All tracks all days back to 30/6/01

Meetings considered : 3859
Win Strike Rate/Seln. : 49.8%
Plc Strike Rate/Seln. : 84.4%
Average Win Dividend : $1.68

WIN PLACE QUINELLA EXACTA TRIFECTA FIRST FOUR
Races Bet : 456 456 454 454 453 136
Races Won : 230 384 319 217 205 67
S.R./Race : 50.4% 84.2% 70.3% 47.8% 45.3% 49.3%
Outlay ($): 462.00 462.00 2149.00 2149.00 8172.00 7158.00
Return : 386.80 398.40 1816.30 1702.30 6105.20 6392.90
$ Profit : -75.20 -63.60 -332.70 -446.70 -2066.80 -765.10
% P.O.T. : -16.3% -13.8% -15.5% -20.8% -25.3% -10.7%

it wasnt 3.40 on the tote. opened odds-on on the tote and drifted to 2.30

[ This Message was edited by: umrum on 2003-09-17 10:13 ]

On 2003-09-03 09:09, Dale wrote:
If more than one tote was used to work out the bet a more accurate selection would be the end result.

Dale these are starting price favourites in the bookmakers' betting ring on Saturdays at the 4 main metro tracks.

Short priced tote favourites are usually poor odds and poor bets. At times they are also not the betting ring favourite.

The tote prices of the bookies' betting ring favourite are given so a comparison can be made with the bookmaker odds, which should be superior, particularly in Melbourne and Sydney.

The results have been put on the site for a number of reasons including:

1. Dispelling the media mug myth that small fields are risky betting races.

2. To show that with form analysis combined with getting good bookmaker odds it is possible to make money betting short priced horses in small fields, particularly Sydney and Melbourne metro meetings.

Umrum
Tote odds are not considered for SP's or any other fluctuation. The SP of Regent Street was $3.40. Jeremiad was the "official" favourite @ $3.30.

Some fascinating statistics there, dinodog. Thanks for your efforts.

Was just wondering about the place returns. Your figures show a return of $398.40 for 384 races 'won'. This works out at less than NSWTab's $1.04 (though I realise you may be using some other Tab's figures). This seems very low!! Surely there would have been a few higher returns?

Sometimes, indeed, the place figure ends up higher than the win figure --- but then perhaps this isn't so when the fields are small?!?!

Thanks again for your efforts.

righto mate. cheers. still 3.30 is hardly short price favourite when on the tote it is 3.80 and there is another horse paying only 2.30 on the tote and in the ring regent street was 3.40?

Yeah my mistake Neil,i'm with it now lol.

I'm a myth beleiver and hate small fields and favorites,but each to his own i guess,i'd prefer to look outside the square than to re visit an idea that might be currently avoided by the betting public.

what about the weekend in the theo marks.
private steer and grand armee both around 6/4
and neither one.

i'm with dale on this one.

With Grand Armee and Private Steer vying for favouritism, it's no wonder something else won the race.

When punters can't split them and are trying so hard to come up with a winner, often something else is overlooked and starts at over the odds.

Dinodog,

I'm flabbergasted at your results for small fields at all tracks.
I'm thinking that at country tracks, there are more false favourites than at city tracks or they are much shorter than they should be which is why I only concentrate on metro tracks.

Merriguy,

NTD.

:wink:

just an example chrome. i'll come up with another. family dreams in perth 2 weeks ago 6 / sept i think. 1.80 favourit in field of 8. got done by 20/1 pop - big dam. gallieni on the weekend in sydney.

Dinodog,

Think you may need to check your results there, particularly the place figures. This is what I got from my database for a similar period.

All days, races with 4 - 7 runners, Tabcorp price $1.10-$1.90:
891 selections, 470 winners , 672 placings
Win (Tabcorp): -$123.90 (-13.9% LOT)
Win (Best TAB): -65.50 (-7.4% LOT)
Place (NSW): -87.24 (-9.8% LOT)

Saturday Metro (AR, MR, SR, BR) with 4-7 runners, Tabcorp $1.10-$1.90:
99 selections, 61 winners, 86 placings
Win (Tabcorp): -$3.90 (-3.9% LOT)
Win (Best TAB): +2.30 (2.3% POT)
Place (NSW): 1.26 (+1.27% POT)

Definitely much better results on the metro tracks. Remember this is without any filters at all except for price - imagine what you can do with a couple of very simple form-based filters and adding in the benefit of either SP or Best Tote div whichever is the higher :wink:

Many thanks Dinodog and Becareful, very interesting results indeed!

I wasn't too surprised that whereas betting small field favourites in the city can be profitable, that isn't the case in the country. Given that so much more is known about horses in metro races than their country counterparts, it is nothing less than what you'd expect.

