, shown top left in the yellow cells.
Lay the Outsider team at 7.4 for £6.65, and the Fav team for
£41.94 to equalize the profit or loss to
-£0.42..
3.90
0.00
DRAW
-49.00
7.40
6.65
-0.42
Outsider
0.20
1.86
41.94
-0.42
Fav team
29.00
Cuurent
Position
Odds
Lay Stake
IF Layed
Odds
Lay Stake
IF Layed
Odds
Lay Stake
IF Layed
3.70
0.00
1.50
32.80
4.88
3.70
21.08
4.88
3.75
0.00
1.51
32.58
4.38
3.75
20.80
4.38
3.80
0.00
1.52
32.37
3.89
3.80
20.53
3.89
3.85
0.00
1.53
32.16
3.42
3.85
20.26
3.42
3.90
0.00
1.54
31.95
2.95
3.90
20.00
2.95
3.95
0.00
1.55
31.74
2.49
3.95
19.75
2.49
3.90
0.00
7.40
6.65
-0.42
1.86
41.94
-0.42
4.05
0.00
1.57
31.34
1.60
4.05
19.26
1.60
4.10
0.00
1.58
31.14
1.16
4.10
19.02
1.16
4.15
0.00
1.59
30.94
0.74
4.15
18.80
0.74
4.20
0.00
1.60
30.75
0.32
4.20
18.57
0.32
4.25
0.00
1.61
30.56
-0.09
4.25
18.35
-0.09
DRAW
Outsider "Winning"
team
Fav Losing team
Lay odds
Stake
Liability
Lay odds
Stake
Liability
Lay odds
Stake
Liability
3.90
20.00
-58.00
3.20
9.00
-19.80
Problem.
That all looks very nice, but if the equalizing goal comes
quite a bit later in the game, the odds of the 2 teams may
not be low enough for the Dutching stakes to get us out of
trouble.
The odds of the Draw at a score of 1-1 will be roughly at
the same level as if the score had stayed at 0-0, so the
Draw odds will be lower and the odds of the 2 teams would
have increased quite a bit.
Whilst the score is 1-0, or 0-1, we have a large minus
-£49 liability against a draw
outcome shown at the top of the spreadsheet.
The later the equalizing goal, the bigger loss we will make
if we try to trade out.
An equalizing goal in the middle of the 2nd half can be very
bad news. . . . We will have no way out.
The later the equalizing goal, the closer to losing minus
-£49 for our trade.
The result of our trade would be exactly the same if we had
waited and bet the Draw much later for an exit with the
score at 1-1.
An equalizing goal well into the 2nd half is a big problem
for this exit strategy.
I used this exit
strategy for quite a while before I hit a game in which the
score stayed at 0-1 and I saw the danger.
Luckily for me, my game ended with a 0-1 score so I escaped
without serious damage, but I stopped my LTD trades after
that scare.
I have come back to this LTD problem many times, but like
everyone else, I cannot see an answer to the problem of the
odds for the Draw not lengthening after one goal.
After the score
gets to 1-1, another quick goal from the Fav team before our
2 equalizing lays have got matched is very good news.
At 2-1 to the Fav team, the odds of the Fav team will drop
considerably for a very nice profit from our Dutching as we
have already partly Dutched the Outsider team at low odds,
and now our Fav team odds are very low.
Anything can happen in a football match, and that happened
for me once.
As always, good luck with your trades,
Howard.
22nd
November 2015. Back to an old football strategy.
I deleted the 2 most recent topics today, dated October and
November, as neither of them were going anywhere, so onwards and
upwards, back to paper trading an old football strategy.
I am "Fine Tuning" my old exit strategy for that - - - - - if
goals don't go according to plan.
We all have plenty of experience of goals being scored at the
wrong time, no goals at all, or scored by the "Wrong team" etc.
If things go wrong in my games, my
exit strategy can work a treat, but can also have a problem, so
I am working on getting around that..
I am paper trading at present, using several games that all kick
off at around the same time.
Testing things out on one game at a time takes ages so checking
several games at a time should speed things up a bit for me.
I am not expecting to trade Risk
Free.
I expect to hit losing games, but I am hoping to win in the long
term if I can reduce the losses in those losing games.
Too often we have lots of small gains wiped out by one or 2 big
red trades.
It would be
nice to have good profit from winning games, but reduced losses
from losing games.
If I can manage that I will win
overall.
That is a nice simple scenario, but I imagine, very hard to
achieve.
I'll keep you posted on progress,.
As always, good luck with your trades,
Howard.
17th Sept
2015. Tipsters - - - Ratings versus tips.
I would guess that we have all tried using free tips at some
time, and perhaps had a dabble with ratings for horse races.
During 2014, I subscribed to a free ratings service that
supplied horse race ratings by e-mail every day.
From what I remember, winners were claimed from within the top
few rated horses, some at very nice prices of course, but
hitting them with a bet and making it pay wasn't easy.
There were races which weren't won by a highly rated horse of
course.
The claims for winners were accurate enough, "5/1 winner rated
in the top 3" etc.
I paper traded for a while but gave up as the combined odds
of the runners if I was looking to bet several runners made
things very difficult.
Combined Odds.
We can Dutch runners by betting several highly rated horses for
an equal profit if we hit the winner or an equal loss if we hit
losers, but doing that reduces the overall odds that we
take of course. . . . the Combined Odds.
Dutch a few runners, and we are then betting at the "Lower"
combined odds of those runners.
Working out the combined odds of several odds is a percentage
calculation.
A nice easy starting point is odds of 3/1 and 3/1, which in
decimal odds is 4.0 and 4.0.
Just remember that the combined odds of 3/1 and 3/1 = even
money . . . . odds of 2.0, and you can then easily remember
how to work out any combination of combined odds - - - for any
number of runners..
To work out the combined odds,
divide 100 by the decimal odds of each runner and we get the
percentage of the odds . . . 100 / 4.0 = 25%
Do that for all your runners and add the percentages together to
get the total percentage of all your odds combined.
To convert that total back to
decimal odds, divide 100 by the total percentage of your
combined odds.
So, 4.0 and 4.0 = 25% plus 25% =
50%.
Divide 100 by 50 = odds of 2.0 . . . . or Evens.
That 3/1 & 3/1 example is very easy to remember and will enable
you to work things out. . . . "3/1 & 3/1 = Evens" will help you
to remember the method.
Odds of 5.0, 4.0, and 10.0 for
instance would be 20% plus 25% plus 10% = 55%.
Divide 100 by 55 = combined odds of 1.818 . . . some way shorter
than evens, perhaps a bit surprising for those reasonable
looking odds..
Now that we can see the maths of
combined odds, we can see the big problem with trying to profit
from ratings, rather than just a single tip.
This week, I have come across
a web site that appears to offer some very impressive profits
from Each Way tips at bookie odds, and also puts up other
stuff in multiples.
I have only just come across this web site this week, but it
offers tips not ratings, and although some tips appear to
involve multiples, there appear to be single bets available, so
I may start with the singles and break myself in gently . . .
Lol.
