For previous posts,
click "The Spoil Heap" tab at the top of this web page.
January 30th 2010. Horse racing markets
F/C, RFC, and W/O.
I've been looking at Betfair horse racing markets, and in particular, I was
looking for an "Insurance bet" to cover a bet or a lay.
As you know, we have that option in football matches if we use the 0-0 score in
Correct Score.
If we are betting, we can place a small bet on 0-0 to recover our losing bet on
something else, or if we are laying, we can place a small bet on 0-0 to recover
our lay liabilities if the score remains 0-0.
Use either of those methods, and we can sit back and wait for a goal before
making our next move.
If the score remains 0-0, we can break even with zero loss.
Those insurance bets rely on nothing happening in
the game.
The result at Kick-off is 0-0, so if nothing happens and the final score is 0-0,
we have a winning bet to cover our losses on other bets or lays.
Unfortunately in horse races there is no such
comparable bet that we can use, but just as in football markets, there are
equivalent markets that we can take a look at.
Equivalent markets allow us to bet or lay in one market, and bet or lay the same
thing in a
2nd market.
That applies to both football and horse racing, and probably other sports. Follow this
link for a list of some equivalent markets in football matches.
I know of only one equivalent market in Betfair
horse racing markets :-
Bet a F/C and that is the same as betting a
single runner in the W/O market.
If we bet a horse in the Without market, our horse can finish 2nd to Betfair's
excluded runner and we still have a winning bet.
That is exactly the same as a Straight Forecast which is what the F/C market
is - - 2 horses to finish 1st and 2nd in that order.
We could bet in the W/O market and lay in the F/C
market to cover the same 2 runners.
If our W/O runner wins we have a winning bet
and a successful lay of the F/C.
If our W/O runner is 2nd to Betfair's
nominated horse in the W/O market, we have a winning bet in the W/O market and F/C lay
liabilities.
If our W/O runner is unplaced, we have a
losing bet in the W/O market, but a successful lay in the F/C market.
Note that we cannot do that in reverse - - - Lay in W/O and bet in F/C.
If our W/O runner runs 2nd and Betfair's
nominated horse is not the winner, we would have a losing bet in F/C and lay
liabilities in W/O, so don't be tempted to bet a Forecast and lay in the W/O
market . . . . . that can very easily be a loser for you.
If you compare the odds in these 2 markets, you
will find that there is no profit to be made as the W/O bet odds should always
be smaller than the F/C lay odds.
I've messed about with that on and off over the last couple of years or so, but
this time I looked at combining the 3 markets of Win, Place and either F/C ( 7
runners or less with Place markets paying to 2 places) or RFC (8 runners or more
with place markets paying to 3 or 4 places).
My theory was that potential profit from
laying in the Place market could be used to trade these 3 markets to an overall
profit.
If we lay in the Place market and get our Place Market book percentage above
100%, we have a profit if we hit just 1 placed horse but a loss if we hit 2..
If we lay in the Place market to over a 200% book, we have winnings if we hit 1
or 2
placed horses but a loss if we hit 3.
For a demonstration of profits from laying in the Place market, take a look at these 2 videos - - - -
Lay the Place market.
With that lay profit in mind, I looked at Betting several Forecasts and
laying both Win and Place, knowing that :-
Once I layed over 100% in the Place market, I would have winnings in the Place market to
offset losses in the other 2 markets.
Lay over a 200% book in the Place market (3
places), and over 300% (4 places) and we can have profit if 2 or 3 horses
that we have layed are placed.
Laying in the Place market may not be as dangerous as you expect.
To start with, I was looking to
bet say, Forecasts 3-4 and 5-6, and lay horses 3,4,5, and 6 in the Win and place
markets.
Once I had built a spreadsheet for the staking, it looked like that worked an absolute treat, with green in all 3 markets.
Alarm bells started ringing as this looked too good to be true, which of course
it was.
Eventually, I asked myself "What would happen if I had placed horses from
different forecasts that I had bet" ?
If horses 4 and 6 finished 1st and 2nd, I hadn't bet the Forecast for that, so I
would have both win and place liabilities, but no winning Forecast bet to cover
those liabilities. . . . . . a Big Red.
