Hi Party,

just a small note that its not all roses with betfair. The prices that you are getting are post race I presume or some index on the web site. They are NOT what you would get when you decide to take the bet. The prices fluctuate, the ammount available (liquidity) varies and you have to actually get them. Sometimes I missed bets because the prices changed so often that I failed to keep up with them and never got matched.

You pay commision on every profit that you make from a winning race. If you bet 2 horses and you got $2 div for each and one won you would actually not pay commision because the overall result would be break square (no win).

The SP from betfair is in my opinion not favorable to backers as many people place laybets at smaller prices to drag the SP down there by creating an ideal opportunity to abitrage the bet, no good for those that are trying to bet the other problem is that you can never assure that there will be the money available to fulfill your bet.

You are spot on the higer the price the more errors by those that provide the back bets. You will get no favours on a thing that is short in the market. Bookies prices are a good guide to what the betfair price will finish up at.

The higher the price the greater presure on the layers to entice the backers to take their price hence the prices are higher.

Gone are the days where you could make a killing on longshots. All te stupidity is gone from the market and pitens are available on any decent div.

As far as the commision , depending on your betting activity it goes down to a 2% but I think the volume must be quite high and sustained to achive that but 3-4% is probably quite achivable.

As for Typhoon pools, their prices are atractive, their pools are not ! If you bet any serious money their you will destroy the price. That is the curse of any new comers to the tote game, they have no liquididty to take bets, the exact reason why Aus TOTE never got anywhere, they always offered good prices for those that bet $10 or less.

All the above are just my opinions and beliefs and may not be all acurate.

Providing that you can overcome the limitations then there certainly is a nice way to enhance your profit for ne extra risk. If you want to bet $1000 , its the same bet regardless of the price you take, there is no extra risk taking $5 about a horse where others are offereing $4.

Michal