I'll
take a look at the web site for a while and see what
happens.
That should keep me occupied for
a while.
As always, good luck with your trades,
Howard.
14th
September 2015 Links to a very interesting read.
I received a link to a very interesting article today concerning
bookies and how they may be tracking customer activity.
If you do a search on your
computer, remember to include the apostrophe ' at
the beginning and end of your search text.
Alternatively, put an asterisk * in front of
your search text.
At first, I thought I was in the
clear, but after including an apostrophe at either end of my
text I found 2 files on my laptop.
Search for 'mpsnare' or *mpsnare
and you may be just as unpleasantly surprised as I was.
Good luck with getting rid of a few files if you feel the need
to do that,
Howard.
Disclaimer. The web sites at the end of the links
above have nothing to do with me.
Links are posted here for interest only.
8th
September 2015 One Point staking plan posts removed.
If you have visited this Blog during the last few months, you
may have seen several posts describing One Point staking plans.
Those came to a dead end, with a demonstration of a laying
spreadsheet showing the dangers of retrieval staking - - -
chasing losses.
I have removed those posts.
It's back to the drawing board as usual, and onwards and
upwards,
Howard.
5th August
2015. The end of an era - - My
bookies free bets dry up.
I will be 69 on Sept 3rd. Are the bookies ruining the
Autumn of my years ? . . . Lol.
For the past several years, since 2007 in my case, we punters
have enjoyed the luxury of free bets given to us by bookies as
an incentive to open an on-line account, or as a reward to an
existing customer for placing a bet in a nominated market.
We all know about that.
For anyone with a bit of ingenuity, there could only be one
winner from a situation like that - - - Yes, for a change it was
us, the punter..
For years, we have been able to trade these free bet offers for
guaranteed winnings with zero risk.
I don't know about you, but during the the recent 8 or 9
Klondike years, I have won back everything I had ever lost
before in my lifetime, and shown a very handsome profit on top -
- - - - - It was very nice while it lasted..
From e-mail correspondence with
bookie's affiliate representatives when I used to put affiliate
advertising on my web sites, I know that bookies allow a budget
for their free bet and refund offers, so they must expect free
bet offers to cause them a loss.
Over the past year or 2 however,
bookies have tightened up in a big way and are certainly not as
naive as they used to be.
Gone are the days of refund offers from a range of bookies
almost every day of the week that could be traded to profit,
risk free.
Refund offers used to come in all shapes and sizes, and working
out the staking so that different offers could be traded risk
free was part of the fun and challenge of trading bookies free
bets and refunds.
Web sites dedicated to trading
free bet sign-ups and refunds sprung up all over the place, some
with video descriptions of how to trade different offers.
These days, such web sites seem to be dying out as bookies
amazingly seem to have woken up (at last) and are collectively
putting up very similar offers, most of which are not worth
trading.
Probably most of us will have experienced the "Red card"
treatment - - - account closure, or stake limitations and the
offer of refunds and bonuses withdrawn as bookies look to
eliminate customers who think seriously about how they trade.
On top of that, if we happen to
bet on "the wrong thing", we can be red carded.
I experienced that almost a year ago when I opened an account
with a very well known bookie.
Both my first bet and my free "Sign-up" bet hit horses which
shortened in the betting.
I doubt very much that my cash was enough to influence the 2
horse race betting markets concerned, but I was "Red carded"
after just 2 bets, my initial deposit, followed by the free bet.
Someone didn't like what I was doing, even though I had been
encouraged to open an account by the offer of a free bet.
All I had done was bet in 2 horse races.
Maybe they thought I was an Arber.
If we go to a racecourse and walk
up and down the line of bookies to get the best available price
for our horse, that is ok.
Use an odds
comparison web site to do the same thing on-line, and
apparently, we are not playing the game, so we get the red card.
One bookie offers better odds than another, so we bet with him
but he doesn't like it.
We get the into trouble for betting the best odds.
What we may be doing at the other end of our trade is anyone's
guess, but our account gets "restricted".
Of course, bookies are up against
technology here, not just a bunch of punters having a bet.
We have spreadsheets for calculating stakes, and sophisticated
software dedicated to placing bets and working out our staking
We can only guess that bookies are unable to keep pace with all
that we punters now have at our fingertips.
It just amazes me that bookies
went down the "Free bets" road in the first place.
How can they expect us to lose if they offer what is almost the
equivalent of adding an extra point to the odds that we take ?
If I bet £10 at evens and also get a free £10 bet, surely the
bookie is offering me odds of 3.0, not 2.0 is he not ?
How am I supposed to lose in the long term with offers like that
. . . . . Lol ?
It wouldn't need Einstein to work
out that some bright spark would very quickly come up with some
staking to take advantage of a situation like that.
Amazingly, it has taken the best part of a decade for the
bookies to wake up to the ludicrous situation that they have got
themselves into as they compete to attract customers, who they
hope will somehow lose money with them.
We are now seeing some bookies
struggling to keep trading, whilst others merge with other
bookies in an attempt to outgrow the competition.
Who would have thought that Coral and Ladbrokes would be looking
to merge ?
Times must be hard.
Where does this leave you and me
?
Unfortunately, we are being forced to get back to the risky
stuff . . . Lol, betting, laying, or both, with some risk
involved.
Another "Red Card" for me
yesterday, prompted this rant.
I've all but given up on the risk free stuff now, so I am having
to contend with the highs and lows of trading with risk..
As always, bon chance with your trades, and your free bets if
you still qualify for them,
Howard.
3rd August
2015. Those annoying & un-necessary words.
If you watched last week's televised racing from Goodwood, you
may have noticed the latest "Fad word" or one-word sentence.
For years now, we've had trainers and jockeys chucking in "Ya
know ?" everywhere throughout interviews, usually at the end
of every other sentence.
Things moved on last week in a slightly different direction.
We now have "Listen." thrown in at the beginning of every
other sentence.
Listen.
No-doubt in future interviews, we'll be getting both chucked in
together. Ya know ?
Even Martin Keown used "Listen"
at the front of his sentences several times during his summing
up of the Charity Shield football match yesterday, so this
totally superfluous verbage is likely to infiltrate other
televised sporting events.
While I'm at it, "This afternoon" throughout several of
the last few Tour De France's caused me to give most of it a
miss this year.
I don't know about you, but continual Fad Words spouting out of
my telly during televised sport drive me potty.
These people would be better
sticking to a pre written script.
Don't they ever watch recordings afterwards and listen
to themselves ?
I wonder if their written e-mails, letters and other
correspondence are peppered with this nonsense ?
Come on ladies and gents on T.V., give it a rest,
Howard.
18th April
2015. LOTD Rolling lays and a very
dry start to The Flat
Season.
The weather recently has been quite dry with the result that the
going has dried out a little earlier than normal this year.
The effect of that is that the Draw has come into effect in a
few flat races this last week.
Let's hope that the rain stays away.
At Beverley on Thursday, the 15:05
race was a 5F race for older horses.
The horses drawn in the 3 stalls next to the far rail finished
1st, 2nd, & 3rd.