I realized that I needed to bet all possible forecast combinations for all the
runners that I layed, but I had only looked at betting 2.
As an example, if I layed horse numbers 3, 4, 5, and 6 in the Win and Place
markets, I couldn't just bet the forecasts 3-4 and 4-3 plus 5-6 and 6-5.
If horses 4 and 6 finished 1st and 2nd, I didn't have a bet on the 4-6 forecast.
I needed to bet the additional forecast combinations of 3-5, 5-3, plus 4-6, 6-4,
plus 3-6 and 6-3, plus 4-5, 5-4, to give me full cover.
That lot may look like a complete losing set up, but in a 7 runner race, with the
profit from laying in the Place market to over a 100% book, we only have a loss
in the Place market if we hit both the winner and the horse that finishes 2nd
with our lays.
If horse 1 or 7 finishes 1st or 2nd, we have profit from laying in the Place
market.
In this example, we have Place market profit if only one of our horses is placed so if we do
not bet all forecast combinations, the spreadsheet only shows a loss, if we hit
2
placed horses that we have layed in the Place market.
All other possible outcomes can show a profit.
If we bet the Forecast market and lay in the Win
and Place markets, there are several different possible outcomes for our trade
:-
A
B
C
D
1st & 2nd
Winner only
2nd only
All unplaced
8.35
-38.85
11.15
61.68
F/C wins
As you can see from the table above, we can have
winnings against 3 of the 4 possible outcomes if we bet just the 2 forecasts,
3-4 & 4-3 and lay only those 2 runners.
The only losing outcome is if one of our 2 horses wins the race and our other
runner is unplaced.
Any other result, and we have profit.
However, if we bet more than one forecast, and lay more than 2 runners, it is
possible for us to hit both win and place with horses in 2 separate forecasts,
so now there are 5 possible outcomes.
Column B shows the profit or loss if we hit the winner and a placed horse that
we have layed that is not covered by one of our bets in a forecast.
If we bet all possible forecasts, we can ignore column B and only lose if we hit
the winner and nothing else is placed :-
A
B
C
D
E
1st & 2nd
Win & Place
Winner only
2nd only
All unplaced
8.35
-88.32
-38.85
11.15
61.68
F/C wins
Not the F/C
If we bet in the RFC market and lay both win and
place, we need additional columns for 3, or 4 placed horses.
Things get bigger, with more possible outcomes for the trade :-
1st & 2nd
1st & 2nd
1st & 3rd
2nd & 3rd
1st 2nd 3rd
Winner only
2nd or 3rd only
All unplaced
59.80
-36.07
-36.07
63.93
-136.07
63.93
163.93
263.93
RFC wins
Not the RFC
Not the RFC
Not the RFC
Not the RFC
I've left figures in here that show losses if we
don't bet all combinations in the RFC market.
If we don't bet all RFC combinations for the horses that we lay in the
Win and Place markets, and lay the Place market to a 200% book, it may be
possible to have losses only in the yellow
highlighted cell.
All other cells could show a profit as they only involve 1 or 2 placed horses.
So, where do we go from here ?
There may be possibilities for these trades if we can bet in the F/C or RFC
markets without full cover for all our lays, but as described above, there are
risks involved if we hit placed horses that are not covered by a bet in F/C or
RFC.
A video description of these trades may help to make things clearer.
I'll take a look at creating a video for these F/C and RFC spreadsheets.
My explanation of what I was trying to do may not
be crystal clear, but I hope you enjoyed this quite unusual F/C and RFC topic.
Laying the Place market to
profit is what prompted me to delve a little further into Straight and Reverse
Forecasts,
Howard.
January 17th 2012. Arbing or Arbitrage.
I've been concentrating on my trading for the
last few months, but things dried up quite a bit in December for what I have
been doing, so I'm looking for something new at present that is risk-free.
You are probably aware that we refer to 2
different trading methods as "Arbing".
Get it right, and both methods provide guaranteed winnings with zero risk.
Arbing by betting with a bookie and
laying at shorter odds in Betfair.
