(BLOG) Laying the Lame: Betting against the odds favorites

[Fugazi]

This forum has some of the most experienced greyhound traders out there. Do you really think they don't understand what you are saying? Do you not think it is more likely that it is you that is wrong? Your cognitive dissonance is letting you believe you are smarter than 99.99% of the market, from a strategy that was one of the first ideas that came into your mind.

They understand that you are trying to do something that is not "trading". But you are not listening to them. They are trying to stop you wasting time on something that doesn't work, and progress your journey to start learning new approaches.

I always look to emulate people that are successful. And this thread is full of them.

Fugazi, what can I say, re-read, for example, my previous post. If I believe there's value in the bet (based on statistical data, not just my opinion), I'll place the bet. That's what I call value betting, and I believe there's a positive expected value in such an approach. You think I'm talking nonsense, well, okay, time will tell who was right.

You are not talking nonsense. But what everyone is trying to tell you is that your bad value bets will get a abused out on the Betfair market. Your good value bets won't get accepted at the price you are asking for. If you were able to place the bets, you would very quickly realise that lots of your selections keep winning yet nobody is accepting your odds of 3.5. However, lots of losing dogs got accepted at 3.5.

[Dallas]

I guess I should clarify what I meant when I said that people don't understand the odds. Earlier, I shared a screenshot where the favorite's odds were 1.88 (Lay). The winning percentage for favorites in handicap races is between 25-30%. This varies based on factors like distance, the horse's form, and other variables. So, the odds of 1.88 do not accurately reflect the horse's real chances at all. And this happens all the time! It's not just limited to handicaps; similar nonsense occurs in other classes as well.

I haven't read all the previous replies so what I'm about to say will almost certainly have been said by many others already, but to try and put it into numbers the flaw in what you have said is that will be the percentage of winning fav's is across all handicap races, if you look look back through the Betfair SP data for handicap races and look purely at horses that went off with a BSP 1.88 you'll find they will have won around 53% of the time

Like wise if you look at fav's in a handicap race with a BSP 5.8 they will win around 17% of the time, meaning over time the BSP price is very efficient and backing all or laying all at BSP will result in around breakeven, minus commission from all the times it did win (or lose if laying)

But in the run up to the start prices will move up and down creating inefficiencies and value in the price which can then be exploited.

So to make a profit you need be able to place the bet at such a time/odds that it represents value, ie, if you know (through your research or whatever) the true chances of a horse winning a particular race is around 70% then backing at any price above 1.49 or laying at any price below 1.37 will see you return a circa 1% profit after commission over the long term

[Dogfather]

This forum has some of the most experienced greyhound traders out there. Do you really think they don't understand what you are saying? Do you not think it is more likely that it is you that is wrong? Your cognitive dissonance is letting you believe you are smarter than 99.99% of the market, from a strategy that was one of the first ideas that came into your mind.

They understand that you are trying to do something that is not "trading". But you are not listening to them. They are trying to stop you wasting time on something that doesn't work, and progress your journey to start learning new approaches.

I always look to emulate people that are successful. And this thread is full of them.

Fugazi, what can I say, re-read, for example, my previous post. If I believe there's value in the bet (based on statistical data, not just my opinion), I'll place the bet. That's what I call value betting, and I believe there's a positive expected value in such an approach. You think I'm talking nonsense, well, okay, time will tell who was right.

You are not talking nonsense. But what everyone is trying to tell you is that your bad value bets will get a abused out on the Betfair market. Your good value bets won't get accepted at the price you are asking for. If you were able to place the bets, you would very quickly realise that lots of your selections keep winning yet nobody is accepting your odds of 3.5. However, lots of losing dogs got accepted at 3.5.

Ah, you're still talking about greyhounds That strategy of mine was based on the fact that in the INITIAL stage, the favorite was incorrectly priced, and actually, the "3.5 dogs" were more like "4+ dogs". But you're right that not all bets could be placed. For this reason, I'm now focusing on horses because even their BSP is often completely off. You could say that those who bet on dogs are smarter than those betting on horses (It's a joke, by the way)."

[Kai]

I guess I should clarify what I meant when I said that people don't understand the odds. Earlier, I shared a screenshot where the favorite's odds were 1.88 (Lay). The winning percentage for favorites in handicap races is between 25-30%. This varies based on factors like distance, the horse's form, and other variables. So, the odds of 1.88 do not accurately reflect the horse's real chances at all. And this happens all the time! It's not just limited to handicaps; similar nonsense occurs in other classes as well.

I haven't read all the previous replies so what I'm about to say will almost certainly have been said by many others already, but to try and put it into numbers the flaw in what you have said is that will be the percentage of winning fav's is across all handicap races, if you look look back through the Betfair SP data for handicap races and look purely at horses that went off with a BSP 1.88 you'll find they will have won around 53% of the time

Like wise if you look at fav's in a handicap race with a BSP 5.8 they will win around 17% of the time, meaning over time the BSP price is very efficient and backing all or laying all at BSP will result in around breakeven, minus commission from all the times it did win (or lose if laying)

But in the run up to the start prices will move up and down creating inefficiencies and value in the price which can then be exploited.

So to make a profit you need be able to place the bet at such a time/odds that it represents value, ie, if you know (through your research or whatever) the true chances of a horse winning a particular race is around 70% then backing at any price above 1.49 or laying at any price below 1.37 will see you return a circa 1% profit after commission over the long term

Credit to Dallas for breaking it down for you, on a busy Saturday too!

