Field Betting
 

Several years ago one of my friends said he was Field Betting every day with the TAB and was making excellent profits. He sent me a print-out of his bets covering several months and it showed very good results. I did not look too closely at it as I had no interest in that type of betting.

But now looking again at the print-out it strongly suggests that the results would be even better if he limited the fields to a maximum of 11 runners (and had bet with Betfair). Unfortunately I cannot contact him as I would ask him how much he would increase his betting or to what extent if he had restricted the fields to 11 runners.

Has anyone had any experience with this type of betting or have any suggestions as to increasing the stakes after a losing race?

I'm interested in checking it out "on paper".

Thanks.
Michael.

Explain to me what you mean by field betting be cause it is not possible to back the field for a profit.

Hi,


there are days when backing every winner and every looser will yeald a profit. One such day was yestrday, (Monday 10/112008), over all its a terible lose however 100% strike rate. :)

Fun aside most days are about 20% loss, that I can see when I run my day end routines.

Michal

Occasionally, if I think there's a race with a good chance of an upset result, I back the whole field. I did it with the Melbourne Cup this year and made a profit. Wouldn't have had Viewed any other way. But I certainly wouldn't recommend doing it in every race.

I've often wondered about small fields though. You know the ones. Where there are only 5 runners or something and the rank outsider gets up paying $25. It seems to happen so often in small fields, or is that just an illusion? The figures probably don't back it up at all.

Shaun, you're right. But my friend used a loss-chasing method which performed very well.

Sportz, according to the print-out, the fields with a maximum of 11 runners provided a higher rate of instances when the TAB divvy paid more than the amount of starters (and outlay) per race than the races with 12-plus runners. Also, the progressive increase to the outlay was not as harsh.

I have been testing today's races "on paper" with the same progression method my friend used but it has not fared well. Of the 12 races I've so far looked at, only 2 races paid more than the outlay. The faves have had an above average strike rate. I'll continue to monitor the upcoming races.

How great would it be if you could make something like that work!!!
No form, ahh that would be the good life!
What about just backing teh top five regardless? Your still gonna have a high strike rate (80% or so if my memory is correct) , but more likely to make a profit on more races (all you need is a $5 plus winner). Still, I think it would be hard yakka making that work, would need a pretty aggressive staking plan, and then the days where the short priced horses continually get up would pretty destroy you.

I hope my friend (wherever he is) didn't bet the system today - it was a big loser, even with fields of more than 11 runners.

Maybe tomorrow it might redeem itself where ousiders have a good day..

How about if we were selective and only picked races where the fav was expected to be more than (say ) $3.00 and at least eliminate the killer short priced faves.
So work on only 2 rules
Races where there are x amount of runners, and
Fav price =>$3.
Possible 3rd rule back top half of the field (pricewise) (one of your old ones I think Michael?)
Cheers.........Manc.

I remember playing round with a system such as that, looking for races where the fav is vulnerbale. I think I had the rule that the fav must be 3.50 or more, and then you would back as many horses as you could, usnig the second fav as a saver, ie if second fav was showing $4, back that and three others. I was only paper testing it, but it went really well, until one day it hit a horror run, where either the fav or a rank outsider got up for a large period. Might have to look at it again, and apply a divisor target betting plan and see how we go.

Mancunian, the price of the fave hasn't too much importance because I remember asking my friend if omitting odds-on races might be worthwhile. But he replied he had some very large dividends with these races which put the sequence into profit. He did say odds-on faves are mainly in races with not too many runners, so when they win the pain is not too severe. But maybe he was lucky that they occured early in the sequence which would not have caused too much damage, but late in the sequence could've easily killed it. Yesterday there were some very short-priced winners.

However, like you and unlike my friend, I would feel more comfortable if there was a minimum price for the fave. Its something I might look at.

A question for Thorns.

I've played around with similar systems to what your saying, backing around the fav, when the fav is say in that $3-$4 range. It's very much like a plan in one of those books, which I dont think I can mention on here. Plan A,...or Plan B,..or somethingorother. You back the next 2 or 3 in the market and then apply a sort of target betting scheme.

You were saying you might apply a divisor betting plan to this, you dont happen to have a spreadsheet for working this out,..??