Arbing by betting (Dutching) every
runner to a book percentage less than 100%.
Ultimately, I expect to get around to some "Arbing"
- - betting on horses with a bookie and laying the same runner at lower odds
in Betfair.
The big problem with Arbing is bookie account closures and bet stakes being
limited by the bookies.
As you probably know, bookies don't like Arbers.
Last week I was looking at Arbitage by
Dutching all the runners in horse races, placing 2 or 3 bets with bookies,
and the rest in Betfair to bet every runner.
The theory was that I might be able to get my
book percentage heading down below 100% by using the bookie odds if they
were bigger than Betfair odds, and then hope to bet everything else at odds
of say 10% or 20% bigger than the bet odds available in Betfair.
That would give me a book percentage well below 100% for guaranteed winnings
whatever the result.
I
only paper traded a few races, so no cash was involved.
After comparing bookie and Betfair odds and
betting 2 or 3 of the runners (on paper), I looked at the Betfair graphs to
identify which of the other horses could be shortening in the betting.
I then bet those at the available odds, but offered to bet at 20% bigger
odds on all the other runners - - - - again, all on paper.
To get matched, the bet odds for my other Betfair runners needed to move to
the Blue, bet side of the Betfair market.
In races where I got all my bets matched, I showed a reasonable profit that
looked bigger to me than the profit from a straight bet and lay with bookie
and Betfair of just 2 or 3 runners.
That seemed to work ok for a race or 3, but as
you can guess, it was very difficult to bet to profit in every race, and the
losing races wiped out any profit that I had made on profitable races.
Betting on all the runners that I thought were shortening in the betting and
hoping to get matched at higher odds on those that I thought were drifting
was just gambling on odds movements of course, but it was worth a try. . . .
. . .at least on paper.
I built a sheet for the staking, with
no commission deductions for the bookie bets, but commission taken off the
Betfair bets.
As expected, it came to nothing as I was simply
guessing which way the odds would move.
Nothing new there I'm afraid, even though I
tried to swing things in my favour a bit by using bookie odds as well as
Betfair.
Just for good measure, I
watched the "In Running" odds of my runners that were still un-matched at
Race Time..
Quite often they would get matched In Running, but if I hit a winner with
one of these un-matched bets there was a good chance that it would never get
matched In Running.
I hit one of those surprisingly early in my paper trades.
Not all horse drift in the betting before they hit the front and win their
race.
If I hit the winner with an unmatched bet, all my other bets were losing
bets, giving me a very big loss.
It would be cheaper to bet these un-matched bets at unfavourable odds close
to Race Time for an overall loss than take such a big hit.
The problems that I encountered there are the
same for every Betfair trader of course.
No-one can consistently predict which way the odds will move.
We may get it right for a race or 3 and show a profit in each race, but when the
losing races come along, they wipe out all our hard earned profit in one go.
All very frustrating.
I'm sure you've been there - - - I have, several times.
At least I only lose on paper these days when I get involved in predicting odds
movements.
Back to the drawing board once again,
Howard.
November 2nd 2011. Laying an Each Way bet.
Earlier this year, I built a spreadsheet for Arbing an Each Way bet.
Follow this link for a video
demo of the Each Way Arbing sheet
That is bet Each Way with a bookie, and lay both the Win and Place markets in
Betfair to equalize the trade.
Commission is built into the calculations.
Get the odds right, and we cannot lose, just the same as when Arbing the win
market with a bookie bet and Betfair lay.
An advantage of an Each Way Arb, is that it is not essential to make a profit
from both the win and place parts of the trade.
For example, the win part of our trade might only break even or maybe make a
small loss, whilst the place part of the trade makes a profit that puts the
whole trade into profit.
Bookie place odds are decided by the bookie win
odds of course.
Betfair Place odds are totally independent from the Win market, so if the lay
odds for a place fall some way below a 5th or a quarter of the bookie bet odds,
we may be able to make a successful Each Way Arb.
As part of their marketing, bookies often offer a 3rd the odds for a place, and
also pay out on extra places.
The bet odds that they offer may take that into consideration, but Each Way
Arbing is certainly something worth considering if you haven't looked at it
before.
