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.