Value
 

1				13
2				14
3				15
4

After messing around with value for years I continue to find myself confronted with the above scenario.

My top/or second rated horse is frequently the favourite.

Now according to the value pundits unless I get the "value" odds I will go broke.

Finding 4/1 favourites or rating no-hopers on top of the pile is almost impossible,so I ask the "value" men,,,What is the answer to this conundrum???

Do I forlornly sit in front of my monitor and watch my top pick bolt in at 3/1 or do I plonk my hard earned on at below value odds ??? (and go broke) ??

With regard to ratings I have long felt that if your top rated horse is not the favourite you are doing something wrong.However I do think that a horses average rating over a period of some eighteen months or so is about the best indication of "class" in any given race.

I'm not knocking the "value" men.Just curious how they overcome the fact that horses rated to win simply dont start at odds calculated on an 80% market.

The only way you can understand and get value is if you give prices to your rated horses.

You might rate a horse 80% chance of winning which is odds of roughly (100/80) = $1.25

If you can find odds higher than $1.25 you are getting value. This means that even a horse paying $1.30 might be good value.

Without working out your own rated prices there is no chance of knowing what is and what is not value. For instance your top rated selection might have a 25% chance. This works out to be $4.00. You might only be able to get $3.80 so this horse has no value.

Hope that clears it up.

Wes. that part is very clear, but where I get lost is this, 2 experts, one rates a horse 2-1, the other rates the horse 4-1,....... 3-1 is available , is it good or bad value??

Value is all very subjective and very much in the eye of the beholder. You are looking for certainties where none do exist.
Sorry if this is a somewhat deflating view. Only time will tell if your ratings are as good as you hope they are. You just have to test them.

As Top Rank said ... The person with the correct version of ratings will make the right choice.

Thats where the skill comes in ...

OK got that, BUT take 2 EXPERTS whose ratings are on a par, one rates a horse @2-1, the other rates the horse @4-1, both experts over time are proven to be of equal substance, 3-1 is available, is THIS GOOD VALUE OR BAD VALUE?

If their ratings were 'on a par' party wouldn't their prices be the same :confused:

You might think so but NO, not on an individual race, they differ incredibly, last week at belmont one "************" had a horse rated at 5-2, the other at 7-1, it won paying 10-1 (TOP FLUC), an unusual occurrance; but still it happens, it doesn't only happen between 2 experts, I've seen as many as 4 completely disagree with the top rater, even though over time all 4 are on a par, so which one is "VALUE" no-one seems to be able to come close to answering the question?

In that case (imho) 3-1 is good value to the one that rates a horse @2-1

Cool a trick question...
 

Which is value??? They both are. One "e x p e r t" backs the selection and the other lays it ;)

But only one achieves the value LOL That's racing ;)

Well, Angry yes that's a funny answer, but it still dosen't answer my question, it's similar to another concept that is plugged over and over again, i.e YOU HAVE TO GET VALUE, ok got it, BUT..... "SHORTENERS ARE THE WAY TO GO", ...... HUH!? isn't that a contradiction in terms???

Angry's response works for me

The 1st statement is demonstrably TRUE.
The 2nd is an opinion.
Do not link the two.

VALUE is easy to understand when you look at it in terms you understand.
When you go shopping and you usually buy milk for $1.39, and one morning you see it at $1.05, you realize it is a bargain...Good Value.
Same as when those tipsters look at the market.
One will see VALUE, the other won't.
To you, because those assessed prices weren't formed by you, you won't see Value in either Experts decisions.
What you will be doing is trusting that particular Experts opinion.
Don't forget, each ************ is following a different path to get to the final result.
If one makes the correct assumptions than the other, then for that particular race, one ************ will be more right.
But VALUE is a long term thing, and you need to consider each of those experts over a long period of time.
Then you will know whether to take the 3-1 or not.

p.s. No swear words were intended here.
In fact I'm quite sober so I don't understand how i could have swore.
BIG BROTHER is obviously watching and needs his contact lenses replaced.

