Will this fly?
 

I want to put my under employed bot to work on Oz races and I have been trying to find a method of doing so for some time. I think I have found it but I need a little info. My method revolves around backing favs where they are also top rated on a set of ratings which come into my possession daily. Over a lengthy period it has consistently hit at 40% and has shown a 2.5% pot using Vic tote divies. I'm confident that it will do better on BF and may even be quite lucrative.
My question is can anyone tell me how much better BF is than Vic tote on winners ( or just runners ) priced at 4.5 (approx) or lower?

Speedy Ben, the Tab takes out about 16% commission on Win bets and generally a further few percentage points by shaving the dividend to comply with their $0.05 rule.

Hopefully this explains the "shaving" rule which has been referred to as Ned Kellyesque or tantamount to theft.

Good luck.

That's a large range.

Acording to my figures after commission betfair pays about 7% less then best tote returns in that range.

I don't keep the individual totes prices anymore so can't do a compare to that.

Compare that to $20+ winners and betfair pays 217% more

The value on betfair is on the longer selections. After commission the shorter selections just don't work out to be any better value.

I concur with UB. BF is less below $5. I have some figures but the filing system has gone for a holiday.

UB or anyone else with the relevant database, are you able to estimate where the breakeven point is between best-tote and betfair then?

Does that mean one of the companies who offer Best Tote +5% would be the best option for basically anything under $5 ignoring the possibility of restrictions or bans?

Breakeven BF / Best tote $8-10. Just the winners. 5-7% difference below and blows out exponentially to $92 Vs $52 on tote

so pointy end back tote & lay bf, should be simple right;)

if only.
I will dig up the results of best tote vs top fluc. But I think off memory that it will confirm the same.

Thanks everybody for the input. The reason I picked on Vic tote was simply because it was easy to research using just one tote. Obviously, best tote will be better than a single tote so the method would have legs based on my research. I have been running it for the last 3 days and BF has outperformed Vic tote by one unit after (my) commission. Doesn't sound like much but that equates to about 120 units profit per annum.
The reason I wanted BF to succeed is that I can set the bot and let it run and I could increase my current discount level with a decent bet size.

SB, so you've got a set of ratings you receive and it makes a regular POT just by backing them if they are also say in the top 3 favourites (or something similar)?

Sounds similar to something i'm working towards although not sure it will be as simple for me. Sounds like a pretty easy method to add to your aresnal though :)

Top rated and outright fav in the race. It could work also by looking at the case where the top rater is in the top two or three actual fav for the race. I haven't tested that though. It has increased the favs hit rate from around 30% to 40% in effect. The ratings are dirt cheap and I bought them originally just so that i had something to research in my spare time.
I'm working on seeing how a set of free ratings go but I can't get back records for those so it's a live test with small bets.

Sounds like a good little money spinner if it stays consistent, i assume you could use some kind of staking plan if you wanted to and boost the profits.

I'll let you know how I get on with my ratings, just finalising at the moment and then backtesting from 1 June 2013 to today for starters.

I'm not good with staking plans but I would be happy to hear any that might fit. From the time I started testing the hit rate has stayed within 1% of 40. I've tested random dates back to May. The ratings people offer a free month trial so you may like to have a look at them, JB.

Not so simple.
In theory this should work, but with levies and commission, it's a losing propect.
Had the same idea myself but ran it over thousands of results at the shorter end. End result, big banana :(

Exactly.

You rang?

A 5-7% advantage lost with a 6.5% levy and commission. and no real certainty.

Were you using BFSP lay results.

Indeed CP, hence the wink

Update
 

Well, it's flying along a bit better than expected. After 17 days botting my 40 unit bank has increased by 49% after commission. Simple, but effective, so far. Enter the top raters into the bot and let it place the bet if it is also BF fav just before the jump.

Very nice work. Congratulations.

Thank you, UB. I love it when a plan comes together !