Those used to be the Top 3 stalls, but after stalls re-numbering
a few years ago, they are now stalls 1, 2, & 3.
The winner was drawn in stall 2 of 17.
I would guess that we are all familiar with the draw advantage
in Beverley 5F races.
Today at Thirsk, there were 4
races for horses aged 3yrs or older with 8 or more runners over
the 5F & 6F course.
All 4 races were won by horses drawn in the top 6 stalls.
Winners were drawn 4 of 8, 12-12, 5-10 & 10-10.
The analysis on these web pages describe Thirsk draw advantages
in detail, using old results :-
Thirsk 5F
Thirsk 6F
Follow this link for
links to all UK course & distances.
At the start of the flat season 3
weeks ago, I started a "Lay Of The Day" using my "Rolling Lays"
spreadsheet, with the intention of laying a badly drawn horse
occasionally.
Follow this link to view a
video describing a "Rolling Lays spreadsheet.
I started with a lay liability of £10 with the intention of
"Rolling up" my profits (re-investing winnings) with the aim of
laying throughout the flat season without hitting a winner with
one of my lays.
If I can double my money a few times, I will have some nice
juicy lays for the risk of only my tenner.
I am waiting for good laying opportunities, so I don't have a
lay every day, but sometimes only once a week..
So far I have layed in 8 races and doubled my money for a
liability of just over £20 for my next lay, hopefully later this
week.
You will probably work out from £10 profit from 8 lays, that I
am not laying favourites . . . Lol.
If I can double my money with another 8 lays I'll be laying for
a liability of £40 and upwards, and if I can double my cash
again, after that I'll be laying for a liability of £80 and
upwards. . . . and so on.
If I hit a winner at any point, I will have lost only my initial
£10, so I am hoping to have a bit of excitement for just £10.
Double my cash and my tenner will see my lay liability increase
. . . 10, 20, 40, 80, 160, 320, 640, 1280 etc. . . if I am very
lucky.
At my present rate, in theory that could be 7 times 8 successful
lays = 56 lays to hit £1280. . . . dream on.
I'm looking for badly drawn
horses, preferably ridden by an inexperienced rider.
I'm also trying to avoid big stables.
Although I had 4 sprint races to choose from today at Thirsk, I
only layed one runner, in the 18:15 race at Thirsk over 6F.
My lady rider (claiming 5 lbs) was drawn 1 of 10 runners. . . .
. . . Betfair Lay odds were 11.0 around dinner time.
Her horse had won only 1 of its 34 races so far, so it looked to
me that drawn in stall 1
she was up against
it a little..
On top of that, Mr. Fallon on the fav was drawn best of all in
stall 10 of 10 . . . Lol.
He won by 4 lengths.
My horse finished 9th of the 10 runners.
My jockey (claiming 3 lbs) at
Beverley on Wednesday was drawn in stall 12 of 17.
From what I could see, it was his first ride at Beverley, so
that looked ok to me for a lay as he was in the "wrong" half of
the draw and not drawn high enough to try running up the stands
rail looking for faster ground.
In the race he attempted to race towards the far side of the
course.
After running prominently early in the race, his mount faded and
he finished 13th, . . . . nearer last than first.
I layed him at odds of 17.0 well before race time.
Apologies for the bit of after
timing here.
If my stakes start to get excitingly large, I may post my
selections on a web page for a bit of added interest . . . for
me at least.
That may take a while laying my runners at double figure odds.
This is a long term game that I am playing, at least until I hit
a winner . . . Lol.
As always, good luck with your trades,
Howard.
29th March
2015. What helps a horse to win
?
We all have our own way of looking at horse races and trying to
find the winner, or even something that may get placed.
Conversely, we may be looking for a reason why something may not
win so that we can place a lay.
There are lots of bits of information that we might combine
together such as the position in a betting forecast, course
winner, course and distance winner, previous form placings, etc.
. . . .
In my opinion, none of that type of information actually helps a
horse to win its race on the day.
If we look for something that may assist our runner, or
disadvantage our runners, in my opinion one item of information
stands head and shoulders above all the others in flat races on
turf - - - - - a good draw.
Draw advantage information has been
provided for many years, but historically, it has been extremely
poor.
By far the best example of extremely poor advice was draw
advantage advice offered for Epsom 5f races way back in the
1970's and 1980's, when all Epsom 5f races were started with the
starting stalls positioned away from the stands, mostly next to
the far (Low) running rail, but occasionally in the centre of
the course.
Stall number one was very often next to the running rail.
At that time, ALL our national newspapers advised a Low draw
advantage in Epsom 5f races..
The theory was that the horses nearest to the Low rail would
enjoy an advantage as they would run next to the running rail.
That "Low draw advantage" advice continued unchanged for at
least 10 years, but unfortunately for punters, it was completely
wrong.
In the late 1970's and early
1980's, I collected draw advantage data and did a simple count
up of the number of wins from each staring stall in all races 5F
to 1 mile at all British race courses.
From my analysis of that data it soon became clear that Epsom 5F
races had
one of the strongest draw advantages in the country, but the
advantage favoured High drawn horses, not those drawn in low
numbered stalls.
Drainage was the dominant factor, and still is today in Epsom 5F
races.
On Epsom's straight course, there is a cross-course slope which
can be seen on television.
For most of the straight, the Stands side of the straight course
is quite a bit higher than the far side of the straight.
That slope may cause the high side (Stands side) to drain
quicker and dry out quicker than the far side, so we get faster
ground closer to the stands than towards the far running rail.
Until
I pointed that out in the National Press in 1982, it went
completely un-noticed by our national press and other
publications at that time.
Now of course, it is common knowledge.
Follow this link to view the information that I used to come
to that "High draw advantage" conclusion.
The chart nearest to the bottom of that web page shows the old
data from 1976 to 1983 that I used.
That chart shows very clearly that in races for horses aged 3
yrs or older, just 3 horses were winning nearly all 5F races
at Epsom.
They were the 3 horses drawn in the 3 highest numbered stalls,
drawn farthest away from the running rail towards the centre of
the course.
During those years, on good or better going, there were 16 races
for 3yr olds and older horses that had 8 or more runners.
Only 3 winners started from the bottom half of the draw.
12 of the other 13 winners started from the top 3 stalls.
To combat that glaring draw
advantage, Epsom race course now position the starting stalls
next to the High rail on the stands side - never against the low
rail.
They have been doing that since the mid 1980's.
I like to think that I have caused that with my draw advantage
analysis . . . .Lol.
So, if we were to bet or lay in
5F races at Epsom it would be worth taking that into
consideration would it not ?
If the draw is important in Epsom 5f races, it may also be
important in races at other venues.
I haven't updated my draw
advantage information for quite some time, but my guess is that
unless there have been drastic alterations such as those at
Ascot (a new straight course when the new stand was built),
Haydock (a new sprint course), and York (big drainage
alterations), many of the draw advantages of old will still
apply today at some courses.
The best draw advantages occur on
good or better going, so we normally need to wait until about
late May for draw advantages to play a reliable part in
races, but we appear to have had a reasonably dry spring this
year.