What did surprise me was the extent of the LOT in country races. I'm even toying with the blanket approach of betting against the favourites in these situations, regardless of how little I know about these horses (and their opposition).

With the totes you'd just fall short, as their take on win betting is about 18% (I think). However I'm sure now DiviPlus operate on all races, you'd come out in front with them (particularly as with the low tote pools, the prices of the winner could vary markedly across states. Bear in mind you are betting AGAINST the short priced favourite, which on average would have more than half the win pool bet on it).

I know there are other issues involved. For example, you'd have fun trying to dutch bet the other 6 or so horses on DiviPlus (wild price fluctuations close to the start being another effect of the small pools). However gut feeling says that the effect of this in terms of profit and loss would tend to even out. I just wonder if there might be some merit in pursuing this further, particularly in the way of developing additional filters, and also the staking strategy to use (obviously dutch betting is only one of many possible options).

Any thoughts much appreciated, and thanks again to all the contributors.

becareful wrote:

Saturday Metro (AR, MR, SR, BR) with 4-7 runners, Tabcorp $1.10-$1.90:
99 selections, 61 winners, 86 placings
Win (Tabcorp): -$3.90 (-3.9% LOT)
Win (Best TAB): +2.30 (2.3% POT)
Place (NSW): 1.26 (+1.27% POT)

Definitely much better results on the metro tracks. Remember this is without any filters at all except for price - imagine what you can do with a couple of very simple form-based filters and adding in the benefit of either SP or Best Tote div whichever is the higher.
..................

Imagine also what how you can go if you get TF on some of these horses.

How do you decide what the favourite will be in practice? I backed Jeremaid on course about 2 minutes before the jump at $3.60 with bookies. I am not sure what Regent Street was paying then.
John

Sorry it has taken so long to reply.

Firstly, just to clear the air some re my database. I have NSW Tab only.

Becareful... The question was $2.00 favourites, and under, not $1.10 to $1.90. 3-7 runners not 4. As to any further discrepancy, I don't know. Maybe distance, I only went 800- 3200m. My database is back to 1/1/2000 and I'm confident it is atleast 95% correct to there. As for the period back to 30/6/2001, I am confident to 99%. I have recently discovered some small gliches with results, but that is only the past 5 weeks, with the fix expected in the next two days. I really don't foresee any real changes for just the past 5 weeks.

I don't reckon anyone would expect any great returns for the place price, maybe a better strike rate. The place divvies were mostly around the $1.10 mark and some only $1.00.

Regards

Dinodog

[ This Message was edited by: dinodog on 2003-09-18 20:52 ]

[ This Message was edited by: dinodog on 2003-09-18 21:05 ]

[ This Message was edited by: dinodog on 2003-09-18 21:14 ]

Dinodog,

I think you were replying to Darren's query - he asked for <$2.00 which I interpreted as up to $1.90 only (ie odds on, not even money). The 3-7 runners was my mistake - I normally go 4-7 so at least you get a place div. Maybe your problem is here - with 3 runners you will not be getting any place div paid but maybe your system is still counting the selections so dragging down the place profit (there weren't that many 3-runner races but enough to affect the results in this way if your db doesn't report it correctly???)

NSW rarely pays a place div under $1.04 so to get an AVERAGE div of LESS than $1.04 seems to indicate something wrong - my average place div was around $1.24 which seems more reasonable to me given that I found a few where the place div was up around $1.50, $1.60 etc.

Just a suggestion - try the query again with 4-7 runners and see what you find? OR try it with 3 runners and see what it says about place results?

Regards,
"Becareful"

Have found this thread very helpful. Thanks all!

Any comments on place betting when there is no third dividend? I think another thread suggested that the dividend actually increases --- but, of course, there are only two payers.

:???:

Just an update on the results of betting favourites in small fields.

Criteria:
7 runners or less
less than $2.00 on TabCorp

Selections:49
Winners: 34
Strike Rate: 69.39%
Profit: $5.80
POT: 11.84%
Average Dividend $1.61

September Results
Selections: 6
Winners: 4
Strike Rate: 66.67%
Profit: $0.30
POT: 5.00%
Average Dividend: $1.58
Winners:
Lonhro
Hasna
Chiming Mill
Quite Easy

Hi CP,
Any chance you can run this through your data base,which Ive watched for a while and throws up a lot of big priced winners.
Mon to Fri only 6 or less runners bet the 3 longest prices.

Cheers

Hi Kenchar,

running it throo my database based on STAB results, over the past 20 months, I get

742 races 

2226 bets   173 wins

               s/r = 7.77% per bet 

               s/r = 23% per race

profit      -$670

POT         -30%

LRO         55

MaxDD       $691.20

it performs slightly "better" (ie loses less) if you restrict to fast / good / dead tracks.

