hi all,

ive just opened a BF account & am considering my wagering options.

to those that have experience laying on BF:

is it hard to lay a horse that are currently $10 or more in the market?

do you have to stick to the top 4 or 5 in the market?

i know it all depends on the markets liquidity, etc, but i just want to get an overall impression. i assume the higher the price, the more likelihood of an unmatched lay.

cheers

Raven

Get a hold of the Betfair Advantage Tool which will allow you to compare historic Betfair prices against the three Australian tote's.

I work in the below $11 (10/1) range with an average Betfair matched price of $7.08. These selections are usually the 3rd, 4th or 5th favourites. You'll get matched on the longies, it's just whether the price you have to offer is representative of the horses chance.

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Pixie

"It's worth remembering that profit isn't profit until it's spent off the racecourse." -- Crash

thx Pix, will do

Raven,

Depends on how much you want matched.

If your laying more than $50 you probably are only going to be able to get it matched on the top 2 in the market.

Good Luck.

No you'll get alot more than $50 matched most days on selections othen than the top 2. Even Monday meetings you'll be able to churn away.

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Pixie

"It's worth remembering that profit isn't profit until it's spent off the racecourse." -- Crash

AngryPixie,

I should rephrase that :

You are not going to get more than $50 matched at "Reasonable odds". For example if the horse is $20 on the tabs you are probably not going to get $50 matched anywhere up to $50 ( for a liability of $2500 ). You may get it matched at $100 which means you have a liability of $5000.

But if you lay at those odds you are asking for trouble....

Good Luck.

Wes yes good point. You need to work the UK markets if your interested in laying selections at those higher prices.

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Pixie

"It's worth remembering that profit isn't profit until it's spent off the racecourse." -- Crash

Hi Raven,
Welcome to the world of lay betting.

What you will find , is no matter how good one is, at selecting the horses that should fall over, they will still get up 10-15% of the time.

Even 20/1 shots will get up 1 in 20 times.

I have found its best to try & target runners at $7.00 & less, that way if one gets hit 1 in 8 times , a profit is still to be had.

That's a success rate of 87.5% SR, its very difficult to get much better than this over say 100 bets.

Turn over is pretty much the name of the game because of the low odds one is working with. So the idea is to have heaps of bets if possible.
It is often suggested to bet 1-.50% of bank.

Try not to increase bets after a loss , but halve the bet if the race or prices looks risky.

Halve your normal bet on $11.00 shots
Quarter your bet on $20 shots.
Because when they bite , they bite hard & its a long grinde back up the ladder.
That's just the nature of the beast.

Cheers.

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Cheers.

You'll get matched for whatever amount you want, but the odds will kill you slowly but surely.
In fact it is very hard to eek out a profit on the top end of the market, but it can be done.

Here's a great piece of advice I can give you for nothing...

You must get close to the very best price available to have any hope of beating the higher odds on Betfair. In reality, it really is a backers market.
The bias favours the backers heavily.
The layers face a real uphill battle.

It's easy to pick losers, but when the odds are so far against you, just one mistake (or even a couple) can pretty much wipe out a huge chunk of profit.

Look at it this way, there's almost no hope of laying a 50/1 shot at 50/1, it's more likely to be upwards of 200/1.
If only one of them wins in 100 races (providing a nice profit at SP or TAB prices), @ 200/1 it's wipeout, you just can't get it back by continually laying so far over the odds.

So how is it possible to get within a bull's roar of realistic prices?
This is the million dollar question!

You'll likely find that all but the fancied runners will drift quite a bit.

Here's how I approach it, with a real example recently...

Horse is 40/1 with the bookies.

I lay it for $100 at 85/1 on Betfair.

Horse drifts to 120/1 on Betfair.

I back it for $50.00 @ 120/1.

The nett result, is that I have layed the horse for $50.00 @ 50/1 with no hope of it being matched at that price prior.

I have beaten the huge percentage against me, down to a much smaller and tolerable margin.

O.K. that's pretty good, but what if it firms in further instead of drifting in the market?

You'll find that those at big odds will almost always drift, I don't recommend this strategy on the shorties, as it can go either way.

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thx for the interesting responses guys, just the stuff i was after

Chrome, they're exactly the opportunities Im looking for, to back & lay the same horse with the adv in your favour.

the bread & butter will still have to be some form study though, i have an idea of a 'type' of horse to lay when they are in the market.

but this leads me to a new question:

are certain types of races good races to lay in?? think the G1 1400m hcp at Caul on sat, big field, looked an open race on paper (I would have layed Bon Hoffa ftr, I backed Niconero). Big fields, open races

or is it best to lay an individual horse for handicapping reasons? (lacks pace, gets back, ? on pace, not suited at Caul, ? on jock, under odds, etc)