The going at Doncaster was nearer Good than Good-soft this past
weekend.
During the winter, Warwick
racecourse decided to offer only jumps races in future.
As there will not be any flat racing at Warwick we have lost a
very good draw advantage in
Warwick 6F races that was well worth following.
That advantage was due to a bend shortly after the start in
those 6f races, rather than drainage.
Whether you are a bettor or a
layer, it may be worth considering the draw as part of your
selection process in turf races on the flat, particularly if the
going is good or dryer.
As always, good luck with your trades,
Howard.
28th March
2015. Cheltenham winning trainers this year, 2015.
Here is a list of
winning trainers at
this year's Cheltenham March
meeting, with the number of wins - - - There were 27 races :-
WP Mullins 8
P Nichols 3
D Pipe
2
N Henderson 2 That is 15 of the 27 winners so far
from just 4 trainers.
All those below had a single win :-
N Mulholland
G Elliot
Mis R curtiss
D Weld
A J Martin
A King
W Greatrex
K Bailey
Ms M Mullins
M Bradstock
E Bolger
M Scudamore
Even
amongst the single winner, there are one or 2 trainers who had a
winner the previous year.
I hope you had a profitable Cheltenham this year,
Howard.
28th
February 2015. Cheltenham trainers in 2014
With Cheltenham just over the horizon, I have been looking to
see how many low profile trainers managed a win at last year's
meeting.
It seems to me that the big guys dominate things every year, so
rather than trying to hit a winner, I am hoping it will be
easier to hit a loser or 2.
It seems to me that high profile trainers dominate jumps
meetings when there is good prize money on offer.
We can see that on a Saturday on television.
My theory is that a horse that has not been running regularly at
courses such as Ascot, Cheltenham, Kempton, Newbury, Sandown,
and maybe Haydock, will be up against very stiff opposition if
chucked into a big race on a Saturday at those courses.
I avoid anything that has won over the course & distance at
those big courses.
Another
thing that I look for is the number of runners that less well
known trainers send out each day.
Big stables will regularly run 3, 4, 5, or more horses on some
days, but smaller yards will have only 1 or 2, often at less
fashionable courses.
Betfair's results section is good for spotting that as we can
click on the trainer in there and it pulls up their past runners
in date order.
That's how I tackle finding something to lay on a Saturday,
usually just one for my LOTD in the big Saturday handicap.
Here is a list of
winning trainers at
last year's Cheltenham March
meeting, with the number of wins - - - There were 27 races :-
WP Mullins 4
D Pipe 3
JJ O'Neill 3
P Hobbs 2
J Culloty 2 That is 14 of the 27 winners
so far from just 5 trainers.
All those below had a single win :-
Mrs J Harrington
N Henderson
P Nicholls
A King
J Snowden
Miss R Curtiss
GL Moore
T Easaterby
DK WEld
G Elliot
N Meade
L Lennon
AJ Martin
Personally,
as I am not very
familiar with Irish trainers,
I cut out the Irish in general from my calculations.
I don't see many small UK trainers left in that list after that.
If you care to look back at the 2013 results, there was a very
similar trend.
Each Lay Of The Day for me will probably be at double figure
odds.
I see no point in laying something that is expected to win or go
close.
If an inexperienced jockey is in the driving seat, so much the
better.
Bon chance with your Cheltenham lays if you have a go at them,
Howard.
17th
December 2014. Lay a Double . . . . 4 possible outcomes.
It didn't take me long to realize that laying big odds in a
Yankee involved some huge lay liabilities if I hit 2 winners and the
next lay could involve a treble or 2, and maybe the 4 timer
which could make the potential lay liabilities look frightening..
I decided that a better idea would be to lay 4 runners in 6
doubles, rather than include the 3 trebles and 4 timer to
complete a Yankee.
Now if I hit 2 or more winners within my 4 runners, my payout
will only be on a double or doubles.
That looked a lot less dangerous,
but I then came to the conclusion that if I hit a winner with
the first of my 4 lays, I had 3 more lays to go before
completing my lays to complete the 6 doubles.
If my runners were Horses A, B, C, and D, the 6 doubles would be
AB, AC, AD, BC, BD, & CD.
Hit a winner with a lay of Horse A, and my next 3 lays of Horses
B, C, & D could all complete a double if one of those won.
That looks like one chance in 3 to me of coming unstuck, or even
3 chances in 3, possibly with some big odds.
To cut things down further, it
may be best just to lay one double at a time.
Now if I hit a winner, the risk is that my next runner also
wins.
Hit 2 consecutive winners and I have a loss.
If it losers,
I have profit, so start a 2nd double.
Hit a loser at any point and I have profit, and start a fresh
double with the next runner.
I put a spreadsheet together for
that using level stakes so that I can keep track of what happens
including commission deductions when I lay my doubles.
Some very helpful e-mail correspondence put me onto what I am
looking at now.
Thank you very much "D.C" for your feedback and suggestions. . .
. . That was just great.
My theory now is to select a 2 runner market that has plenty of
money matched, and lay the outsider of the 2 selections at just
above odds of 2.0, (Just above evens).
In theory, there should be just less than a 50 - 50 chance of
laying a winner, so the chance of hitting a double should be
something better than odds of 2.0, plus a little further than
that.
If we Bet £1 on 2 runners both at
odds of 2.0, the potential payout is 3 stakes.
The calculation for that is :- (£1 x 2.0 x 2.0)
minus our £1 original stake = £3
If we are Laying, the lay payout on the first runner if it wins
is £1.
That loss plus our original lay stake is carried onto the 2nd
runner in our double, so if that also wins, we lose another £2,
but our lay stake is returned.
The total loss from laying a double at odds of 2.0 & 2.0 =
minus £3.
Lay a double, and there are 4
possible outcomes :-
Win / Win, Win / Lose, Lose / Win,
Lose / Lose..
It looks to me as if our chance of winning with our £1 is
therefore 3 against 1, before commission deductions on any
successful lay.
Looking at that, it appears to me
that even if we lay close to even money odds of 2.0, the odds
are in our favour, somewhere between 2/1 and 3/1 including
commission deductions..
I hope that Murphy's Law doesn't have too much influence on my
logic . . . . . . . . Lol.
We will see what happens in the next week or so, as I look to
lay some doubles, one at a time, with odds close to 2.0.
If that works out anything close
to ok, we may be able to use bigger odds with bigger lay
liabilities, but with lay payout less often.
Lay our
double at odds bigger than 2.0 and the lay payout increases, so
are our 3/1 odds reduced or increased ???
Lay a £1 double at odds of 3.0 & 3.0 and the potential payout is
minus £8.
We need to hit more losers to cover a payout, and we certainly
have more commission to pay on bigger successful lays if we have
hit a winner, and then hit a loser with the 2nd lay of our
double, for a Win / Lose outcome.
This is starting to give me a headache,
Howard..
10th
December 2014. Lay a Yankee.
If you read through my earlier posts, you may come to the
conclusion that the basis of my trades revolves around the risk
free trading of bookie refunds that are available to existing
bookie customers.