Cheers,
Chris.

Thanks Stebbo another theory blown.

Cheers

you bet on track kenchar ,maybe you could refine this idea by only betting in races where the bookies are keen to lay the fav and seemingly trying to give you free money ???????????

Good thought Tragic will start keeping records over the next couple of months.
Cheers

FAVOURITES IN SMALL FIELDS UPDATE

a)RULES
Must be favourite
Field size of 7 runners or less.

Selections: 191
Winners: 89
Strike Rate: 46.60%
Average Dividend $2.17
Profit: $2.10
POT: 1.10%

b)RULES
Must be favourite
Field size of 7 runners or less.
Less than $2.00 on tote.

Selections: 55
Winners: 36
Strike Rate: 65.45%
Average Dividend $1.61
Profit: $3.00
POT: 5.45%

Interesting to note that horses showing $1.50 or less on the tote have a 100% place strike rate for a win POT of 28.50% and place POT of 7.00% although there were only 20 of these.

For those who would like to know about longshots in small fields....

Greater than $5.00 on tote.
POT: -26.67%

Greater than $10.00 on tote.
POT: -24.95%

Greater than $15.00 on tote.
POT: -4.06%

Greater than $20.00 on tote.
Selections: 234
Winners: 7
Strike Rate: 2.99%
Average Dividend $39.61
Profit: $43.30
POT: 18.50%

Greater than $30.00 on tote.
Selections: 136
Winners: 2
Strike Rate: 1.47%
Average Dividend $79.35
Profit: $22.70
POT: 16.69%

RULES
Must be favourite
Field size of 7 runners or less.

Selections: 203
Winners: 96
Strike Rate: 47.29%
Average Dividend $2.19
Profit: $7.60
POT: 3.74%

Profit comes from 3.5 winners.

Latest Update:

RULES
Must be favourite
Field size of 7 runners or less.

Selections: 220
Winners: 102
Strike Rate: 46.36%
Average Dividend $2.20
Profit: $4.80
POT: 2.18%

...and then their was the punter who had $200,000 to win on all of Lonhro's races this year. He didn't win a bean.

'Never bet odds-on' ?

Don't see how he could have lost unless he got the worst possible prices.

Lonhro this year
10 starts
8 wins
profit $2.10
POT 21.00%
Ave Div $1.51 (tab prices)

The place POT is 5% as well.

Cant remember the exact figure but there was an arcticle in Sydney Daily Tele, that the guy was something like $800,000 up before the cox. Does that sound about right CP.

Sounds to me like he's gone all-up (or partly) with his bets.
But he certainly would not have got TAB prices, he would have done much better than 2.1 units profit.

My wife had read the article Chrome and She thinks he did make some profit but doubled the bet to $400,000 on the Cox and come out in the end with very little profit.

Cheers.

From memory the $800,000 was over the last 2 years (not just this year) - although it was just an estimation and based on this guys supposed average bet size (and I think it was also based on starting price rather than top fluctuation, etc).

By my calculations even if he bet $400,000 on the Cox that still leaves $400,000 profit. Don't know what money you make each year Crash but $400,000 profit would not seem like "very little profit" to me!!!!
_________________
"Computers can do that????" - Homer Simpson

[ This Message was edited by: becareful on 2003-11-13 07:14 ]

Becareful it was just his bets on Lohnro only not his yearly punt figures.

$400,000 a lot of profit ? You mean people on this forum think that is a lot ? Heck, you poor ************s, and all this time I thought you all serious players too.

Cheers.

Well if $400,000 is just spare change to you then can I borrow a bit of spare change??? I promise I will return it. :wink:

Sorry for reprising an old thread, but this particular category of races(ie. fields of 7 or less runners) has made me sit up and notice........again.
Two years ago I alerted fellow forum members to the fact that favourites in small fields were returning a much less than average winning ratio.
Subsequently, an ongoing tracking of favourites was implemented by the management of this site(at the time) to see if my "theories" stood up to scrutiny. I noticed with some scepticism how their ongoing figures "proved" that backing favourites in small fields could prove profitable(NB. for a very short time).
Well, nothing was said for some time and now I again bring to your attention what is going on in small fields. Where the prizemoney is relatively unattractive there is some incentive for the longshot in small fields to "win," usually at attractive odds, meaning that trifecta/exotic betting is a very attractive option. Therefore, for the alert punter, they should give considerable thought to backing the longshot, be it by way of win/place or exotics in such races and going on recent activities they should receive regular good-sized dividends.
Anybody else notice these trends?

Cheers.