Anyone use a similar strategy?

[Tetras]

Obviously I appreciate people need to get value against the market to be profitable, but there is also the aspect that due to the speed nothing is going to be perfectly priced and if a market hates a horse leading and the price stays high, who is to say if the price is 28/30/32....but the overall feel is the horse isnt going to finish well, so it is a good lay because the overall feel is its not going to get there ?

The game isn't about being right or wrong it's about getting value.

In your example there is a price which is correct (or break even long term) the trick is first calculating that price and the second (far harder part) actually getting matched.

In a 10 horse race thats 4 mins long, I find it hard to believe that anyone has time to perfectly calcualte every horses price every millisecond correctly though. How can you gain "value" in this situtatoin?

You can, if you watch enough races then your brain can do it perfectly well enough (I do get a lot wrong, but my account isn't shrinking, so...).

But, at this point, I'm not sure if you're trying to place bets, trade manually, or automate, since there are different things to consider.

[Derek27]

Obviously I appreciate people need to get value against the market to be profitable, but there is also the aspect that due to the speed nothing is going to be perfectly priced and if a market hates a horse leading and the price stays high, who is to say if the price is 28/30/32....but the overall feel is the horse isnt going to finish well, so it is a good lay because the overall feel is its not going to get there ?

The game isn't about being right or wrong it's about getting value.

In your example there is a price which is correct (or break even long term) the trick is first calculating that price and the second (far harder part) actually getting matched.

In a 10 horse race thats 4 mins long, I find it hard to believe that anyone has time to perfectly calcualte every horses price every millisecond correctly though. How can you gain "value" in this situtatoin?

You don't need to calculate the price of every horse every millisecond. You just see a horse off the bridle, price hits 50, you think that horse is always first off the bridle but still responds to pressure, it's worth a lot less than 50 (you don't even need to decide exactly what price it's worth) and back it.

[Thebest147]

The game isn't about being right or wrong it's about getting value.

In your example there is a price which is correct (or break even long term) the trick is first calculating that price and the second (far harder part) actually getting matched.

In a 10 horse race thats 4 mins long, I find it hard to believe that anyone has time to perfectly calcualte every horses price every millisecond correctly though. How can you gain "value" in this situtatoin?

You don't need to calculate the price of every horse every millisecond. You just see a horse off the bridle, price hits 50, you think that horse is always first off the bridle but still responds to pressure, it's worth a lot less than 50 (you don't even need to decide exactly what price it's worth) and back it.

There are loads of ways to be a step ahead all depending on what angle you want to use.

1ST , 76% off the first 3 in the market win,nothing exciting about that,but in play you can back them higher like way higher 15.0 plus thus should give you some room for 3 r 4 races not getting matched, and if using bet Angel trigger back bets with offset full or kill 600 seconds, and lay it back at 2.9 for arguments sake you can win when you win and win when you lose by greening up ,

Or look at automated trading ,just go to youtube in running horse racing videos at the last 3rd of the race prices are totally inefficient stop the video or slow it right down and you can easily see the back book percent is 120 plus and the lay is 80% and below so in theory back at reverse price or lay at reverse price either way you are taking advantage of value ,

[Thebest147]

Oh and to add some spice to the situation late withdrawal and betfair can't reprice the market the back book can go way under 100% and lay book way over 120% which is crazy, you would be surprised how many hit under 1.5 and even sub 1.2

[Derek27]

1ST , 76% off the first 3 in the market win,nothing exciting about that,but in play you can back them higher like way higher 15.0 plus thus should give you some room for 3 r 4 races not getting matched, and if using bet Angel trigger back bets with offset full or kill 600 seconds, and lay it back at 2.9 for arguments sake you can win when you win and win when you lose by greening up ,

I can't really see the logic in that. The fact that 76% of the first 3 in a market winning doesn't mean in the Ayr Gold Cup the 3 10.0 joint favourites have a 76% chance between them. If the 3 joint favourites are 3.9, that would give them about a 76% before the race. If one of them hit 25 you need to reassess.

[Thebest147]

1ST , 76% off the first 3 in the market win,nothing exciting about that,but in play you can back them higher like way higher 15.0 plus thus should give you some room for 3 r 4 races not getting matched, and if using bet Angel trigger back bets with offset full or kill 600 seconds, and lay it back at 2.9 for arguments sake you can win when you win and win when you lose by greening up ,

I can't really see the logic in that. The fact that 76% of the first 3 in a market winning doesn't mean in the Ayr Gold Cup the 3 10.0 joint favourites have a 76% chance between them. If the 3 joint favourites are 3.9, that would give them about a 76% before the race. If one of them hit 25 you need to reassess.

Jee ,yes in a massive handicap or grand national then yep you are right but you would be hard pushed to find that scenario you described in day to day races maybe I'm wrong every day is a school day,thanks Derek

[Derek27]

1ST , 76% off the first 3 in the market win,nothing exciting about that,but in play you can back them higher like way higher 15.0 plus thus should give you some room for 3 r 4 races not getting matched, and if using bet Angel trigger back bets with offset full or kill 600 seconds, and lay it back at 2.9 for arguments sake you can win when you win and win when you lose by greening up ,

I can't really see the logic in that. The fact that 76% of the first 3 in a market winning doesn't mean in the Ayr Gold Cup the 3 10.0 joint favourites have a 76% chance between them. If the 3 joint favourites are 3.9, that would give them about a 76% before the race. If one of them hit 25 you need to reassess.

Jee ,yes in a massive handicap or grand national then yep you are right but you would be hard pushed to find that scenario you described in day to day races maybe I'm wrong every day is a school day,thanks Derek

I was just giving an extreme example to illustrate the point but it applies to every race. The price-based probability that one of the first three in the betting will win can range from 30% as in the example above, to 100% in a three-horse race.

[thepressure]

The game isn't about being right or wrong it's about getting value.

In your example there is a price which is correct (or break even long term) the trick is first calculating that price and the second (far harder part) actually getting matched.

In a 10 horse race thats 4 mins long, I find it hard to believe that anyone has time to perfectly calcualte every horses price every millisecond correctly though. How can you gain "value" in this situtatoin?

You can, if you watch enough races then your brain can do it perfectly well enough (I do get a lot wrong, but my account isn't shrinking, so...).

But, at this point, I'm not sure if you're trying to place bets, trade manually, or automate, since there are different things to consider.

Probably manual, automation is good but i need to understand more before I automate

[zippus]

I looked into this a few years ago and experienced similar issues - lots of little wins and then boom (or rather bust!).

All I can suggest is you look at the Betfair data and review the IPMAX of winners and then compare this with the overall number of runners. As Shaun said, if you can find situations where horses with odds of 50 in play win less than 2% of the time, then you should make money if history repeats in the long term.

Best of luck!