Quote Wesmip

"If their ratings were 'on a par' party wouldn't their prices be the same :confused:"


Wes once you have arrived at a rating figure surely the prices depend on the %figure you choose to form your market with.??

The late great DS suggested 80% which I think (these days,post value revolution) are pie in the sky.

In fact,as was mentioned, the whole deal comes back to subjectivity,which basically means that "value" could be any old figure.

Moeee nice to see you back around this part of the forum.

I understand all that has been written here but for heaven's sake, doesn't a 3/1 winner that "should have been 2/1" give the punter the same return as a 3/1 winner that "should have been 10/1"?. I don't care what the "experts" have rated a horse at. If I think it can win I will back it and ratings can go and whistle. When you pick up the paper and check the tipster's polling panel you will hardly ever find agreement across the board so who's right and who's wrong? In most cases not many of them.

Can I reframe the question and ask ,"what is realistic value" and "how do you calculate it"???

Not the arithmetic which is simple enough,,,Hmmm what I'm asking is how close to bookies odds can we go and still claim to be getting "value"

eg,,If the bookies are framing a 116% market,is it realistic to calculate our own at 114% and hang around the ring and wait for someone to offer the extra 10c or so ??? Or of course the online bookies offering fixed odds.

Is "value" saying the hell with calculations and accepting the top fluc as "value"or, getting the best of two totes ????

What is frustrating me is that I continually read posts where contributers make statements along the lines of."If you dont get "value" you will go broke"!

Unfortunately those pundits invariably neglect to define "value" as such.The fact is we can only work within a framework of the odds "on offer".No matter how we calculate our own markets the reality is that we dont control them.

I guess this leads us to betfair ?????

What I have found of interest, is to set the market at 118% which is the TAB take, then bet the double overlays on ones top 2 selections only.


I looked at this with many tipsters top 2 selections & nearly all of them made a loss at level stakes.
Their average top 2 SR was 36%
Yours maybe higher.

But, if one only took their double overlays of their top 2
Nearly all showed a profit.
To work out the double overlay, one has to convert it to fractional odss first.
e.g. $3.00 = 2/1
Example
$3.00 rated runner . Double the price minus one.
$3.00 x 2 = $6.00 -1 = $5.00 is the double overlay price one needs.Not $6.00
2/1 + 2/1 = 4/1 = $5.00

Now, one way to bet this selection once one has found a double overlay, is to bet it at your assesd price to take out a set amount.
e.g. Takeout amount $100 bookies price $10, your price $4 , remember one needs the horse to be at the double overlay price $7.00+ before one considers it to be a double overlay qualifier, anything more is a bonus.
$100 / $4 assesed price = $25 O/L
If it wins at $10 , you get back $250 for a $225 profit.

Another way of doing this is have a Base bet amount , say $20 & if the $4.00 selection double overlay price needed is say $7 & $10 is on offer, this represents a double overlay ratio of 10 / 7 = 1.43:1
Now bet the base amount $20 x 1.43 = $29 O/L
If it wins at $10 one gets back $290 - $29 = 261 profit.

In other words , the greater the double overlay , the more money that is placed on it.
"Are ya feelin lucky punk! Well are ya? "

This is the method the late great, Don Scott used.
He made a fotune using this method.
Unfortunatly he came undone chasing the Trifectas, so let that be a lesson to us all.

It takes patiece to run with this idea but one way to address this, is to set ones double overlay price, with a book maker set at a min price accepted at best price fluctuation.

So, one surgestion would be to use both rating services that one is looking at because both will deliver similar results long term.
. Target their top 2 selections only.
. Bet the double overlays on their given prices.
. Use a bookie like IAS & bet close to jump time when all the prices have settled.
. Or try Betfair close to jump time.
. Consider placing a 1/5th of total outlay insurance cover bet on the other selection, regardless of price overlays.

This helps reduce the drain on ones bank & adds a lot more interest to ones punting.
It reducers ones runs of outs which normally kills off most punting ideas.
The idea works well if one has strong SR with their top 2 selections.
One only does this when we have a double overlay selection running in the race.

