No guess mate, sit down and add up the opening odds off any opening bookmakers screen and see for your self

I apologise.
When I read your post,It seemed that you were suggesting that the bookies were copying straight off the tote indicators.

i remember the one, could almost play a game of footy there provided one didnt kick the ball out the yard, across the road & into the drink

the cup, ahh the 2 day recovery sessions are almost a faint memory, ... almost....

This isn't exactly the answer to your question P57 but it spits out of a program I wrote for amusement a while ago so it's easy.

Betting on the favorite over many years at WA
You get 88.77% of your money back from the bookie over 16000 races and 97.44% from Tabcorp (33.5% winners). This includes a lot of piddling races at minor courses, thus, I guess, the high return from tab favorites. - From NSW Tab you get 93.22% from 8750 races (31.5% winners) in the same period (these would be the more major races of course).

Always backing the winner on these same 16000 races - 613% from SP and 793% from Tabcorp.
Betting on the first horse in alphabetical order 62.7% from SP and 79% from Tabcorp.

This is probably not typical Australia wide, I have long suspected SP pays worse in comparison to TAB in WA than it does in say NSW.

I could probably do the same for NSW but would have to do a bit of programming.

KV

Thanks KV. That's exactly what I was after. Makes it pretty clear that on favs or IN GENERAL, the tote is better. I already knew this for longshots as I've many times got three times the odds on the TAB ($60 for a 20-1 bookie quoted horse etc).Thanks again. P57

Curiosity got the better of me and I had to run some figures for NSW.
Just doing figures on races the NSW Tab had a pool on (41700 races overall)

Betting on the SP Favorite SP returned 89.88%, Tab returned 89.74%
Betting on the longest (SP) priced horse SP returned 36.97%, Tab returned 44.52%
Always picking the winner SP returned 683.13%, Tab returned 790.76%

As I suspected the SP prices are particularly miserly in WA. I've noticed when trying to bet to a price over there that I usually go for best div and rarely take the set price being offered wheras it's about half and half in NSW.
Not much between SP and Tab on the favorites but Tab is more generous the longer the price becomes.

KV

Hi Benny,
Heres a simple way of pricing your 4-5 selections per race.

Divide the number of career wins into its career starts.
e.g. 4 wins from 21 starts =5.25/1 or $6.25
e.g. 2 wins from 4 starts = 2/1 or $3.00

This only works where all 4-5 of your selections have had one or more career wins, so its probably best to pass up any race that does not qualify under those said conditions

I hope its all right to post this site , it has a priceing program in there that may be of some use to you.
http://www.ozracetools.com/index.php


Cheers.

__________________
Cheers.

Bhagwan,

I don't mean to be pedantic but isn't 2wins from 4 starts - 50% or 1-1 even money, which is $2.00.
2-1 means 1 chance in 3 or 1win from 3 starts.

2 days, I was sober halfway through Rogie's speech after Wild Heart won, come to think of it 2 days sounds pretty close.

Will never forget the conga line me and about 12 mates formed through the main building when 'Here's Me Mate' won by six and we had all had $50 on it's nose. The chant resinates in my mind to this day; "we won two hun-dred dol-lars".

Hi Top Rank ,
You a correct in that respect, it is done this way to give it a more realistic actual chance of winning , there is no point trying for value betting if ones book value is say 150% over 5 horses ,it has to be closer to say 90% or less if possible , so by adding one point , it evens out the spread , especially on the shorter priced horses.
e.g. 2/1=33% as opposed to 1/1=50%. Book value diff =17% this difference is the amount you dont have to recover if it looses.

Cheers.

__________________
Cheers.