In case anybody is interested, here's a link to the paper I was refering to

http://irving.vassar.edu/MIEC/GrammOwens.pdf

Happy reading

Pixie

Hi Shaun,

It's not easy to jump in by any means.
I did months and months of research and calculations and there's still room for improvement, and I still make silly mistakes.
However, I now have a bookies point of view and not a punters.
From this perspective, things become clearer in a way.
I would really suggest doing paper trading or trading with the minimum bet before committing hard cash, because you will make mistakes until it becomes second nature.

I really believe anyone can do it though, I'm not any wiser than anyone else, just prepared to do the tedious research.

I am not doing Mark's or Wesmip's system, I'm doing my own, but I suspect that there are many mathematical similarities.

**As a tip: if $10.00 TAB horses win 1 in 11 races for example, returning a 9.09% loss on turnover and you find $11.50 elsewhere about those horses, then you simply have to make a profit, unless you don't allocate your bank sufficiently. This is common knowledge, what isn't common knowledge are the amount of people offering even better than $12.00 and even up to $25.00 (for small amounts).

Here's an example of how I stuffed up badly today:

I was trying to get on with only a few minutes to go with their snail paced servers and rushed to lay a large amount. I had inadvertently layed it on the place market instead of the win market.
It cost me most of the day's profit :(
In my haste to get set, I stuffed up!

& i guess the opposite also applies if laying short priced favs at a price substantialy less than their tab/bookmaker quote.

couldnt there also be an angle in laying all or most runners in a race that were priced say 20-30% less the tabs?

Yes, absolutely, but with provisos.

You need to somehow assess the true odds of those horses and know that the ones that get matched are not the one's that lose a much larger percentage longterm.

Providing you have this information, then you're on a winner.

AngryPixie,

I think you should re-read this report and then look at how betfair works. This report is based on using totes. Betfair is not a tote.

It said the only problem with the technique was that

Bets were made at the last possible moment (save a few instances when the author was shut out) to get the closest approximation of the final odds and expected returns. Unfortunately, on average only 57% of the final pool totals are viewable on the tote board when betting on a race ends. Much of the betting occurs in the last few minutes and posted pool totals change when betting is closed.

This is not how betfair works. Betfair is not a tote. Thus the major issue is resolved instantly.

Good Luck.

I think if anyone was trying to lay a whole race field, every horse would have to be equally covered at odds that would give the layer a 100% + book.

A tall order.

A tall order that occurs every day.

A Mathetically proven way to get a good Value bet
 

Just browsing this thread and have the following comment;

If a horse is showing $4 for the win i.e. $3 to $1 (your stake), then you would have to be looking for $2.80 the place i.e. $1.80 being 60% of the $3 win price + your $1 stake?

If it is 60% of the Winnings & Stake then you are only looking for $2.40, not $2.50.

Am I missing something?

Gerry

You don't necessarily have to back the entire field either, you can lock in a lay price and bet price for a few runners which guarantees no risk betting.

It's also not what price a horse opens or closes at, there are extravagant fluctuations that take place in between, which if capitalized upon intelligently guarantee success.

The best scenario for me, is when a certain horse gets backed off the map to end up poor value, because it is so under the odds even though a lot of them win, all my lay bets get matched and longterm these are my best lay earners.

An interesting observation is that the horses that remain solid throughout betting, are the worst profit scenario for me, horses that blow or firm are a good earn.

Is that where I've been going wrong all this time...?

I'm fairly sure I said that some modification to the Dr Z system could work. The mod these guys made didn't work too well as they conclude in the paper. Could be Betfair's the key to the new Dr Z. If it's working for you keep going though I wouldn't tell too many people if I were you.

Have you tried automating your method with the Betfair API? Could make things really work for you.

Pixie