Suitable odds are not as easy to find as for win only Arbs, but opportunities
are there if you are prepared to look for them.
Just one or 2 extra bits of profit here and there can help towards a decent
profit at the end of the month.
Also, our bookie sees us as a customer who is betting on something other than
just win only selections, so by betting Each Way, we may even look like a better
customer . . . . . . . if anyone is taking any notice of that kind of thing.
The sheet shows the lay stakes needed to equalize
the trade over all 3 possible results - - - if our runner Wins, is Placed, or
Unplaced.
A 2nd sheet within the same Excel file, biases the staking to break even if our
horse is unplaced.
That gives a bigger profit if our horse wins or is placed.
If our horse is unplaced, our 2 lays recover our losing bet with the bookie, so
we lose nothing.
Pro traders use the "Break even" method to make
bigger gains in the long term.
I am told that Arbing takes advantage of "Value" odds, so to bias the staking to
favour a payout from the bookie should pay better than simply trading for a
smaller profit by equalizing the trade for a profit whatever the result.
I have never pretended to be a pro trader.
I have done some Arbing, but nothing serious, so I cannot confirm that trading
to Break Even on losers pays better than making a smaller profit whatever the
result.
However, I am assured by several pro traders that profiting from winners only
when Arbing the win market, and win and place only if Arbing each way, is the
way to go.
Good luck if you have a go at Each Way Arbing,
Howard.
October 28th 2011.
The best programme on television.
This topic may not be appropriate for my Trading Blog, but it has a hell of a
lot to do with banking and trading on a global scale.
If you are unclear about the reasons behind the
"Occupy Wall Street" campaign that is sweeping America and is gathering
momentum in other countries including the UK., I suggest that you start to watch
The Keiser
Report on the Russia Today Channel on your television.
If you follow that link, don't let the political
description of this television programme put you off in any way.
This is worth watching, even if like me, a few weeks ago, you held no strong
political views.
Watch, and get yourself indoctrinated. . . . . . You won't regret it.
I came across the
The Keiser
Report whilst surfing my TV
channels looking for something worth watching, and have been a regular viewer of
it every Tuesday and Thursday since.
This is my favourite television programme at present.
Go to Sky channel 512 or Free View channel 85, Tuesday and Thursday 5:30, 9:30,
or 11:00 pm.
Max Keiser, the presenter, may seem a bit "Over the top" at first, but once you
get used to his style, the man talks a lot of sense. . . . . unlike those he
targets and describes in his television programme.
Watch a programme or 2 and you won't need me to
explain here what is going on right in front of your eyes, in your back yard.
The topics are varied, but revolve around the same 3 things, massive fraud,
corruption, and war mongering.
Good luck with The Keiser Report,
Howard.
October 28th 2011. Allowing for bookie
turnover.
No doubt you have a few on-line bookie accounts, and have bet with the bookie
and layed the same selection in Betfair to extract guaranteed profit from your
deposit and free bet trades combined.
If you are not familiar with that, follow this link and
watch the
video demo nearest to the top of this web page.
When we open new bookie accounts, the terms and conditions of their sign-up free
bet offers, often include turnover requirements.
A typical example might be,
Make a deposit and we will add a 50% bonus.
Before a withdrawal can be made, the bonus
must be bet 4 times at odds of 2.0 or bigger.
If the turnover requirements are not met,
the bonus will be withheld.
My advice is, don't let turnover requirements put
you off trading a bookie sign-up bonus, or any other free bet bonus.
If necessary, we can bet with the bookie and lay the same selection in Betfair
for a small loss for quite a large turnover of bookie bets, and still come out
at the other end with a profit.
All we need is enough money in the bookie end of our trade to cover a series of
small losses.
If we are unlucky and hit a winner with our free bet, we can get that extra
money in there very cheaply.
The best way to make a profit from any bonus is
to hit losers whilst trading both our deposit and free bet.
However, if we a winner with the free bet part of the offer, we will need to
meet the turnover.
To cover that, all we need to do is adjust our staking to favour a win result,
slightly more than a lose result.
