My question appears simple but I expect it's not!
Is dutching long term profitable using BA? For example backing every horse that has a 5% or more chance of winning each race according to the betfair odds. (Staking 1-2% of my bank each time)
I keep hearing that you need to find value bets, I'm not sure that the above is an example of that? Does it even matter if it's "value" in this situation?
I look forward to learning from those more knowledgeable!
Thanks in advance.
Dutching vs Value betting
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ShaunWhite
- Posts: 9731
- Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2016 3:42 am
You can't make money whatever method it is unless there's value. That can either be deliberately sought or by happy accident. That's because regardless of how many trades you make per race or per horse or per year, they're all just individual bets that run, win or lose.
"Trading" is therefore simply betting a lot, nothing about the maths of betting changes just because you're having 100,000 bets or just one. It's why people don't just look at market totals when they're analysing/optimising strategy and they break it down by other categories. Maybe all your closes, or all the opening back bets by price band. . Ie straight betting techniques to analysis what are. effectively 000s of straight bets. For example it's easy to rule out whole types of races because you think you lose on them according to market totals, but digging deeper it could be that you're reading their drifts correctly (lay bets show profit) but you're shocking at reading steams (back losses). Not per race, but the total outcome of several months of that type of bet on that type of market.
Dutching is a legitimate technique but again it depends on getting net value on that basket of selections. Eg if you consider that the 3 horses have a combined chance of winning of 50% you need their combined odds to be >2.0.
I'm not surprised you're unsure about that though, it's very rarely mentioned in courses etc. But value is everything, it's at the very core of everything we do. And once you realise that then trading and especially analysing your trading become much easier. Don't throw away everything you know about betting just because this approach to it is called something else.
"Trading" is therefore simply betting a lot, nothing about the maths of betting changes just because you're having 100,000 bets or just one. It's why people don't just look at market totals when they're analysing/optimising strategy and they break it down by other categories. Maybe all your closes, or all the opening back bets by price band. . Ie straight betting techniques to analysis what are. effectively 000s of straight bets. For example it's easy to rule out whole types of races because you think you lose on them according to market totals, but digging deeper it could be that you're reading their drifts correctly (lay bets show profit) but you're shocking at reading steams (back losses). Not per race, but the total outcome of several months of that type of bet on that type of market.
Dutching is a legitimate technique but again it depends on getting net value on that basket of selections. Eg if you consider that the 3 horses have a combined chance of winning of 50% you need their combined odds to be >2.0.
I'm not surprised you're unsure about that though, it's very rarely mentioned in courses etc. But value is everything, it's at the very core of everything we do. And once you realise that then trading and especially analysing your trading become much easier. Don't throw away everything you know about betting just because this approach to it is called something else.
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ShaunWhite
- Posts: 9731
- Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2016 3:42 am
... That's from the perspective of someone generating enough bets to be statistically significant which is pretty hard especially if you're fairly new.
There's a few dutching protagonists on the forum and I'm sure they'll add some practical advice to that dry value/mathys stuff. Just keep it in mind.
There's a few dutching protagonists on the forum and I'm sure they'll add some practical advice to that dry value/mathys stuff. Just keep it in mind.
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ShaunWhite
- Posts: 9731
- Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2016 3:42 am
'Shaun' will do now we've met once 
It's alway hard to know how to pitch a response because you don't want to be patronising.
Value is a cruel reality but as I said if you're winning then that's what you've managed to find whether you intended to or not. Trading price movement can be the hardest to get your head around in terms value, but if you're green at SP (known to be correct on average) then you're undeniably holding a value position because the average price you got ie where the red/green crossover is, is better than the sp.
Trading isnt directly value betting, it's technique to achieve it other than the usual method of sitting hunched over the Racing Post.
Without getting bogged down into reems of this, i've done a lot of analysis over the years and especially around efficient market hypothesis, and understand how value is created, even doing benign things like scalping 10 minutes out. You can trade effectively without knowing any of that and many do, but I start with that and strategy becomes a consequence not a starting point.