There's no mystery to this; there never has been.

Bookies arrive at their prices EXACTLY the same way as a fully educated, informed punter would arrive at his prices. Why are the prices often almost identical between bookies? Well, shall we say there's a bit of cross fertilization....... bookies don't do this in a vacuum like an isolated punter living in Humpty Doo might..... they know where each other stands. They'll often these days try to con the early punter by basically putting up prices that can be almost identical to some TAB prices. Also, based on the logic of form, and when when the form is done by educated individuals, most of the time the aprox. order of favouritism is relatively clear. The resulting prices that the bookies arrive at may or may not be what the bookie initially puts up, depending on how he wishes to test the market. ****The bookies don't get their advantage because they are better informed on form..... they get it because they work their percentages.***