Example.
Say our O/L for the race is $20
We place 1/5th insurance bet of $4.00 on the other selection.
We place the remaining $16 on our overlay bet.
If our insurance bet gets up at say $3.50 we get back $14 of our original $20
A loss of -$6 instead of -$20
Long term the profit works out approx the same but with less exposure to risk to the bank.

Tip.
Try not to double up ones bet on duel selections tipped by both tipsters.
Just because its tipped twice ,does not mean it has twice the chance of winning.
One will find it more profitable, long term, running with this rule .

At the dramaticly increased objective odds, one does not have to be lucky all that often to show a profit.

Go over some past results & see if this is so & get back to us to share ones findings.

I hope this helps towards your question.

Cheers.

ok just got back to this thread and saw all the replies.

Value is getting better odds then the "true" chance of the horse.

If one ratings service has it at 2/1 and the other has it at 4/1 then one of these (or possibly both) has got the chance of the horse winning wrong.

The true chance of the horse might be 3/1 or it could be 6/1. You won't know until after many races. Historical figures give an indication on whether or not your rating gives the "true" chance of a horse winning but not always as the past doesn't always repeat in the future.

But if you want to know the best indicator of a horse winning then you should look at the price. No matter how many experts you look at the public is always better at determining the "true" chance of a horse. If a horse is starting at 3/1 then more than likely his chance of winning the race is 25%. Of course if your looking at the Tote then you really are looking at an 85% market so the chance is actually less than 25%.

Then if you can get higher odds then the tote (by at least 20%) then you are getting good value and will probably win longer term.

So now you are probably going to say this isn't going to help anyone because betfair usually only has horses at 10% - 15% higher than the tote. But as Chrome Prince pointed out a couple of days ago, if you look at the PPM selections you will get great value on the long shots at betfair and they can be more than double the "true" chance. This will eventually result in a long term profit.

Good Luck.

Nothing funny about it...
 

There's value on the back and the lay sides of the ledger. If you can't back at the price you want, then lay it! ;)

I'm 100% with Top Rank on this. There's just too much subjectivity over what the term "value" mean's. For me I prefer to talk in terms of advantage. I know that over time my top ranked horse (regardless of it's rated odds) wins a certain percentage of races (A). Using the SP's I can work out how often the top ranked horse is expected to win (B). If (A/B)-1 if a positive number then I have an advantage, and I don't worry too much about the short term prices. It's how things pan out in the long term that matters.

Really? :)

Well thank you..I think :(

I been here for sometime, just ain't been posting.
Have noticed most of my posts are topsy turvy and chop and change.
I understand the idea of VALUE but I still can't seem to make it concrete into my brain.
I have this problem with most truths in my life.
Fun and laughter spoil my carefully laid plans.
A bit like the hangover the next day, when you decide you not gonna drink too much tonight.

I miss DURITZ. :(
He sounded like he was on the verge of making millions of dollars.
Then it went quiet.
Maybe he found Paradise?
Good luck to him whatever.I learnt some good stuff from him.
And Wesnip is still battling on with his dreams of Gold.
Does anybody here like to announce that they derive their total income support from Punting?
Does anybody like to announce that they actually won money over the past 12 months from doing what they do?

This is all good if you only bet on one race and then give punting away.
Winners are winners regardless of price...that is true Beagle.
But look at it this way. I'll give you 2 points less than the TAB on all your selections.Would you be happy with that?
You must consider all your bets, not just the winners.
If you invested $25,000 in the last 12 months and are returned $30,000 then if you got say 9-4 about those winners rather than the 3-1 , you would have lost money.

Look at this scenario as well.
There are 3 runners in a race.
You think No 3 has no possible chance of winning.
You think No 1 has a good chance and should win.
But you also think that No 2 has almost as good a chance as No 1
The tote is showing No 1 at $1.50 and No 2 at $3.20
Which horse would you back?
This is how Value can be seen.
Can you now see that No 2 is VALUE and No 1 is not, based on your thinking about the race?

I made a 5 figure profit last year ( Jul 06 to Jun 07) but it isn't my main income.

Good Luck.

