I have studied bookmakers prices for quite some time now.
I have firmly come to the conclusion that one of the best free sources of ratings are the bookmakers opening prices.
These guys do it for a living, their entire liability and income depends on ratings.
Rob Waterhouse once wrote to me, that if he priced the favourite wrongly, he'd be out of business very quickly with the amount of money he deals with in each race.
Price movements come from punters opinion, but also from whispers.
Often the whispers are right, actually at an astonishing rate.
However, if you got on at top fluctuation on only the whispers, you'd make a killing.
But all too often the bird has flown and punters sacrifice profit for strike rate.

So, taking two independant sets of stats, we can see definite trends, that might just help backers and layers on Betfair.

Looking at the UK races for the last two days:

I looked at all horses that opened favourite or joint favourite.

83 of them.

Of those 83, 50 drifted resulting in a loss on turnover of 3.91% At Betfair SP

As the bookies, notoriously open "a little shorter" resulting in higher overrounds at the start of betting, one would expect most to drift, especially as support comes for other horses.
A lot of these did not end up favourite.

31 of the 83 firmed for a LOT of 65.16%

These figures are just for demonstration, they are actually not indicative of the longterm percentages, due to a lower number of favourites winning over the last two days.
However, the trend remains the same - just smaller and greater.

So we add the bookies overround to the opening price, and we have the exact price the bookie thinks is breakeven.

Anything above that is profit, anything below is loss (for backers)
Anything above is loss, anything below is profit (for layers)

However, I got rattled three days ago,when the entire day was full of firmers winning at an astonishing rate.

And yet the next two days, I would have made up all the losses...and made a handsome profit to boot.

It's very easy to get rattled and lose focus, when almost 30 races go against you race after race after race.
The same happened to me, two years ago, when it went on for days on end.

The difference being that one can remain composed (reasonably) when one strikes a run of outs backing, you're only losing your stake, but a run of lays winning can decimate the bank very quickly, it almost compounds into significant damage.

The old rules of percentage of bank backing can not be applied to laying, they must be trimmed to miniscule percentages to protect the bank.

In other words, back 10 losing even money favourites and you've lost 10 units
Lay 10 winning even money favourites on the trot and you've also 10 units

But when you get over the even money price, the damage compounds - laying.

So from my experiences, I just thought I'd share some observations that might help backers and layers.

Do the reverse of the crowd, and profit - but when laying rethink the entire percentage of bank situation or you might cop a severe and savage beating like I did

I hope this helps someone else.

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Lets see if I understand laying.

There is a favorite at say $4 opening odds I don't think will win. It firms to $2.80. I look at the race and pick 6 horses I think are chances and leave 6 horses plus the favorite out of it. I bet to win on the six horses so I win a certain amount.

Is that right?

Hi Chrome

I agree wholeheartedly and believe this is why my "system" (for want of a better word), of comparing Bookies opening (accurate?) prices to prepost (inaccurate) prices works so well. I'll give my 4 weekly update on Openers By Request after dinner.

Hi Brendon,
No, that's not laying in this sense.

Betfair is a gambling exchange where you can choose to take odds [Betting] or offer odds [Laying]

In your example if you choose to lay the favourite at $2.80, you offer those odds at whatever stake you choose. If you were to offer $10.00 @ $2.80 and the horse loses you collect $10.00 (the better's stake), if it wins you pay out $18.00. $2.80 being odds of $1.80/$1.00.

This can be potentially destructive if you start laying at longer prices. Laying $20.00 horses for $2.00 costs you $18.00 if it wins [Ouch] and a $2.00 collect if it loses.

Hope this clears it up somewhat, it's difficult to get your head around coming from the 'other' side of the ledger.

Thanks Dennis G.

Not my cup of tea, though.

Other than at the track, where are the Bookies opening prices to be found. My days of trotting off to Caulfield and Flem are sadly behind me.

I see TAB has fixed prices on a lot of races for Saturday meetings, even up on the previous day. The newspapers have their odds too. I've always thought the papers just pinch the odds off the bookies.

I just started collecting records on the TAB fixed prices, on a glance, we are better off taking the varying odds instead of fixed prices.

Early days yet, only a few weeks worth of stats, also I would have to sort them into price ranges. All I can say, in the long odds range I'm betting, it's definitely better to stick to the open odds.
Cheers

Brendon,
OPs can be found at Betchoice but don't appear til about 20 mins to start time (gets a bit hectic when you're sweating on them) or you can get them around 10.30am EST at IAS, but some here think IAS odds can be somewhat dodgy....

I bet on Driffield Gold and got $2.40 fixed on Friday. On Saturday it was around $2.

It was a hunch. I thought it was money in the bank with Instructor being only second up and nothing else close. I thought D. Gold would go shorter.

But I think you are right. Fixed odds are more often than not shorter. But I remember last month I was saved one weekend winning at $8 Fixed on the friday price and it was about $4 on Saturday. No hunch there, just dumb luck that I put it on Fixed on Friday.

Betchoice....I'll check it out.

I have heard of big wagers on horses held by bookies for Saturday put on as early as thursday night. I figured the bookies had a book not long after acceptances and that is what the papers and others worked off.

No the papers are usually worked out from a computer and definitely have no link to bookies odds.

__________________
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