Paul

I do actually, its a pretty simple one, but works for me.

Set your target, and start divisor. Enter your effective win dividend in the Win Divi column (ie if you backed 3 horses, and one won at $6, your win divi is only $2). You then have to manually adjust your divisor after wins/losing runs.

Then there is the option to record the results of "series" as well, to keep track of your results.

Hope this helps.

Okay, because I use open Office, it doesnt allow that sort of file type.
Anybody got a suggestion?

here you go, got it to work. Hope it helps.

Out of curiousity I set some rules which are:

1 ) Max of 11 starters.
2 ) Min price of fave $3.10 in the pre-post market.
3 ) Any of the first three faves not to be scratched.

Yesterday was not a good day but the loss was less if no rules were set. I couldn't check Rocky because the Tele did not have a pre-post market. From the two remaining venues there were 9 qualifying races where only one race paid more than the number of runners according to Unitab divvies.

There was only one qualifying race on Monday. It had 9 runners, the winner paid $36.10 on Unitab. Interestingly, the total outlay at level stakes has been $67 for a return on Unitab of $66.10.

If anyone's interested, today's qualifying races in race order are:

Bendigo R3
Bendigo R5
Ascot R1
Dombeen R4
Canterbury R5
Gawler R6
Dombeen R7
Bendigo R10

We'll see how they go...

I have used that idea Paul, & it can work very well.

. Target races with 11 runners & less.

.Target the 2nd,3rd & 4th Fav

.Bet 3+3+2 = 8 units on each race.

.That's 37.5% + 37.5% + 25% of ones total race bet unit.

.The SR is 43%

.It comes out at just break even at level stakes over 100 races which is stronger than just betting the Fav on its own .

Using Betfair the bets are placed 1-2 min from jump time.

Because it breaks even, one can introduce a staking plan.

Keep in mind one will see odd runs of say 10 outs when the Favs decide to get up all day, so be prepared.

The run of outs are greatly reduced if one targets Hcp races only , for some reason the Favs don't seem to dominate as much & this includes races where there are odds on favs.

Staking plans can work well if there is a break even situation of its selections at level stakes.

If the maths stats are correct , the chance of 30% chance Favs getting up in 8 races in a row is .0065%
.30x.30x.30x.30x.30x.30x.30x.30 = .0000656 x 100 = .0065%

or 100 / .0065 = 15384.6 / 100 = 154

1 chance in 154 races.

If that is correct , how come it seems to happen so often?

Cheers.

Slightly off topic but along the same lines, IAS used to offer 1/1 Fav against field or visa versa, not sure if they still do but if so it's an alternative.

Hi Michael
Heres an idea that can work well on its day with half the O/L of your example.

Use some of your exsisting rules
. 11 runners or less

. Must have a $3.10+Fav in pre-post

.Divide the field size by 2 rounded up
e.g. 11 / 2 = 6

.What ever that figure comes to, that's how many horses we target using the pre-post market for the selections in name order as they appear in
pre post market.
e.g. Target the first 6 horses from a field of 11 in the pre post market.

Cheers.

Good idea, Bhagwan.

If I can devise a suitable (in my opinion) staking plan I'll give it a go today.

If I do, I'll post the results tomorrow.

Michael.

Hey Party, they used to offer $1.50 some times a bit higher for the field but they stopped it a few years ago unless they started it again might be worth an e-mail to them.

Bhagwan, I bet the method today. I halved my friend's loss-chasing stakes because I was only backing half the field.

There were 17 races, and the winner was struck in 16 of them. My profit was 7.6 units.

However, if I had layed every selection at level stakes then the profit would have been close to 20 units.

It's interesting that backing them using the stakings plan produced a profit and laying the very same horses at level stakes also produced a profit.

Tomorrow I'll list the selections here.

Instead of backing the selections today I'll check the method "on paper" only using the prices shown at the final trade. However, I'll lay them because in spite of 16 accidents from 17 races yesterday the Lay profit was approximately double than that produced using the Backing method.

Today's races
Donald R2 nos. 2, 4, 5, 9, 11
Donald R6 nos. 2, 4, 6, 8
Geelong R6 nos. 2, 6, 7, 8.

Not many qualifying races today, unfortunately the Tele does not provide a market for several venues.