You must frame to 100% or less.
Even if your market is more accurate than the Bookmakers, if you accept only 10 cents more than you decided was appropriate with a rated market using 114% , you will lose every time.
It is irrelevant what percentage the Bookmaker frames at.
Even if he frames at 200%, you must get a price that is above the True chance of your selection.
But if your prices are wrong, you will lose just the same. :(
How do you know if your prices are right?
Use a feeler guage.
Insert it in your wallet, the thinner the guage is , the more accurate your work.
And it don't matter whether a punter understands or believes in VALUE...the bottom line is , if you are winning, then you are getting Value, whether you see it or not.
It is just, if you can see why, then you can increase it to higher levels.

I'm sorry Wesnip.
I'm sure you would know, but I have trouble believing that.
I keep thinking ...if I can't do it, then no one can.
I suppose I'm just foolish in not accepting what you say and I should be reading all your posts and learning from your wisdom.
But I have read some of your stuff, and it doesn't really strike me as that coming from a person with a mansion and a Mercedes.
Maybe I need to take my blinkers off for the 1st time. :)

Well, it's obvious at least that I am not alone being slightly perlexed with the value thing, "angry" says if you can't get the price you want then lay it, mmmmm yeeaaahh, mmmmm , but the grey area is "the price you want" isn't it, I mean I still think it will win but I can't get 3-1, .....so I lay it??? nah, doesn't sit right with me. Maybe that's why I'm still an "aspiring" pro! and not already living on the Gold Coast selling tips (or ratings)

Moeee,If I frame my market to 100% or less I will never be able to place a bet.99% of my punting is done on the first three horses in the market.

As I said we can frame our own market to whatever percentage we choose.However the reality is that we dont have any control over the true market.

By the way,it is good to see you back contributing to forum discussion.

Moeeee,

The trick is to always look for new ideas to add to your betting. I have a couple of main systems that I follow and always have a couple of new ones going on the side. But I can understand if you can't believe, I probably wouldn't believe anyone either ... but at least i have the cash in the bank which keeps me happy...

It takes a while but once you click on the right ideas and find something that works you will start making some cash.

I didn't really start to make money until I got my own database of results together to test ideas.. from there its easy...

And Value is one of the keys when you understand how to use the tote board as an indicator of chance.

Good Luck

Poop, it's about having confidence in your assessment of the true winning chance. Don't forget that a horse assessed at 3/1 is going to lose three in every four races. If you think it's going to win anyway then stay away, but you'll be giving up 75% of your chances at a profit. ;)

Moeee, I'm a five figure bloke as well. Generally Saturday's and public holidays only. Up to you whether you believe it or not. Not my only source of income.

Yes, you blokes are slowly converting me to the possibilities of laying, just seems so complicated to me, and I know that's when I make mistakes, so.. so far I've stuck to what I know. Angry, the confidence thing I realate to, and yes you can always leave it alone if you can't get set; but still think it will win, as you say you will be wrong most of the time anyway.

Value horse v's Value system,
 

Remember above all else I come from a non form studying stance and as such know zip about any individual horse, but I do live off my betting returns and have never aspired to own a mansion or a Merc.

I believe the term value should not be applied to a horses chance of winning a race because there are too many factors involved in which horse wins the race. Trying to assess the probability is over estimating one's ability.....BUT, if you assess the value in relation to the system you are using or the SR you historically achieve, then value takes on an all important roll! In fact THE ONLY important consideration.

In other words the value must be positive in relation to your SR. (ability)

Two bets,

I disagree as you will find those horses which are undervalued will make up a bulk of the strike rate for a system. For example lets take a hypothetical 10 bets.

Bet 1 $2 WIN
Bet 2 $5 LOSS
Bet 3 $5 LOSS
Bet 4 $5 LOSS
Bet 5 $5 LOSS
Bet 6 $2 WIN
Bet 7 $2 WIN
Bet 8 $5 LOSS
Bet 9 $5 LOSS
Bet 10 $5 LOSS

This system selections have a 30% strike rate ... So anything above $3.30 shouold produce a profit ... but the thing is only those bets under $3 are actual winners.