I've done very well out of those for a number of years.
Over the last 2 or 3 years, my bookie accounts with the big
bookies have gradually dwindled as I have either had my refunds
and bonuses stopped, stake sizes limited, or accounts closed.
On top of that, bookies these days are nowhere near as generous
with their refund offers as the used to be.
The result is that my monthly profits have gradually declined,
so over the past several months I have been looking for an
alternative way of getting into profit every month.
Over the past few weeks, I have been
looking at trading odds movements in horse races as per the Bet
Trader software videos, but predicting which way the odds will
move is anybody's guess, so I have been racking my brains for an
alterative.
Me and my trading buddy have tried several tipster services over
the past few months, but I find that they don't suit my style as
I feel tied to my computer every day, waiting for the tips to
turn up via e-mail, and anyway, where's the fun in betting on
someone else's selections ?
Whilst I have been doing that, I
have kept returning to looking at laying multiples, in
particular, Yankee bets in Betfair or Betdaq.
I have a spreadsheet for that of course,
follow this link.
The strategy for laying a Yankee
in an exchange using a spreadsheet is to lay each runner one at
a time so that we know the result of one event before we lay the
next.
As our Yankee progresses, the spreadsheet works out the stake
required for our next lay, depending on what winners or losers
we have hit with the previous lays in our Yankee.
That is all straightforward enough, but the big question is,
"What can we do to try to avoid laying 2 or more winners within
our Yankee's 4 runners and have a BIG payout ?"
A selection process would be
nice, but in my experience, picking losers is no easier that
picking winners.
I even layed a
horse at odds of 100.0 a while back.
Not everyone can claim to have managed that !!!
With that in mind, I have been
looking for a mathematical solution rather than a "Normal"
selection process.
Perhaps we may be less likely to lay a double if we target
runners in a price range that may not hit 2 winners or more in
any 4 selections.
That is what I am working with at present.
This is the "Theory" of the
logic that I am currently paper trading :-
It is well documented that if enough money is in a market, the
odds will reflect the chances of the runners involved.
So, with plenty of liquidity, we can expect and even money
chance, ( Betfair odds 2.0 ), to win 50% of the time, or once in
every 2 races.
If that is true, we can expect a 3/1 chance
( odds of 4.0 )
to win once in every 4 races, 25% of the time.
Our Yankee is a bet of 4 runners.
The minimum payout is on a double - - - 2 runners, so, if we lay
4 runners with odds of 3/1 (4.0), in the long term we can expect
to hit one winner every time with our 4 runner Yankees.
If we can do that, every one of our Lay Yankees will be
successful as we will only hit a single runner each time, not 2
or more.
Unfortunately, our winners and losers will come in bunches of
course, so if we lay all our runners at odds of 4.0, we may lay
several Yankees and hit zero winners, but at other times we may
hit 2 or more winners within the 4 runners of a Yankee and have
payout.
To get around that, we may lay
bigger odds.
That should reduce the chance of hitting 2 or more winners
within a Yankee of 4 selections.
That is the logic that I am working with.
To reduce my chances of hitting 2 winners in 4 selections, we
may double the odds that we lay, and lay odds of maybe 8.0.
To add a bit more certainty, (a bad choice of word that, .
. . Lol. ), we could increase our lay odds to 10.0, and our
chances of hitting one winner, in theory become 0ne in every 10
selections.
Hitting 2 winners should occur once in every 20 selections. . .
. In theory. . . . I hope.
With a bit of luck, those may be more than 4 runners apart,
which would give me a lot of successfully layed Yankees.
So my current rules are very
simple :-
Select races at random and lay one horse in each of 4 races.
The selection to lay in each race is the first horse in the
betting with odds in double figures, 10.0 or bigger.
Lay at a minimum odds of 10.0 and
I would guess that our chances of hitting 2 winners in 4 runners
would be quite slim.
It will happen if we lay enough Yankees, but laying 2 winners in
4 runners for a payout should be vastly reduced if we lay bigger
odds.
The problem with that of course is that a payout on hitting 2
winners at odds of 10.0 will be a lot bigger than a payout on 2
winners at odds of say, 4.0, but it should occur far less often.
We could of course get off to a very bad start and hit a payout
or 2 early in our trades.
To minimise the chances of a
payout even further, I am keeping records of the number of
runners in my races, and anything else that springs to mind,
such as avoiding big trainer - jockey combinations, and laying
only horses from the smaller yards.
A smaller yard could be a gambling yard of course - - - -
- so laying big prices still carries plenty of doubt and
apprehension. . . .Lol.
All of these things will already be built into the odds, if the
"Liquidity theory" is correct.
I may end up laying only in races
with plenty of runners, and stakes races rather than handicaps,
etc., etc, . . . you know how it goes.
So, that's what I am up to at present, but only on paper.
I realize that winners can come from anywhere, and that a horse
doesn't know what price it is when it sets off, so anything can
happen.
I'll keep you posted on progress of my "On Paper Yankees".
As always, good luck with your trades, Howard.
4th
November 2014. Odds to avoid. . . . . 3, 4, 6, 10, .
. . or to look for ?
If you decide to bet and lay some odds, maybe in horse racing
markets hoping to hedge to a profit, if the odds move in an
unfavourable direction, it may be worth considering what happens
if we bet at odds of 3.0, 4.0, 6.0 or 10.0,. or possible
just below those odds.
Those are the points at which Betfair increments change in size.
The implications of that are that if the odds move against us so
that we need to lay at higher odds to exit our trade, a one-tick
loss may be more than twice the size of a one-tick profit if the
odds had dropped and we were able to lay at odds lower than our
bet odds.
If we bet at odds of 3.0, the
next odds increment down is 2.98, a difference of 0.02.
If we bet at
odds of 3.0, the next odds increment up is 3.05, a difference of
0.05.
So, if we bet £100 and lay at 2.98 to equalize our trade for an
equal profit, we would show a profit of plus £0.67.
If things go against us and we lay at 3.05, we show a loss of
minus £1.64,
a difference of almost £1.
Take 5% commission off the £0.67 profit, and we are left with a
£0.64 one-tick profit against a one-tick loss of
-£1.64.
Bet at odds of 4.0 and the next
increments are down 3.95, and up 4.1, a difference of 0.05 or
0.10.
Bet £100 at odds of 4.0 and equalize one tick up or down for :-
Minus £2.44 or plus £1.27, or
£1.21 after commission.
Bet at odds of
6.0 and the next increments are down 5.9, and up 6.2, a
difference of 0.1 or 0.20.
Bet £100 at odds of 6.0 and equalize one tick up or down for :-
Minus £3.23 or plus £1.69, or
£1.61 after commission.
Bet at odds of
10.0 and the next increments are down 9.8, and up 10.5, a
difference of 0.2 or 0.50.
Bet £100 at odds of 10.0 and equalize one tick up or down for :-
Minus £4.76 or plus £2.04, or
£1.94 after commission.
Trade around these odds, and
making a profit becomes harder than if we were trading odds that
didn't have an odds increment change between our bet and lay
odds.