Then if we are unlucky and hit a winner, we have extra winnings in the bookie
account to cover losses from further bet and lay trades whilst we meet the
turnover requirements.
Here is an example of a "Normal" free bet trade.
Assuming the the free bet is Stake Not Returned with bookie winnings, it pays
best to bet and lay at BIG odds.
To keep the calculations nice and easy for this example, we will assume bet and
lay odds of 11.0, which is bet 10/1, Lay 10/1.
So, for a free £10 bet with the bookie, we would normally lay £9.13 for a win or
lose profit of £8.68 assuming Betfair commission of 5%.
Win = Bet £10 x 10 = +£100 with the bookie, Lay £9.13 x 10 =
-£91.30 liabilities =
+£8.70 profit.
Lose = Zero with the bookie as this is a free bet, but a successful lay of £9.13
less 5% commission = +£8.67.
Now if we need to turn over another £30 before we
can withdraw, that could almost eliminate our £8.70 profit if we had hit a
winner.
To get around that, if we reduce our lay by £1 and lay £8.13 instead of £9.13,
we bias our staking to favour a win outcome for £18.68 profit or a lose profit
of £7.72 after commission.
Now if we are unlucky and hit a winner, we have £18.68 in our bookie account
instead of £8.68.
Meeting turnover now, looks a lot less of a problem.
Here are the maths of that :-
Win = Bet £10 x 10 = +£100
with the bookie, Lay £8.13 x 10 = -£81.30
liabilities = +£18.70 profit.
Lose = Zero with the bookie
as this is a free bet, but a successful lay of £8.13 less 5% commission =
+£7.72.
If we hit a loser, our insurance of a slightly smaller lay has cost
less than £1.
Most of my Excel Hedging spreadsheets have a
"Adjust" input that allows us to bias the staking to favour a win or a lose
outcome.
This is an example of how that can be used.
Good luck with meeting your bookie turnover,
Howard.
September 17th 2011. Betting almost
everything in Betfair.
I heard of a football system last week that went something like this :-
Bet Over 1.5 goals
Bet 1-0 and 0-1 in Correct Score.
You can see from that, that we are betting every
score with more than one goal (Over 1.5 Goals), plus 1-0 and 0-1.
In short, we are betting everything except 0-0.
If we were to do that in the 2 markets, Under/Over, and Correct Score,
commission would be more expensive than if we had simply bet all those scores
except 0-0 in Correct Score.
If we use 2 markets and hit the winning score with our bets, the losing bet or
bets in our 2nd market are not deducted before commission is taken by Betfair,
so betting in 2 markets when we can bet in a single market is not a good idea.
Of course, Betfair provide these extra markets
that bunch several scores together, probably for that very reason that it pays
them better, and also for our convenience.
It is quicker and easier for us to bet a load of scores in one go rather than
muck about placing a lot of small bets, but we pay for the privilege in the form
of more commission.
If you ever think of covering all but one or 2
scores, you might consider this :-
Betting all but one score is the same as
laying that single score.
If we bet all but 0-0 and the game ends 0-0, all
our bets are losers - - - we have big liabilities.
If we lay 0-0 and the game ends 0-0, we have big liabilities of almost exactly
the same as the bet liabilities described above.
So, if you have a strategy in mind that involves betting nearly everything,
maybe across more than one market, you might consider a lay or 2 which might do
almost exactly the same thing, but could be a lot simpler to set up and could be
cheaper in commission.
Example. These odds are taken from
Betfair for tomorrows Manchester United - Chelsea game.
Bet Over 1.5 Goals at odds of 1.32 for £75.76.
Bet 1-0 at 8.8 for £11.36 and 0-1 at 16.0 for £6.25.
Place those bets and if there are any goals, we win £6.63 before commission.
If the game ends 0-0, we lose the total of our stakes = £93.37.
The 0-0 lay odds are 13.5.
Divide £93.37 by 12.5 for the same liability and we can lay 0-0 at odds of 13.5
for a stake of £7.47 with liabilities of £93.37.
If we lay 0-0 at odds of 13.5 for £7.47, we have
lay liabilities of exactly the same as our potential bet losses of £93.37.
