Hi moeee,

I'm not betting every day, had some time out with the missus and mates.

Coming back to your pricing, I noticed that you often use the phrase "if it's an overlay?"

Overlay in what sense and according to who's prices?

You see what we all do is rank the runners in order according to our ideas of what we consider important, and allocate certain points to them and we may convert those chances to prices or leave them with points.

But those prices have very little if anything to do with reality, they are simply an indication of the perceived chances of the animals in the race according to you or I and the way you convert points to prices.

So if I price dog A as $3.00 and you as $4.00, then when is it an overlay?
Getting my drift?

How you work out if a dog is an overlay or not is solely dependent on your S/R and average prices you get on your first second or third etc. selections! Nothing else.

I'm not going to harp on about the importance of keeping records, but at least you must know your S/R!

So let's say you have a S/R of 30% on your first selection, then, if don't know your average dividends the minimum theoretical price you have to get is about $3.5 to make a profit.

But you must be getting much higher returns on some dogs, so you can lower your minimum acceptable price to as low as $2.6 on a 30% S/R.
But it all depends on your average prices, if you get much higher prices on some dogs then you can go lower on some others.

Now any animal as your first selection over that price is an "overlay" for you!

Someone else might have a 40% S/R so he could go as low as $2.3 as his minimum price, providing of course that most of your first selections come in at a variety of prices, if most of them come in at less then the theoretical $3.5 thus lowering your average prices below the minimum then you will lose no matter what, sure, you get the winners but lose money.

I hope you understand where I'm coming from, re. overlay?
An overlay for you is not the same as for me or someone else.

Since you use the same rating method it should be easy to find your S/R and ave. prices.

You can go back and look at your posts for the last few weeks and quickly work out your strike rate and average prices obtained and Bob's your uncle.

Good luck

LOMACA.

It's good to see you have a Life outside of gambling , unlike someone I know quite well

OVERLAYS.
In Roulette, I can work out the Odds for EVERY outcome of EVERY Permutation, as can you Lomaca , as can the Casino, so in this case , we ALL know the Odds and the OVERLAY in everyones mind is exactly the same.And we never get it and never do the casino offer it.
We all use the same Formula to arrive at the Odds.

Another Example is Texas Holdem.
I like watching this Game on Television, and if you have watched it, then you will have noticed that they display the Percentage Chance of each hand winning during the game.
These are Mathematically calculated Chances , that are accurate and exact.
They are exact because they can be calculted by precise Mathematical Formula.

If you are happy and agree with up to now, lets get to Greyhound Racing.

Yes what we do is rank the runners according to OUR ideas like you say , and set Prices according to those ideas.
But when you say there is very little these Prices have with Reality, that is proveable simply wrong.
Its very obvious that My Ranking Order finds more Winners at the top of My Rankings than at the bottom.
That means that MY IDEAS are better than throwing darts, or pulling marbles out of a barrel.
The EXACT Prices I come up with will never be the Exact Odds for each animal in the race, but they will be MUCH more accurate than throwing darts.
And if you Lomaca were to Frame a Market, I'm sure YOUR Ideas will translate into something also more accurate than simply throwing darts.
And YOUR EXACT Prices also will never be the Exact Odds fer each animal in the race , but they will be much more accurate than throwing darts.
And I would suggest that as you gain more experience and information about Factors that influence the running of a Greyhound Race, then your Markets will become EVEN MORE accurate than throwing darts.

BUT.
YOUR Prices will NEVER EVER , be the same as MY Prices.NEVER EVER.
And thats because there is NO EXACT Formula to calculate the Chances as there is in Card Games or Roulette.

And you will have #1 at $3 and I will have #1 at $4
We can't both be right on this occasion.
Its MUCH MORE likely that we are BOTH Wrong, BUT , one of us is less wrong than the other.

If you and I were to test our Methods against one another, by wagering against one another, then after an appropriate sample of Races, the Bottom Line would reveal who of us has Methods that are less wrong.
And in the same way, we can test OUR Methods against BETFAIR or SUPERTAB , to see if we are less wrong than what they are.

Lomaca said "How you work out if a dog is an overlay or not is solely dependent on your S/R and average prices you get on your first second or third etc. selections! Nothing else."
My thoughts here are about the Strike Rate.
The thing is Lomaca , there will be a Number of strike rates for me.
The strike rate for my top selection.
The strike rate for my second selection
And for my 3rd and so on.
Perhaps like you suggested Lomaca, up to 3rd would be enough, but for insight, it wouldn't hurt todatabasr every selection.
This is very thought provoking and deep and something that is missing in my studies and is probably the reason I am losing.
I need to go over this a lot more and will get back to you later.

