To me following the smart money is the initial bet placed by
the few % of people who actually make a living out of the punt.

The rest is on course or corporates betting back and herd
mentality people on course seeing the horse shorten up.

Eventually this reflects on the various totes as it shortens.

I dont want to follow a big bet unless i knew who actually placed it.

What good is following big bets if placed by certain A.F.L.
footballers who have been in the news lately etc etc.

Answer you end up getting GELDED.(pocket wise).

So for me the source of where the bet came from
is more important than the bet size or anything else.

Cheers
garyf.

Hi Gary,
Interesting point you raise, however the mug money is almost always levelled by the smart money.

As an example, you see a lot of mug money go on certain horses and then the smart money comes in and adjusts the prices accordingly. I'm not sure about the IAS signals, as I think they might just be a bit of a red herring based on a comparison of the bets they say they took and the actual bookie ring fluctuations.

In the bookie ring the price usually blows out from the opening price before being snapped up and crunched in by the overall smart money.

I did a bit of a study on the "phenomenon" to see whether these movements were herd mentality or in reality "smart money". The results were astounding.

Given that we can't get Top Fluctuation after betting has started, I ignored top fluctuation prices and looked at other prices available.
To qualify, the final bookie price had to be less than the opening price on course.

921 of these movements were recorded.

Backing all movers that qualified (including 2 or 3 in each race where applicable).

NSWTAB 3.89% profit
SuperTab 5.70% profit
UNiTAB 2.93% profit

Best Tote 10.73% profit
Best Tote and SP 11.33% profit

This is without any other filters.

The real smarties who are "in the know" and take Top Fluctuation early, thereby somewhat driving market movements earn themselves a cool 16.13% return at Top Fluctuation.

The conclusion...

There is a lot of mug money, but the weight of the smart money overcomes the tab takeout on all three totes.
Therefore the smart money is dead on

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D'Day Chrome (long time no hear?) re the above , was that Saturday Metro only?

For sure backing shorteners in the market is much more profitable.

I actually have MORE on my bets if they shorten in the market.

What i actually meant was if i saw a big bet placed on a horse
overnight would i just go ahead and have a bet.

As a matter of interest i actually did a similiar survey on
horses that shortened in the betting s/price <$6.0 less than.



Say for eg.
A)$4.0-$5.0-$4.8.
B)$4.0-$5.0-$3.8.
C)$4.0-$5.0-$4.0.

In this example only B has firmed you wouldn't believe how
many people say all 3 have firmed your summary is spot on.

I actually didn't get as profitable figures as yours but an
advantage nevertheless.

Contradicted myself in the last post by comparing
a big bet placed on a horse to smart money (on course shorteners)

Having more on my bets when they shorten increases my
profits overall without having to meddle with the selection criteria.

Cheers
garyf.



.

Partypooper,

That was about 2 years of Country and Metro results.

I'm currently doing a more recent datamine which will identify if much has changed.
I can then work out if Betfair SP is still a better option, although I think I already know the answer.

__________________
RaceCensus - powerful system testing software.
Now with over 422,000 Metropolitan, Provincial and Country races!
http://www.propun.com.au/horse_raci...ng_systems.html
*RaceCensus now updated to 31/07/2025
Video overview of RaceCensus here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W821YP_b0Pg

I think Mark did some study on this, comparing Pre-post prices with Bookie opening prices.

He found many winners came from horses that were shorter with Bookie opening price than Pre-post prices.

__________________
Cheers.