If the game does not end 0-0, our profit is slightly bigger at £7.47 instead of
£6.63 before commission if we had bet all scores except 0-0.
Chuck commission deductions across 2 markets into the Betting equation and
laying 0-0 becomes even more attractive.
Apologies if you are familiar with this, but sometimes it pays slightly better
to look at things from a different angle.
Good luck with your laying, Howard.
August 28th 2011. Trading Betfair
Multiples refunds.
I've had 2 customer queries recently concerning trading multiple bets by betting
for example, a treble, and then laying for a profit.
Unless there is a nice juicy refund involved, I don't see any future in betting
a multiple and then laying each individual runner, in the hope of laying at
lower odds than the bet odds of the multiple.
If we lay in that way, if we hit a loser, that is end of trade.
Each time we hit a winner, the lay liabilities from that winner need to be
recovered when we lay the next runner, so as we hit winners and our bet stake
increases, our lay stakes also need to increase to keep pace with our lay
liabilities.
If we can lay at lower odds than our bet odds, we can have profit.
If our lay odds are bigger than our bet odds we will lose, in just the same way
as a straight bet and lay of an individual runner.
If we attempt these multiples trades 2 things
will cock up our trade, Time and Commission.
Time.
If we bet a treble of 3 horses in races just 15
minutes apart, that would give us time to sort out our staking between races,
and hopefully avoid problems of a race starting a little later than advertised.
If we are able to take bet odds at the time of placing our treble bet, there
would be a minimum of 30 minutes between placing of our treble bet and our 3rd
race taking place.
30 minutes or more is a very long time between placing a bet and then placing a
lay..
We might get lucky and see our lay odds reduce, but you don't need me to explain
how the odds could go against us and leave us with lay odds some way above the
bet odds that we took.
Even if we place our bet in Betfair Multiples, we would still need to lay at
less than Betfair Starting Price, which from my experience, is not easy to do.
Commission.
As you probably know, working out winnings on a double or a treble simply
involves multiplying the decimal odds and stake.
3 winners at evens with a basic stake of £2 is £2 x 2.0 x 2.0 x 2.0 = 8 x £2 = a
total return of £16.
We win £2 on the first runner, add our £2 stake to that, and bet £4 on our 2nd
runner for another £4 profit.
Add that £4 profit to our £4 bet stake of our 2nd runner and we have an £8
bet riding onto our 3rd runner.
That gives some idea of how quickly the stakes increase, just at odds of 2.0.
If we bet a £2 treble and then lay each
selection in turn until we hit a loser, unless we select horses at very short
odds, our lay stake could easily get quite big.
When we eventually hit a loser, we have commission to pay on our successful lay.
Any profit that we hope to make, could easily be wiped out by our commission
payment, unless we have been very fortunate and been able to continually lay at
lower odds than our bet odds.
The nice juicy refund method.
About 18 months ago, I used to trade Betfair trebles,
usually about once a week,
to take advantage of Betfair's "Midweek Mania" refund.
At that time, Betfair offered a different refund each day, Monday to Friday,
with one or more of them being a Betfair Multiple bet.
The offer was something like "We at Betfair think that Big Fella, will win
the 2:30 at Kempton today.
Place a Betfair Multiple of at least 3 selections that includes Big Fella, and
if Big Fella loses, we will refund your Betfair Multiples bet stake.
Maximum refund £10".
Betfair still offer a refund on Betfair
Multiples, but these days the offer is a refund if just one of your selections
is a loser.
If we bet a treble now, that means that we need to hit 2 winners before we could
qualify for a refund on the 3rd runner..
I used to trade Betfair's Midweek Mania refund offer by putting their selected
horse as the first runner in my Betfair treble.
I could then trade that runner first in anticipation of it losing, and adjust my
lay stake accordingly for guaranteed winnings if it lost.
If it won, I carried on and layed my other 2
runners in turn until I either hit a loser and made a profit, or completed my
treble with 3 winners, again for a profit if I managed to get lay odds below
Betfair Starting Price, which is used for Betfair Multiple returns
The refund available on the first runner gave some leeway to play with for my
remaining 2 runners, as I always reduced my first lay stake in anticipation of
the refund.
