15.40 Sthl and 15.50 folk ... were they FIXED?

[Iron]

Thanks Andy

I've noticed that favourites often drop suddenly and severely in price, and often the price doesn't recover to anything like its previous levels.

I wonder, therefore, whether the bookies are responsible. It's an opportunity for them to back high and lay low, and they would also reduce their liability should the favourite win.

Jeff

That last race showed how you can quickly lose about £50,000 on one of these lumpy bets

[Zenyatta]

I've noticed that favourites often drop suddenly and severely in price, and often the price doesn't recover to anything like its previous levels.

With about 6 months- 1 year of staring at the racing markets, I think it's possible to learn to predict in which races this is likely to happen, and combining market characteristics with a good racing form guide, I think you can even predict the exact selection that is likely to see the big drop in price.

Any way, it seems I finally found something I'm good at, it seems I can now predict the favourite that will shorten about 80% of the time, in the races I've identified that this will occur. Needless to say, I'm starting to rake in the profits in my test trades. It's very encouraging, I may finally have found my trading edge at last.

[Iron]

Hi Zenyatta

Do you get the impression that these horses fall in price because they were overpriced originally?

Jeff

With about 6 months- 1 year of staring at the racing markets, I think it's possible to learn to predict in which races this is likely to happen, and combining market characteristics with a good racing form guide, I think you can even predict the exact selection that is likely to see the big drop in price.

[Zenyatta]

Hi Zenyatta

Do you get the impression that these horses fall in price because they were overpriced originally?

Jeff

The favourites which are most likely to fall in price are not necesserily the most obvious ones... they're the ones with the most potential to fall.. a bit like gravity and objects you see placed at various heights...

[Iron]

Would you say then that they are good lays after they've fallen?

Jeff

The favourites which are most likely to fall in price are not necesserily the most obvious ones... they're the ones with the most potential to fall.. a bit like gravity and objects you see placed at various heights...

[bagata88]

High percantage of races are fixed -as enzabella said look what smart money is doing .
Betting exchanges allow the fixers for a lot of combinations (look at cricket i.e. ).
Just a while ago I watched what is going on at Kempton 20.10 with the horse John Potts -4 wins in the row ,the same jockey- price was going up although other horses with higher weight with worse stats were going down .
Of course for a small amount of money I layed this horse .
And one more time like on any financial market smart money won .
Or maybe only I didn't know that the horse was very tired ?

[Iron]

Hi Bagata

Could that not have been the result purely of traders and market hype, rather than someone somewhere having insider knowledge?

Often, you'll see a favourite drift and drift, only to go on and win. It makes you wonder whether connections might have spread false rumours about the horse to boost its price (although I'm not implying that's what happened in the case of John Potts)...

Also, let's say you're a bookie, and you've got two favourites. Whichever favourite steams in price will get heavily backed by the punters, and great the largest liability on your book. So it might be in your interests to let the market believe that there were serious concerns about the stronger of the two horses...

Jeff

Just a while ago I watched what is going on at Kempton 20.10 with the horse John Potts -4 wins in the row ,the same jockey- price was going up although other horses with higher weight with worse stats were going down .
Of course for a small amount of money I layed this horse .

[freddy]

High percantage of races are fixed -as enzabella said look what smart money is doing .
Betting exchanges allow the fixers for a lot of combinations (look at cricket i.e. ).
Just a while ago I watched what is going on at Kempton 20.10 with the horse John Potts -4 wins in the row ,the same jockey- price was going up although other horses with higher weight with worse stats were going down .
Of course for a small amount of money I layed this horse .
And one more time like on any financial market smart money won .
Or maybe only I didn't know that the horse was very tired ?

As has been said before in the thread, know one has any idea where the money is coming from,
so why would you blindly follow it ???.

Drifters win every day, if only it was that easy
You could be following the smart money yes , but you could also be following bookmakers, traders, mugg punters with money, or it could have been the horse had simply have been playing up going to post causing a big drift or a hundred other reasons.

spend enough time on the exchanges and you will soon see a big drifter win, it's easy to convince yourself something is true with a small sample size, when in reality following the late money will not make you rich..

[andyfuller]

Some reading:

"Steamers" and "drifters" - a myth worth busting

Jack Houghton tries to get to the bottom of the myth regarding whether drifters always lose and steamers always win. Let the stats do the talking, he says.

Betting shops have changed, haven't they? It used to be you could guarantee a complex social microcosm; identical in every shop. The group of pensioners: split three-quarters male, one-quarter female; the former studiously assessing each race (two minutes before the off), the latter saving all effort and backing Frankie.

The group of Chinese restaurant workers, playing a virtual roulette game whilst shuttle-sprinting back-and-forth to claim an interest in each upcoming dog race; all the time shouting at each other, and the television screens, in tongues.