The way to get around these potential difficulties is to avoid
trading odds that are close to 3.0, 4.0, 6.0 or 10.0 if you are
placing a Bet First trade . . . . looking for a decrease in the
odds.
If you are considering betting and laying some odds with the
intention of betting high and laying low to "Green Up", you
might consider placing your initial bet some way away from odds
of 3, 4, 6, or 10.
However, if you anticipate that
your odds will be getting bigger so you are laying first in
anticipation of the odds increasing, it may be to your advantage
to lay at these odds, or even one tick bigger.
If we do that, things work in our favour :-
Lay £100 at
odds of 3.0 and equalize one tick up or down for :- plus £1.64,
or £1.59 after commission, or
minus £0.67.
Lay
£100 at odds of 4.0 and equalize one tick up or down for :- plus
£2.44, or £2.32 after commission, or
minus £1.27.
Lay
£100 at odds of 6.0 and equalize one tick up or down for :- plus
£3.23, or £3.07 after commission, or
minus £1.69.
Lay
£100 at odds of 10.0 and equalize one tick up or down for :-
plus £4.76, or £4.52 after commission, or
minus £2.04.
As always, good luck with the
trades, and don't forget 3, 4, 6, & 10, if you are betting and
laying odds . . . Howard.
1st
November 2014. Horse racing odds movements.
In the next week or so, I may be linking from here to some
software that may help with predicting odds movements in horse
races.
There may also be links to demonstration videos.
I'll be having a go with the
software myself.
The initial cost of that will be just
99 pence for the first month.
After that, the cost of using the software will be substantially
more, so watch for the link from here sometime after Monday
November 10th.
Good luck with the trades, Howard.
8th September 2014.
New
Analyse web page
up and running.
After some video software problems, I've eventually put a new
"Analyse Data" tab on
my Strategies web site.
Another problem that I had is that the Analyse spreadsheet file
will not load into Open Office software. . . . It will
only work in Excel.
A smaller version of the file worked ok in Open Office, but once
I expanded it to accommodate more columns of data, Open Office
refused to co-operate.
I've put a warning about that and the size of the Excel file on
my web page.
So, if you are interested in improving your selection process
for your bets in any sport, you might take a look at the videos
for this new file.
Last
week, I started collecting some Premiership football data,
including Betfair odds.
I'm looking to add another video to the 2 that are on the
Analyse Data tab of
my Strategies web site to demonstrate
how the sheet could be used to analyse football data.
I will need maybe 3 or 4 weeks of results to get started with
that, but even then that will only be 30 or 40 games. . . .
A very small sample.
30 or 40 games will have to do for a footy demonstration,
otherwise we'll be heading towards December before I put a
football video together.
As always, good luck with your trades, Howard.
15th August
2014. Analyse your results. I've had a break from putting spreadsheets together and
enjoyed things on my domestic scene for the past month or 3, but
now I'm ready to put one or 2 new ideas forward on my web sites.
My main offering will be a spreadsheet file that will enable
data or results to be analysed.
If you have a series of results available that maybe show a
profit, this spreadsheet package will enable you to analyse
those results further and see exactly what is working for you
and what isn't.
For example, you may have some horse racing results with detail
such as Odds,
Distance,
Type of race, Age group, Course,
etc.
You may even have a list of results from a tipping service that
may only quote the odds of past winners and losers.
Whatever the information that you have available, it can be
analysed to get the best out of it.
This spreadsheet package has a data
input tab that allows input of odds, plus another 3 columns for
analysis of anything that involves numbers, and 2 columns for
anything that involves text.
Input your odds, result for a winner or a loser, plus up to 5
other bits of info for anything else that involves numbers or
text.
Then go to an "Analysis" spreadsheet in the same file to see
graphs of each of those different items of information showing
the profit or loss over the time period of your input.
Now for the interesting bit.
Inputs on this Analysis spreadsheet allow you to set limits for
each item of information, and see what the profit or loss would
be within those limits.
For example, you might set upper and lower limits for your Odds
so that you can see which odds pay best, short odds, big odds,
or something in between.
An example for information involving a text input might be the
type of race :- You might look at whether stakes races pay
better than handicaps, or if sellers, amateurs races, apprentice
races, or All Weather races etc. affect your profit & loss.
The choice is yours.
For each of your bits of individual information, the Analysis
spreadsheet shows the total number of races and the number of
winners and losers as you alter your number limits, or text
criteria.
The Total races and number of winners are used to show your
Winning Strike Rate within the limits that you set, or the text
item that you select.
Profit or loss to a £1 level stake is shown, and a graph shows
the progress of that profit or loss over the period of your data
input.
I will be adding LLR (Longest Losing Run), and LWR (Longest
Winning Run) to those displays.
Once you have done the "Fine
Tuning" for each individual bit of information, to get the best
out each of them, they are all combined on a single graph, with
a list of the limits that you have set. - - - giving you a
written list of your "Filters".
You now have your personal "Betting Method", with your filter
rules listed.
Once again, you can see Total Races, winning strike rate, P & L,
and the progress of your profit and loss shown on a graph, this
time for all your filters combined.
Alter any filter, and your list of filters will reflect that and
the P & L graph will update.
Your analysis need not be limited
to horses of course.
You can input information related to anything you like,
football, dogs, tennis, cricket, the weather . . . .anything.
If you are betting on something at present, why not keep track
of the results and tweak your betting as you go along ?
At present, I only have a betting
Analysis spreadsheet package, but I will be converting that so
that we can also analyse lays.
So, if you are interested in analysing your stuff, or anything
other data that you come across, such as the results of some
tips on a web page somewhere, you might like to analyse those
bits of information and improve things a little.
Once your data is in the spreadsheet, you can manipulate it as
much as you like, very quickly, easily, and very accurately.
The results of your analysis will be instant, with a graphical
display of profit and loss that updates immediately.
I'll be adding a new web page to
one or more of my web sites to accommodate this Analysis
spreadsheet package.
A video or 2 will describe the spreadsheets and demonstrate what
you might get out of the data you input.
That will take a while.
As always, good luck with your trades, Howard.
21 April
2014. Arsenal beat Hull 0 - 3.
Apologies for putting a tip up rather than discussing staking in
the previous post below.
Very pleasing results all round with Everton also beating Man U.
I think we can expect a different Hull side to be competing for
the F.A. Cup in May.
Howard.
19th April
2014. Lay of the day tomorrow . . . . Hull.
I'm not a very good tipster, but . . . . .
If Arsenal qualify for the
Champions league, Hull get to play in Europe next season
whether they win or lose the FA Cup in May.
If Arsenal don't qualify for
Europe, Hull will only get to play in Europe if they beat
Arsenal in the FA Cup Final.
With that in mind :-
Those 2 teams meet tomorrow, Sunday, in the Premiership.
Arsenal are currently 4th in the
Premiership, 1 point in front of Everton, so a win for
Arsenal against Hull would keep them one point in front of
Everton at the very least.
A draw could see Everton
overtake Arsenal if Everton beat Man Utd.