R and S has a prepost market that although not usually close enough to SP to run a comprehensive staking system, it is certainly good enough and posted early enough to use for determining positions in the market order and a fair idea of what sort of dividend to expect. I use it for a couple of systems and find it OK.

Cheers.....Mancunian

Thanks, Mancunian, but I've generally found the R & S market to be somewhat puzzling particualry from about the fourth favourite onwards.

However, I'll use their market for the venues the Tele omitted to provide. There are only two additional races, which are:

Penola R6 nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7
Bunbury R5 nos. 1, 5, 6, 8, 10.

As I currently don't have too much confidence in the the R & S market I won't be betting on these two races but I'll see how they go.

There was one accident from the three races for a profit of 8.60 units.

There were two accidents from the two races using the R & S market for a profit of about 6 units.

These are today's Lay selections:

Tamworth R4 nos. 1, 2, 4, 6, 7
Tamworth R5 nos. 1, 3, 6, 7
Tamworth R7 nos. 1, 5, 6, 9.

From today's three races there was a profit of 3.40 units.

There have now been 6 races listed here for a profit of 12.00 units.

Well done Michaelg.

Its certainly a different approach , I like it.

Looks interesting so far.

Cheers.

Yes, so far so good. And if I had included the two races on Sunday using the R & S market then the total results would have been even better.

Hopefully its not just one of those golden periods most systems go through and then eventually slide downwards.

Here are today's Lay selections:

Moe R1 nos. 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8
Warwick Farm R1 nos. 1, 2, 3, 6
Warwick Farm R2 nos. 1, 4, 5, 7, 9
Warwick Farm R6 nos. 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9

There is a considerable variation in favourites winning at different tracks. For instance at the Gold Coast favourites win 40% of the time whereas at Doomben they have a strike rate less than 25%.

Could you use this with your selections ? Favourites/course strike rates are available on the 'Racing and Sports' web page.

Robert

Just looking at that site on R&S, interesting statistics there. But I note Doomben fav's have a win strike rate of 29.7%. Am I reading something wrong.?

Paul

Probably not, I approximated figures I was using about 6 weeks ago to make the point, they do fluctuate according to conditions.

I generally look up the latest figures before the days racing, but Doomben was abandoned today.

Robert

About a week and a half ago I decided to Field Bet with a max of 11 runners using my friend's loss-chasing staking plan but after a few days I changed my mind and began to lay. Now going through the results since then, Field Betting would be showing a very good profit, not just with Betfair but surprisingly even with the NSW and Qld TABs.

So from today I'll recommence the method and see what happens.

Jack
 

What is the loss chasing plan? Or are you keeping tha quiet for the mean time?

Hi, Thorns.

When my friend sent me his printout it wasn't too difficult to calculate his stakings plan. When I told him this he asked me not to reveal it and that he would not show the printout to anyone else. So unfortunately I cannot spill the beans on it.

But I don't think there's anything really special about the stakings plan - the more you lose the higher the jump of the next bet. However, in the early stages of a sequence the size of the bet slowly increases then later on increases expotentially. He lost quite a few banks of $1,000 but every now and then up came a huge divvy that literally won thousands of dollars.

Today I've broken more or less even. I've omitted the fave from each race which has helped. I've only bet on 12 races, and the fave won 4 of them.

I've now again accepted that this is not my preferred type of betting and doubt I will continue.

Hi Michaelg how about just backing the one's that are paying more than the number of horses in the race???

Cheers

Hi, Crackone.

Not long ago I thought of doing just that but then decided to do the opposite - laying all horses whose price was under the number of starters. For example, if there were 10 starters I would lay all starters whose Lay price was $10 or under providing there was a minimum of three selections.

It began winning but eventually became too topsy-turvy and I stopped, so I would expect backing all horses over the number of starters would be the same. Maybe the stakings plan would be beneficial but at the moment I don't feel comfortable with a loss-chasing plan.

Any more suggestions are welcome.

Hi, Jack. I've just noticed your post.

No, the percentages are not taken into consideration. Every horse in the race is bet, and regardless of price every horse has the same amount bet on it whether its an odds-on fave or a $1,000 outsider. Its a hit and miss type of betting where it's hoped that an outsider will pop up every now and then, which does happen.