I posted a message on Thursday stating I would provide an analysis of TP betting.
I stated in advance that I would analyse races 5,6 and 7 at Morphettville.

The sunday Mail unfortunately did not provide fluctuations for races 5 - 8 so I am unable to provide analysis as promised.

A few interesting observations....in race three I observed higher prices in the ring than those stated in the Mail for 3 of the 12 starters

In race 7 the starting prices equated to book of 137...approx double the edge of tote betting

It has been a number of years since I took a great deal of interest in betting fluctuations and I was dismayed to see how poorly the punter is now treated by the bookies..maybe my memory is poor but I think some 20 + years ago there was much more competition amongst the bookies which of course led to a better deal for the punter.

I think my original assertion that top fluctuation betting would lead to the demise of bookies is wrong..however I will confirm this in coming weeks.

TF punters of course rely on true TF prices...my observations on race 3 showed a 25% error rate in the Mail!!!

Brian,

Adelaide bookmakers, as has been well documented on the Propun site, (see various Punt To Win articles) are the biggest ripoff merchants in the country. It would be unfair to base any study of price fluctuations on Adelaide bookmakers.

The official price system crashed nationwide yesterday but a quick look at the Melbourne (where the bookies offer much fairer odds) top flucs v TAB was as follows:

Race 1:
Acee Decee-TF:$4.60, SP:$4.20 TAB:$3.90

Race 2:
Old Man-TF:$5.50 SP:$5.50 TAB:$6.20

Race 3:
Cocktail Evening-TF:$8 SP:$8 TAB:$9.60

Race 4:
Gradual-TF:$4 SP:$4 TAB:$3.70

Race 5:
Brave Chief-TF:$7.50 SP:$7 TAB:$5.30

Race 6:
Philotimo-TF:$13 SP:$13 TAB:$17.20
Chairman's Choice-TF:$5 SP:$4.80 TAB$3.60

Race 7:
La Serenade-TF:$8 SP:$6.50 TAB:$7.80

Race 8:
Redclay-TF:$7 SP:$7 TAB:$6.50

$100 on each selection would have yielded the following:

TF: Out $800 In $5360
SP: Out $800 In $5110
TAB:Out $800 In $5340

Pretty close but TF seems to be the way to go with shorter priced runners and the difference in price with Brave Chief and Chairman's Choice was huge.

Top Flucs are based on the official price fluctuations and even though bookies now operated under the decimal system, TF's are still based around the old odds system. This means that you can never have a top fluc of $4.40 because there was no price to match that under the old odds scale. $4.40 is therefore rounded down to $4.20 (closest to 13/4 in the old odds). It's also why you'll often get better odds freely available at the track.

Even the bookies get the advantage of rounding down.

Cheers