Man Utd have nothing to play for
now.
With both Everton and Spurs
ahead of them for the Premiership 5th place Europa spot, Man
U are not in close contention for Europe or anything else.
The 2 games kick off at :- 14:05
Hull - Arsenal, and 16:10 for Everton - Man U.
From a business point of view,
it is not in Hull's interest to win tomorrow's game against
Arsenal.
If Hull take the lead, a Draw
result after that would not look as bad as a Hull loss after
being in a winning situation.
Questions might be asked by
Everton.
So, in my opinion, the thing to
do is lay Hull.
It makes no sense for Hull to
win this game, and not much sense for Hull to Draw either,
so logically, Hull must be a lay.
Arsenal will be looking to put
one over on Hull in readiness for the FA Cup Final.
Also, Arsenal one point clear of
Everton in 4th spot, need to keep winning to make sure that
they qualify for The Champion's League..
Arsenal have an easier run for
their last few games than Everton.
Even so, every point counts, so
Arsenal will be up for a Win.
Hull should be up for a Lose.
That's my assessment for what
it's worth.
Arsenal play Hull before Everton
meet Man U, so Hull must play this game and make sure that
they do not win.
That will almost certainly get
Hull into Europe regardless of what happens in the FA Cup
Final.
Hull are
currently on 36 points - - 6 & 7 points clear of the bottom
3 Premiership teams.
Hull have games in hand on those 3 teams, but still have to
play Fulham, Villa, Man U, and Everton.
I'll be laying Hull.
Current odds are Bet 4.7, Lay 4.8,
Good luck if you have a go at that, but please bear in mind
that anything can happen in a football match. . . . Lol,
Howard.
7th April
2014. How to trade bookie
accumulator refunds to
profit.
I updated
my Bookie Refunds web page.
today to include this new spreadsheet.
I put a video together last week to describe the staking for
several different kinds of bookie accumulator refund.
This spreadsheet package now has 5 videos that describe a couple
of spreadsheets and some accumulator refund trades that I did a
while ago.
Good luck with your accumulators if you have a go at them,
Howard.
28th March
2014. Lay an accumulator spreadsheet.
Bookies seem to be offering more refunds and bonus payments that
involve betting a double, treble, or a 4 or 5 timer.
For the past few months, since September 2013, I have been
trading these successfully to guaranteed winnings with zero or
very little risk to my cash.
I put some videos together several months ago to describe the
spreadsheet that I am using and to show live trades and the
results.
I am now almost ready to put this spreadsheet package up on
my Bookie Refunds web page.
I need to put another video or 2 together and then I can go
ahead with that.
Just as
with the bookie offers that we are used to seeing, these
accumulator offers come in several different forms :-
Bet an accumulator and get a
free bet.
Bet an accumulator and get a
free accumulator bet.
Bet an winning accumulator
and the bookie will add a percentage to our winnings.
I wouldn't attempt to profit from a low percentage bonus
such as 10% or 20% when trading acumulators.
Bet an accumulator and get a
refund if our accumulator is a loser.
This last one may be described by your bookie as a "No Lose"
offer.
Refunds may be a cash refund of
our bet stake, or more often these days, our stake may be
refunded as a free bet.
Whatever the offer, these bookie accumulator offers are well
worth looking at.
Mostly, they can be traded to profit with zero or very little
risk.
Surprisingly, one of the best sources of these refunds over the
last 6 or 7 months has been Betfair's Fixed Odds web site that
is bolted onto the exchange.
Even Betdaq got into the swing of things during Cheltenham week
with a 100% winnings added offer on each of the 4 days if we bet
a £10 double using their Multiples section.
If you missed that at the time, it was an offer to double our
winnings up to £1000 if we hit a winning £10 double in the
Cheltenham races.
An offer like that with a £1000
bonus within the text may conjure up visions of amazing
possibilities, but the end result of trading these accumulator
refunds is exactly the same as if we were trading similar offers
for a single selection :-
The profit from trading the qualifying bet, plus a 2nd trade of
the free bet produces a profit that is a percentage of our
original bet stake.
For example, if we bet £10 with a bookie to qualify for a £10
free bet, we expect to make a small loss when betting and laying
the £10 qualifying bet.
We then bet and lay the free bet, knowing that we can make
guaranteed profit of 70% of our free £10, or more if we trade a
horse, maybe less for football.
That £7 recovers the small loss from trading the qualifying bet
and gives us profit on top.
We may make more than £5 or £6 from the 2 trades combined, with
zero risk to our cash.
These accumulator refund and bonus offers work on exactly the
same principle :-
Bet and lay the qualifier.
Bet and lay the free bet.
The overall profit will be a
percentage of our original bet stake.
The profit will generally be slightly smaller than we might
expect from a normal free bet offer, but can be very similar
if we are able to lay suitable odds.
There are 2 strategies.
Mostly, we can select runners or football teams for our double,
treble, or 4 or 5 timer, with time between each event.
We then lay those in turn as they take place.
If we hit a winner with our first lay, we need to lay the 2nd
runner or team to recover those lost liabilities.
Hit the winner with our 2nd lay and we need to recover the lost
liabilities from both races 1 and 2, and so on.
Hit a loser at any point and that is end of trade.
We have a successful lay that recovered lost liabilities, but a
losing bet with our bookie.
Get the staking right whilst we are doing that and we can trade
to profit every time over the 2 trades, qualifying bet plus free
bet combined, providing that our lay odds don't increase whilst
we are waiting for races or games to complete.
We can lay so that our
liabilities are less than our bet winnings if we hit all
winners.
Whilst we are doing that, we can lay to recover all lay losses
so far, plus a profit on top.
Remember that that we will be trading a free bet, so the bet
loss will be zero.
Hit a loser, and we have profit.
Hit all winners and we have profit.
Stake our lays to suit the terms of the refund and we can profit
from each type of offer described above.
That is the basics of method One
- - - - choose runners for our accumulator with time between
each event so that we can lay them one at a time.
Method 2 introduces an element of risk, but I have traded method
2 without a free bet whilst testing my spreadsheet.
I had my ups and downs whilst doing that, and came out slightly
in front after a few trades.
I made mistakes that caused me red trades, so a learning curve
was involved in a couple of those trades.
This is method 2 :-
Occasionally, the bookie offer will force us to trade football
games that all kick off at or around the same time, such as
Champions League or Premiership games.
An offer might be " Bet 5 x £10 on Premiership games this
weekend, get a free 5 fold accumulator for next weekend's
Championship games."
Betfair were particularly fond of that type of offer for a
while.
Other similar offers from Betfair involved Champions League
games.
If the free 5 timer involves games that do not have 5 games that
kick off with time between those games, we need to bet 5 teams
that all kick off at the same time and then look to lay them at
lower odds "In Play" as goals are scored.
If our teams don't score and get into a winning position, we
cannot trade out so we may have to take the hit of the cost of
the qualifying bets.
To trade the 4 or 5 games of our free accumulator "In Play" all
at the same time, we need to use the balanced staking of
Dutching.