I know this is hypothetical so I ran an actual ratings (unitab rating) to see what happens :( ie Top 100 raters on unitab)

Without any filters:
35360 Selections
Strike Rate : 23%
WIN ROT = 86%

So assuming this anything over say $4.50 should be a long term winning system :

15393 Selections
Strike Rate : 12%
WIN ROT = 83%

The system has got worse .... So lets say we really need value and should be taking double the chance so $9 +

4442 Selections
Strike Rate : 7%
WIN ROT = 85%

I think this demonstrates my point .... As the odds increase the probability of a seleciton winning decreases. Therefore if you do not know the "true" chance of a horse you are not getting value.

Good Luck.

Twobets, yes you're right but it's not just the S/R that you need to consider. You need to know the sum of the winning chances of all your selections too. Touched on this in post #20.

For Wes (my Guru)
 

Hi Wes,
As usual I'm so thick I don't follow your drift. Surely in your example you are a punter with a 30% SR so by my standards you woulnd't be betting on those $2 gg's. ??? In other words you've got seven out of seven losing bets which don't sound like a winning system whatever value you're getting!!

Which brings us back to a very sobering thought, Wes, you have such a professional way of saying it, but basically yes, the lower the price the higher the S/R , REGARDLESS of where the selections come from. One step further, 45% of even money chances win REGARDLESS of where or who top rates em', etc etc etc i.e. about 21% of 3-1 chances win etc etc etc, REGARDLESS who considers them value and who doesn't, the end result after thousands of spins = "amazingly" a LOT of about 15-18%, sounds pretty close to the take out to me eh? (Bookies/Tote that is)

partypooper,

thats right .... so unless you can come up with a different set of probabilties to the market you are always going to revert back to the LOT of 15% which is the takeout.

But for those who understand this you can make money both backing and layng selections using a combination of sources for placing your bets.

TwoBets,

Look at the second example which uses actual ratings. You will see the strike rate diminishes as the Price increases which in turn means you need to find higher prices horses to get value which further decreases the strike rate which means finding higher price horses, and so on and so on. A system selection needs to be evaluated on its chance in the race compared to the other horses, not to the strike rate of the system.

There is a big difference to a horse rated top in a 6 horse field to a horse rated top in a 20 horse field. If you used the system strike rate you would assume the same odds for value regardless of field size. Hope that explains it a bit clearer.

Good Luck.

Well yes,
 

Yes Wes I totally understand the point about SR v's dividends and that is exactly why I'm saying your value judgement should relate to ones own SR.

This is simply an extension of the value arguement . If as I'm suggesting your system can support wins at a certain price, then anything over that price will give you a profit; regardless of how poor value a horse might look in any particular race.

This is the hub of long term bank building value, not whether one should bet on a particular neddy in a particular race.

What it demonstrates Wesnip, is that the percentage takeout of that tote is 15%.
They return 85% when your selections are blindly picked.
Strike rate must always be looked at in association with the profit on turnover.
If profit on turnover is negative, then the system must lose without some sort of special staking technique.
And even then I'm not sure if it can win.

:) It's becoming circular.

My own formula goes like this Ratings = Class = Value

If my top rated horse "must" win the race,it is the "class" horse and therefore the "value" horse

If my two,three,four,top rated horses are "must" winners then the "class" factor is too close and there is no "value"

This method tends to take me into country racing as the "class" horse in a race has a tendancy to stand out ,whereas metroplitan races have far too many "class" horses.

Not to labour a point,but by"class" I mean the best horse in that particular race.Not champions "class".

As I mentioned earlier "class" does not come from one rating,but a consensus of ratings over a reasonable time frame.

It can be a bit of a plod at times,but I gave away chasing long shots many moons ago.

The input into this thread is giving me plenty of food for thought,and I thank the forum members for their opinions and expertise.

Method to your madness 23
 

This concept of Ratings=Class=Value is the only way I have been able to produce consitant profit which is the only type of profit my low stress attitude can handle.

There are downsides to looking for that standout classy nag, which include for me a).not too many bets availalble and b). I often end up on the favourite. The big upside is an extremely high SR and therefore the ability to take fairly low odds and still smile.