i've just been doing a comparison between sp and tote (unitab)prices on sat metro races in sydney, perth, melbourne, adelaide and brisbane...

for the last 2 saturdays there have been 80 winners of which the tab paid better on 48 occasions..

of favourites 24 have saluted of which the tab paid better than sp on 10 occcasions...

interesting to see if the trend continues, it appears the tab might not be the nemesis everyone seems to think it is....

cheers,

noel

Whose SP are you using? The Courier Mail on Fridays are always ridiculous anyway for my liking, so your finding doesn't suprise me at all.

Placegetter

placegetter,
What do you mean by 'whose SP'? There is one SP only and it doesn't matter which paper you read its always the same.
A better comparison might be top fluc against tote and the odds might go the bookies way then.
Also, horses in the first 3 or 4 of betting will generally be better with the books and the longer priced brigade will be better on the tote. Not always but generally.

Noel,

It would be interesting to do a long-term analysis on this but I personally think you are right - the tab divs are nowhere near as bad as everyone makes out, especially if you are not backing short priced favourites. In fact the analysis that I have done (I admit it has not looked at a big enough sample to be conclusive) indicates that if you are backing favorites you are probably better off with SP but if you are backing horses in the $8-$20 range (which I generally do) then you are better off with TAB.

A little bit of maths indicates that the TAB MUST be better for a large number of horses in the field. With the TAB the total of the divs for all horses always adds up to about 117% - with SP they generally add up to around the 130-140% mark (sometimes even more) and then as the bookies adjust the prices the total comes in to around the TAB total. If the favourites are better on average under SP (there is an analysis on this site that suggests this) then the longer odds horses MUST be better on average on the TAB.

mr magic, the bookmaker prices I use never match the paper on Fridays, I guess you might not call them SP, but that is what I was referring to. My mistake.

Placegetter

SP stands for starting price.
How can friday's paper have starting prices?
They are only pre-race odds from Thursday arvo.

Open an account with IAS - they guarantee to beat any win dividend on TAB, SuperTAB and UniTAB for saturday metro meetings. Their place divs are also better than the largest TAB - NSW.

Lets say you make 1000 bets pa.

Avg div variables
10c more = $100
20c more = $200
50c more = $500
$1 more = $1000

makes a big difference, if you get the best div available.

noel, if you click on the flashing banner on the left on http://www.propun.com.au you can open an account with IAS and beat the best tote odds from Qld, NSW and Vic..

As Mr Magic correctly points out, there is one SP only. It's an official figure with no other variations or interpretations.

becareful, from your post it seems you may be confusing SP with opening prices.

I was reading somewhere that stated that the TAB pays more than SP 70% of the time on horse 4/1 & more & bookmakers offer better value on the shorter priced commodities.

Those newspaper prices are referred to as
pre-post odds ,not to be confused as SP(official Starting Price) as of the start of an actual race.
They are usefull to get an approx. idea of market order. E.g. if a horse is shown as a $100 price in the pre-post in the newspaper, you can safely bet that it will run like one.
Another amazing statistic is the majority of horses shown in the pre-post market in the newspaper paying $11.00 & less dominate the winners circal.

Yes horses with pre-post divs of $11 (or $13) or less do dominate the winners circle. That's because these odds are posted by bookies when they frame a market for the w/e. Their assessments for the w/e are usually a better guide than punters who distort the odds on saturday.

Often winning horses will have pre-post odds of $5-$8, but drift out. These markets may be framed at 140%+, so that explains the drift. However, horses in the top half dozen or so in pre-post markets win a lot of races.

I would reckon that the top 6 pre-post favs have a better winning record (and better SP) than top 6 favs on the TAB just before the race.

Just had a look at some results for today from IAS. Looking at first four races at MR, BR & SR gives the following (I realise this is a small sample but it seems to agree with my previous observations and other peoples comments):

In only 2 races has SP been better than the best TAB div. Another 3 races you would have done better with Top Fluct. than with TAB. The remaining 7 races the best TAB div beat both the SP and TF price.

As I mentioned previously the short priced winners were better with SP/TF (eg. MR2 - SP=$2.63, TF=$3.00, TAB=$2.40) while the longer odds winners were much better on TAB (eg. BR4 SP/TF=$13, TAB=$20.8, MR3 SP/TF=$21, TAB=$56.5).

As others have said the Divi+ option offered by IAS is one of the best options in general as it always beats the best TAB div - unfortunately you must bet at least 1 minute before sched. jump which doesn't suit me - I like to see how they are behaving when loading before I place my bet.

So in summary it looks like SP/TF is probably best if you like betting short priced runners - otherwise use IAS if you place bets in advance or TAB for last minute bets.

Any comments anyone?

IAS fluctuations are not official fluctuations and are regularly inaccurate and "under" what the official top fluc is. There is a bookie in Melbourne called Rod Cleary who wrote an article about Top Flucs Vs SP Vs Tote prices. His research apparently covered about 1300 Melbourne Metro meetings and relate to 10450 races. Quite a decent sample and very interesting reading. It's at http://www.vicbet.com/articles/default.cfm?id=9

I've only been betting with bookmakers for about 2 years but I could count on one hand the number of times the TAB has paid more than top fluc.

Sportingbet (formerly No 1 Betting Shop) allows you to place your bet at best odds which means you get the higher price out of SP or Supertab.

For me, nothing beats top fluctuation betting. The only disadvantage is having to bet at least 30 minutes before the jump.

Cheers

Becareful,

You are wrong about Div+. You can place bets at any time before the race via the internet, as long as its on race day. Div+ is higher than the final dividends on NSWTAB, SuperTAB and UniTAB for all metro meetings.

You must be confused with fixed odds betting, which they also offer. Div+ is nearly always higher than the fixed odds they offer.

Beta Div applies to place dividends and non-metro meetings - here they only guarantee to beat NSWTAB Div. So the place div on STAB or UniTAB may be higher.

There are detailed weekly updated tables comparing top fluctuation, starting price and SuperTab odds for Saturday racing in Melbourne and Sydney for all horses starting at $5.50 or shorter in the bookmaker betting ring at http://www.propun.com.au/bookmakers.html

Reenster - thanks for that link. Seems to confirm that SP/TF is definitely better than TAB for shorter priced winners but TAB is better than SP for winners of 7/1 or over. As I said I don't like betting until jump time so TF is not an option for me.

Chief - This is the info on Divi+ from the rules section on the IAS site:

"DIVIplus is available over the Telephone and the Internet. Telephone bets must be placed at least 4 minutes prior to the advertised start time of the race. Internet bets will be accepted up to 1 minute prior to the advertised start time"

Do you have other information? I would like to use the service but I generally bet with TAB when the horses have all loaded (so only a few seconds before jump).

[ This Message was edited by: becareful on 2002-06-11 16:59 ]

Becareful,

Can I ask why you wait until so late to place your bets? Is it based on price or how your selection looks? I'm curious to know what you see as the advantage of waiting til just before they jump.

Cheers

Reenster,

The main reason is the price - because I am betting on longer odds horses I can usually get better prices on TAB than bookies. Unfortunately as you would know the TAB prices can change dramatically in last few minutes before a race so I wait until last possible moment to make sure the odds are still over my bet price - I never bet if the price falls below my cutoff. Also I can pick which TAB to place my bet with depending on which one is offering best price on my selection.

Another benefit is that I have avoided quite a few losing bets by observing my selection behind the barrier and as it loads and deciding it wasn't a good bet!