I have a "Dutching" spreadsheet for that, but this is not really
Dutching as a loss in one game is not deducted before commission
is taken off profit in another of our games.
If we were Dutching a single market such as Correct Score in a
single game, losses would be deducted from profit before we pay
commission.
As we will be laying a team 4 or 5 different games, we will pay
commission on each of those games.
The sheet is simple enough, and uses the balanced staking of
Dutching to get the correct staking so that our profit or loss
is very similar for each of our lays.
The good news if we are forced to
use this Dutching method is that if we are lucky, this kind of
trade can pay extremely well.
If all of our teams have all been in a winning position, - - - a
goal or 2 in front, but then the other team score to get the
score to a Draw or have our team losing by a goal, we can
have a good profit from what becomes a successful lay of our
now, losing team.
If 2 of our teams get into a losing position after we have layed
them, that is even better news - - - Congratulations, it's our
birthday . . Lol.
Ideally, we would be laying our
teams when they are in a winning position with their lay odds
somewhere below odds of 1.2.
Lay £34.48 at odds of 1.16 and we have liabilities of
minus -£5.52.
If that team then gets into a Draw or losing position, we have a
successful lay of plus £34.48, less 5% commission = plus £32.76.
Be lucky enough to put 2 of those together and profits really
start to take off.
Trades like that are unlikely to come along very often, but
anything can happen in a football match.
I've come extremely close to hitting one of those whilst doing
just a few trades.
I missed it by a few seconds.
A goal was scored whilst I was placing my lay - - - - It was as
close as that.
Once I put another video or 2
together, this "Trade a Bookie Accumulator Refund or Bonus"
package will be available on my web site.
If you would like the spreadsheets now, just e-mail me and we
can arrange your £10 PayPal payment and I'll send the
spreadsheet file by e-mail with links to a couple of videos to
get you started.
I have come to look forward to
these accumulator refunds.
They are a little bit different from other refunds, maybe a bit
more of a challenge, mainly due to the possibility of our lay
odds getting bigger, but easy enough to do once you get used to
them.
They also add to the profit total at the end of the month.
As always, good luck with your trades, especially your
accumulators if you have a go at them, Howard.
9th March
2014. Zero %, 3% and 5% commission rates.
Ladbrokes recently opened a betting exchange to compete with
Betfair, Betdaq, etc.
Laddies have an offer at present of zero commission for a
month if we open an exchange account during March, plus a
boatload of free bets if we continue to bet and lay with them.
As you know, liquidity can be a problem if we are not using
Betfair, but with Betfair's commission rate at 5% and the other
exchanges
some way below that, it can pay better to take worse odds, but
at a more favourable commission rate.
I've put a simple spreadsheet
together to demonstrate that.
Use this link to
download the free spreadsheet.
If the file opens as "Read only" or cells B1, D2 and G2 appear
to be locked, just re-name the file and it should then work ok
for you.
The spreadsheet allows us to input any stake size and 2
commission rates.
It then shows the profit from a bet or a lay using that stake
size for the bet or the lay over a range of odds from 1.94 up to
50.0.
Profits after commission deductions are shown for the 2
commission rates that we input, plus zero commission.
We can now see which of our 3
exchanges pays best.
It may pay better if we take less favourable odds, but at a
lower commission rate.
The screenshot below shows the lower end of the odds in the
sheet.
I have entered a bet or lay stake of £10 at cell B1.
If we look at the profit at odds of 2.0, we can see that a £10
bet or lay will return a profit of £9.50 in columns F & G after
5% commission deductions.
At 3% commission in columns D & E, we can afford to bet 2 ticks
lower at 1.98 and still show a bigger profit at cell D9 of £9.51.
With zero commission, we can bet 5 ticks lower for an identical
£9.50 profit at odds of 1.95 at cell B6.
If you are placing a single bet
or lay, or betting with a bookie and laying in an exchange, it
may be worth considering an alternative to Betfair.
These other exchanges are offering very attractive commission
rates.
Close odds of Bet 2.0 and Lay 2.02, may not pay better than
slightly worse looking odds elsewhere.
Taking advantage of the most competitive commission rates can
add an unexpected little bit extra to profits.
As always, good luck with your trades, Howard.
1st January
2014. Trading Betdaq odds.
I seem to be using Betdaq more and more these days.
Gaps in the Betdaq odds is still a problem, but with a bit of
thought, we can squeeze the best out of the Betdaq odds.
Tonight, I had a free Betfair bet on NBA Basketball.
I was looking for some big odds to trade, so looked at the
biggest available in tonight's games.
The free bet "Bet odds" that I was looking to trade were 7.0
(lay odds were 7.4), but the Betdaq odds looked really bad with
bet odds at 6.0, and lay at 8.6.
At first glance, that looks like a complete disaster, but I
decided to bet at the 7.0 on offer in Betfair and then offered
to lay at 7.8 in Betdaq, which was some way below the
Betdaq lay odds of 8.6, but some way above the current bet odds
in Betfair of 7.4.
My bet
of 7.0 was matched immediately and my lay in Betdaq at 7.8 was
matched very quickly, probably after about 10 or 15 seconds.
Bet at 7.0 and lay at 7.8 may still look pretty bad, but as you
can see from the screenshot of my spreadsheet below, I still
came out with a profit of £7.12 whatever the result from my £10
free bet trade.
70% profit from a free bet trade is certainly ok with me.
In the screenshot below, we can see that if I hit a winner with
my free £10 bet, I have winnings of £57 after 5% commission at
column G, and lay liabilities of minus £49.88 at cell E15 for a
profit of £7.12.
If I hit a loser, I have a successful lay of £7.34 at cell B15,
which gives a profit of £7.12 after deducting 3% commission.
My bet loss is zero as my bet was free.
After making this trade, I deducted the cost of my qualifying
bets, which left me with an overall profit on the total trades
combined.
This Exchange to Exchange
spreadsheet is available on my Bookie Refunds web page.
The file contains spreadsheets for trading Exchange to Exchange
qualifying bets and also free bets.
Commission on both sides of the trade is built into the
calculations.
Commission rates can be reversed in the sheets so that they can
be used for betting and laying Betfair to Betdaq or the other
way around.
The point I am making here is
that even though the Betdaq odds may look unacceptable, if we
look at what is on offer in Betfair and offer something a tick
or 2 better in Betdaq, we can quite often get matched in Betdaq
without any problems.
Bot traders will be looking for the slightest of edges between
Betfair and Betdaq odds and will soon latch on to the nice
attractive odds that we offer.
Other traders will also be looking for the better odds that we
offer in Betdaq, rather than just relying on what is available
in Betfair.
Providing that the odds that we offer give us a good trade, we
can go ahead and offer what look like very attractive odds
compared to what is available in Betfair.
I find that sports such as basketball may have gaps in the
Betfair market and quite often may not have odds available in
Betdaq that are close to what we see in Betfair.
We can often get around that problem by offering odds a tick or
2 better in one exchange than in the other.
With commission at 3%, Betdaq is always worth looking at.
As always, good luck with your trades, Howard.