Thanks very much for the post Lomaca.
I really need someone to assist me , and I really need to go over profferred advice instead of rejecting it as something I've pondered on in a previous life and rejected it.
There is simply nothing worse than having erroneous beliefs holding back intelligent people from achieving what they are capable of.

I posted without actually reading ALL of your post Lomaca.
I read it, but didn't understand it.
I've read and reread now.
I still don't , but am close.

Concentrating on First selections only.
Supposing , just supposing, The Strike Rate is 30%.
The AVERAGE Dividend I need to get is $3.50 to make a Profit.
And just suppose I sorted My Database and found that the AVERAGE Price of My Top Selections was $4.50
These AVERAGE Prices you mention Lomaca , I figure you mean AVERAGE Prices of the Winning Selections.

So supposing I back tested and had wagered $1 on every one of My Top selections in a database of 1,000 Races.
I found that I had 300 Winners.
And I found that I would have had $1,350 returned for my Total Outlay of $1,000
My Strike rate is 33%
My AVERAGE Winning Price is $4.50

I can't work out My MINIMUM Acceptable Price.
Could you work it out for me Lomaca please, or do you need more information?

Without knowing the composition of the winning prices, it's impossible to to say what the minimum acceptable price could be.

The theoretical at 33% S/ is just a shade over $3.00.

You see the average could be made up of evenly distributed prices between say $1.80 and all the way to say $15.00. in which case
your lowest acceptable is of course $1.80.

But if your prices are mostly hovering around the $2.50 mark and you had a couple of large dividends of say $30.00 then your average price could still be $4.50 but unless you can repeat those
big divies at regular intervals, you are doomed.

Average is important but the median price probably tells you more about the prices you get.

I think the dogs you select probably would give a $4.00 average price without relying on large dividends, in which case I'd say $2.00 minimum is OK but you have to monitor it for a while to see that is not relying too much on the larger payouts.

In other words you should get a good distribution of $2-3-4-5 and maybe a be a few larger divies.

This goes for your second third fourth and so on selections, you can work out your strike rate and the average divie required, as long as they are profitable I can't see why not betting on them.

For me personally my second selection in horse racing is the one I mostly rely on for profits.

Good luck with it.

Please don't get offended Lomaca , but I'm just not getting it

I appreciate your efforts, but its a little like Woof43 and his numbers.
he understands them because he does them like second nature.
And you understand your ideas , and you probably can't understand how it is that I 'm not getting it , as you are pretty much speaking plain English.

I suppose I really need to get into it and get my hands dirty and do the database.
It will probably make sense then.

Lets leave it for now.
I'ld hate to go back to how we didn't correspond like before.
Too Lonely

I'll start playing with databases and records , and when I feel I am understanding it , perhaps it would be nice if you could help me get to the stage where you are at.
For the moment , I'll start with the First steps of getting a database together.

Thanks Lomaca.

I'm not upset, but can't really explain it any better.

I don;t have time now but what I might do, is analyse your ratings, and see what sort of prices you get and what sort of S/R you have.

Put it simply if you knew the lowest prices you get for your winners, you could see at a glance if it is was worth betting on them.

For instance, you had 20 of your first selection at a price below $2.00 but only 9 of them actually won.

Clearly when they pay less than $2.00 then you don't bet on them because although you might be in profit overall it all comes from the rest of your winners.

Good luck

For instance, you had 20 of your first selection at a price below $2.00 but only 9 of them actually won.

that would be the actual TAB price not your rated price

Same goes for the highest price, what's the point of betting on dogs paying $20.00 on the TAB if they never win? Again regardless of your rated price.

That's what I meant by having to know what prices you get, there is no need to go to databases although it would help, surely you can remember by now what sort of winners you get?

Lomaca , without trying to be a pain , my memory is terrible.
I really can't remember what happened last night.
I think I made a slight Profit.
I have no idea who I backed.
If I looked up the TAB Results, it would probably trigger my memory , but at the minute, I can't remember to save my Life.
Thats probably why I spend close on an hour studying a single race.
Many Forum members just can't understand what it is I'm doing for an hour.
I'm not even sure myself

I think the Main reason I can't recall what Winners I have had , is because Most of my Wagers are Exotics , so what happens is the race becomes more a mass of Numbers rather than an individual animal.
And the Main reason I go Exotics is because I am a very small Punter and I get excited by good Collects , but am frightened to have Large Wagers.

The other reason I can't remember is because I am OLD