The builder, the suit and the random man with no shoes, all milling around, seeking shelter from a life outside they can't bear to return to just yet. And sometimes, in the corner, a curled-up scruffy pooch, occasionally sighing, Yoda-like, at his cohabitants' predicament.

In any bookies I ever went to, there they all were, in the surrounds of linoleum covered tables; trampling fag-ends and scrunched-up betting-slips into linoleum covered floors. But not anymore.

I popped in one the other day and there was an on-site coffee shop. Admittedly, the clientele looked the same, and none of them were drinking double-shot mochas, but the surroundings were certainly different. No-one was smoking, which felt strange: although the constant nicotine waft carried inside by a continually moving torch relay pricked memories of what betting shops should smell like. And there was a carpet, which was clean. As were the toilets. All very different.

Then it happened. Tannoy man alerted all present to a "steamer" in the next race: a horse backed down from 7-1 to 11-2. Quietly, one-by-one, as if answering a call to prayer, each person there present diligently filled out a slip and proceeded to the counter to give their daily bread. This wasn't so different after all. The staging might look changed; but the cast had never been so same.

It's easy to ridicule the behaviour of betting shop punters, labelling them "mugs", but this hive mentality is to be expected when so many in the racing media use the words "steamer" and "drifter" as short-hand for "certain winner" or "certain loser". It's become instinctive to view a shortening price as evidence of a well-planned betting coup-in-waiting, and to view a lengthening price as evidence of a horse that won't be winning today.

And yet few pause to consider why, if this is the case, Willbrokes are so keen to announce these steamers and drifters over their in-shop tannoys. Surely, were the perception grounded in fact, they would do all they could to disguise such betting moves?

The popularity of steamer and drifter announcements, whether in shops or on television, is ludicrous on many fronts. First, what constitutes a steamer? Commentators will get excited by a horse backed from 100-1 to 20-1, and yet barely mention a move from 4-1 to 3-1, even though the latter represents a bigger move in terms of the overall book percentage.

Second, why is it relevant? The possible causes of a horse drifting from 8-1 to 14-1 are numerous, the most plausible being that the market, as a whole, felt its correct price to be longer than the original offering. Does that make it a value lay at its new price? Possibly, but unlikely.

The nearest I've come to following a betting system (of the kind outlined by Wayne Bailey) was after studying the performance of "steamers" and "drifters" in a sample of over 65,000 horses who ran in 2006. Noting the price of all horses two hours before the off and their starting price, I categorised all "steamers" as those whose odds had shortened by five per cent of the book or more, and all "drifters" as those whose odds had lengthened the same.

The categorisation was arbitrary, but showed compelling evidence as to the folly of blindly following market moves. To a £10 stake, you would have lost nearly £3,500 backing steamers, and won nearly £2,310 backing drifters. Perhaps this is why Willbrokes are so keen to propagate the steamer myth?

Unfortunately, the analysis cannot easily be turned into a profitable betting system. The analysis is retrospective, making it impossible to accurately implement in future races. In other words, it's impossible to know whether a horse is a drifter or what price you are supposed to back it at until after the betting market has closed.

But it does demonstrate the need to be price sensitive when betting. Whether it's a drifter or steamer - whatever they may be - is irrelevant: no bet should be placed unless you are certain it represents value. And that's something you need to decide for yourself.

Source: Betfair: http://betting.betfair.com/horse-racing ... 20708.html

[freddy]

That sums it up pretty well,

Money always attracts money,
but most can in no way can be called Smart Money

[Iron]

TV presenters are partly to blame IMHO, as they are always going on about horses steaming or drifting!

And you keep hearing them say on ATR things along the lines of "The winner performed better than its form suggested it would. The price came in from it's opening price of 6/1 to an SP of 5/2, and it's been steaming all day on the exchanges, so someone, somewhere knew something!'

Jeff

That sums it up pretty well,

Money always attracts money,
but most can in no way can be called Smart Money

[SilentDave]

I have a NH horse in training who ran a couple of weeks back. He opened at 12-1 and went off 9-2 fav.
I didn't have a bean on him and neither did the trainer - he needed the run as he is difficult to get fit at home (he didn't win!)
I would never blindly follow the money as a rule.

[Iron]

Hi Dave

That's interesting.

Do you know what caused the horse to steam so heavily?

Jeff

I have a NH horse in training who ran a couple of weeks back. He opened at 12-1 and went off 9-2 fav.
I didn't have a bean on him and neither did the trainer - he needed the run as he is difficult to get fit at home (he didn't win!)
I would never blindly follow the money as a rule.

[SilentDave]

No idea at all. I was stood there scratching my head!
Made no sense at all to be honest - everyone who asked me I told them he would need the run.

[mugsgame]

If any of you think racing is fixed, I suggest you bet on something straighter, like Russian tennis matchs, Italian soccer or Pakistani cricket.