BLOGS

I commented after last month’s poor result that I’d do some analysis and provide that back to you. Given things have continued this month I’ve extended the analysis through to yesterday 10 June.

Following is a table summarising the results looking at the win markets only:

Expected wins = the number of wins expected based on the selections’ starting prices

Odds advantage = (Email price – 1) / (Best fixed closing price – 1)

Note that the odds advantage is calculated using the prices from the six corporate bookmakers I keep figures for. The email price is the 3rd ranked of those and the odds advantage figure understates what could be achieved.

An odds advantage of 1.37 means we have a big margin over the closing price. For example, taking $10 about a horse that starts $7.50 or $6 about one that starts $4.60.

In a nutshell, we expected 25 winners and only got 15 meaning that the horses didn’t run to anywhere near their starting prices. If we’d got the 25 then the win bets would have returned $108 for our $86 outlay.

There’s not a lot I can do about that, though it’s been a bit depressing watching so many of them be uncompetitive and fail to justify their backing. Most people would tweak their selection set or something but given the size of the odds advantage that would be mistake. Hopefully, the run of outs can end and we can get some winners back on the board. As an example of how these things can work, in a famous incident in 1913 at the Monte Carlo Casino one of the roulette wheels spat out 26 blacks in a row. How did people respond as the sequence grew longer? They increased their bets on red! Makes no sense, but it’s not known as the Gambler’s Fallacy for nothing.

I also mentioned that people who were playing the Betfair back & lay game would have been having a good time of it lately given the odds advantage achieved. There are various ways to go about backing & laying. Some can be a bit set and forget while others need you to be watching the odds and placing your bets late.

The following provides a simple example of what’s possible using a set and forget approach. I calculated a simple win bet with a corporate bookie on each selection based on the price sent and to make a profit of $1000, and then used the actual Betfair SP (BFSP) to calculate liability based on making a profit to cover the amount of the back bet if the selection doesn’t win. What I’m doing here is reducing risk so that if the horse wins then we make money when the BFSP is less than price taken, lose a little if it goes the wrong way and the horse wins, and square up for a $0 loss if the horse loses.

Using these parameters and the selections for May-June you’d be around $3500 ahead before Betfair commission, which at 8% would reduce that figure to around $2000. Turnover on the 137 back bets is around $25K, the maximum Betfair liability on a single bet is around $2000, and the largest Betfair balance required to place the lay bets early in set and forget mode is $10K.

There are many ways to win when betting and I hope this example opens your mind to the possibilities that are out there.

If you have any queries or comments then feel free to send me an email or contact me through Twitter @Johns_Analytics