If you had to pick one person on here to listen to there's your man right there

He's also the only poster on here that has fully read the manual!

[Dogfather]

Dallas Sounds interesting. Where can I view Betfair SP data for handicap races? I suspect that the 53% resulted from races on short distances, with a small number of participants, and so on. I really want to analyze this data.

P.S.: To be honest, I really doubt that the favorites with BSP 1.88 can have such a win rate. I really want to see this.

[Fugazi]

I guess I should clarify what I meant when I said that people don't understand the odds. Earlier, I shared a screenshot where the favorite's odds were 1.88 (Lay). The winning percentage for favorites in handicap races is between 25-30%. This varies based on factors like distance, the horse's form, and other variables. So, the odds of 1.88 do not accurately reflect the horse's real chances at all. And this happens all the time! It's not just limited to handicaps; similar nonsense occurs in other classes as well.

I haven't read all the previous replies so what I'm about to say will almost certainly have been said by many others already, but to try and put it into numbers the flaw in what you have said is that will be the percentage of winning fav's is across all handicap races, if you look look back through the Betfair SP data for handicap races and look purely at horses that went off with a BSP 1.88 you'll find they will have won around 53% of the time

Like wise if you look at fav's in a handicap race with a BSP 5.8 they will win around 17% of the time, meaning over time the BSP price is very efficient and backing all or laying all at BSP will result in around breakeven, minus commission from all the times it did win (or lose if laying)

But in the run up to the start prices will move up and down creating inefficiencies and value in the price which can then be exploited.

So to make a profit you need be able to place the bet at such a time/odds that it represents value, ie, if you know (through your research or whatever) the true chances of a horse winning a particular race is around 70% then backing at any price above 1.49 or laying at any price below 1.37 will see you return a circa 1% profit after commission over the long term

Credit to Dallas for breaking it down for you, on a busy Saturday too!

If you had to pick one person on here to listen to there's your man right there

He's also the only poster on here that has fully read the manual!

A year in and I'm still having to ask questions about more complex automations because I didn't read the manual properly

[sionascaig]

The winning percentage for favorites in handicap races is between 25-30%. This varies based on factors like distance, the horse's form, and other variables. So, the odds of 1.88 do not accurately reflect the horse's real chances at all.

If you were talking about coin tosses you would be right.

But what you are effectively saying with regards to racing is if in the last three races the favs were A, B & C and only A won then the chance of a fav winning is 1/3 therefore the probability of the fav D winning in next race is 1/3...

[Dogfather]

The winning percentage for favorites in handicap races is between 25-30%. This varies based on factors like distance, the horse's form, and other variables. So, the odds of 1.88 do not accurately reflect the horse's real chances at all.

If you were talking about coin tosses you would be right.

But what you are effectively saying with regards to racing is if in the last three races the favs were A, B & C and only A won then the chance of a fav winning is 1/3 therefore the probability of the fav D winning in next race is 1/3...

This is the information that I found on the internet, I suppose it is based on a large data set. I was very interested in Dallas' post about the favorite's win rate of 53% (with odds of 1.88). If this is the case, it's bad news for me, so it's very important for me to look at these data myself.

[Dallas]

Dallas Sounds interesting. Where can I view Betfair SP data for handicap races? I suspect that the 53% resulted from races on short distances, with a small number of participants, and so on. I really want to analyze this data.

P.S.: To be honest, I really doubt that the favorites with BSP 1.88 can have such a win rate. I really want to see this.

https://promo.betfair.com/betfairsp/prices

I quickly ran the query on the data I have here from 2009 (last few years not added yet to my main analysis sheet yet)

Races 147'319
Runners 1'432'125

312 @ 1.88bsp
174 won
win rate 55.76%

You can filter that by handicap, runners, course, race grade etc and it will always come out about the same (until you use to many filters the sample gets to small and becomes meaningless)
ie, handicap race, with less than 6 runners, in a grade 3 race might only have 15 favs with a BSP of 1.88 in the last 15 years and each new result will move the win rate by several percentage points

[Dogfather]

Dallas Thank you very much! I will analyze this, maybe the market is still wrong somewhere... I would be grateful if someone could recommend software for analyzing these tables, as it is very inconvenient to view

[Anbell]

excel

[Dublin_Flyer]

Races 147'319
Runners 1'432'125

I've found the true cause of global warming lads, it's Dallas's computer after supercomputing figures like that!

But he's a good lad, we'll let him away with it

[Fugazi]

Might also be of interest OP. I back tested every greyhound ever at BSP. BSP was super efficient. Back or lay you lose over time due to commission. Hence it is a good marker of whether you are getting value:

viewtopic.php?p=356546&hilit=Greyhound#p356546

There is also a spreadsheet attached on there with a breakdown by odds.

[Anbell]

Races 147'319
Runners 1'432'125

I've found the true cause of global warming lads, it's Dallas's computer after supercomputing figures like that!

But he's a good lad, we'll let him away with it

Dallas does add enormous value to this place every day, and we're all endlessly grateful, but those particular calculations can be done on an old laptop in seconds

[Atho55]

I floor the odds so can`t be as precise as Dallas but my data yields this over these years for 1.8 odds

1.80 to 1.89.png