I hope that makes sense.
For example, suppose we place a £10 bet at evens (odds of 2.0), and expect a £10
refund if we hit a loser, but no refund if our horse wins.
We have bet £10 at odds of 2.0, but in anticipation of the £10 refund, we can
afford to lay only £5 for guaranteed profit before commission.
If we hit the winner, we win £10 but have lay liabilities of only £5, so our
profit is £5.
If we hit a loser, we have a losing £10 bet, but a successful £5 lay, plus a £10
bet refund, so our profit is £5.
I used to start to lay my Betfair multiple using that method, but with
commission built into the lay side of my calculations.
Unfortunately, Betfair have now closed that loophole by making their refund
payable only after at least 2 winners.
That example shows how my first lay stake was quite a bit lower than the bet
stake on my first runner.
If Betfair's nominated horse lost, that was end of trade.
If it won, my liabilities carried forward onto my 2nd horse were quite a bit
smaller than my bet winnings that were carried forward onto the 2nd horse in my
treble, so I had some slack to play with on my remaining 2 lays.
Once I hit a loser, that was end of trade and I usually had a nice profit.
I found those trades a bit of a challenge if I hit winners, but well worth
doing.
If we were to attempt to bet a Betfair Multiples
treble refund now in a similar way, we would need to anticipate our refund on
our 3rd runner.
I don't think it would be a good idea to bet our treble and then start to lay
our selections one at a time in the hope of hitting 2 winners before we could
trade for guaranteed winnings on our 3rd runner.
There is no point of course, in betting a
multiple say, with a bookie, and laying the same runners in Betfair Multiples.
Betfair Multiples uses Betfair Starting Prices for the returns, and we all know
that bookie bet odds are probably always less than Betfair S.P.
Even if we started our treble with an Arb, with bookie bet odds bigger than
Betfair odds at the time, we would be gambling that the Betfair S.P. would be
smaller than the bookie odds that we took for our first runner.
If we hit a a winner with that first runner, the rest would be just a gamble
that our bet odds would be bigger than our lay odds at Betfair S.P..
It would be far safer just to Arb by betting and laying that single runner.
Unless a nice juicy refund is involved, I wouldn't trade any multiples.
Good luck with your trading, Howard.
July 21st 2011. Trading an
All Red screen. If whilst we are trading, the odds move against us and to equalize our trade
would mean trading to a loss, it may be tempting to place a bet or
lay to reduce our current liabilities whilst we wait for the odds to move back
in our favour.
This video demonstrates the effect that placing a bet of lay at unfavourable
odds will have on our position.
Although we will be reducing our total exposure, a partial trade out at
unfavourable odds will leave us with exactly the same potential loss at the
current odds, and will also make it harder for us to exit without any financial
damage.
We could be making our situation worse rather than better.
This video uses my Hedge 3 Bets Spreadsheet.
Follow this link for
a video
demonstration of my Hedge 3 Bets spreadsheet and other hedging spreadsheets.
The spreadsheet shows the bet or lay stakes required to equalize our trade for
an equal profit or loss whatever the outcome of the event we are trading.
Bet stakes are shown highlighted in blue, and lay stakes in pink.
Good luck with your trades when you
get into a red situation, Howard.
July 3rd 2011. Dutching and Hedging with balanced stakes.
Betfair's "What If" facility allows us to see what the effect would be of our
bet and lays before we submit them.
With the "What If" facility switched on, we can work out to some extent what
size stakes we should use for our bets and lays if we increase or decrease the
size of our stakes before we submit them.
A far better (and quicker) way of trading in my opinion, is to balance our
staking throughout our trades so that our profit or loss for all our selections is entirely predictable
at all stages of our trade.
If we are betting or laying more than one runner or football score etc. and
guess the size of our stakes, our profits/loss will be unbalanced which can lead
to big problems.
The further you get into a
trade, the bigger those problems are likely to be unless of course you are used
to Ad-libbing your way through your trades, which I would guess, most of us
aren't.
I've watched plenty of on-line demonstrations of trading Betfair football
markets, and I would guess that in all of those demos, the stakes were
unbalanced.
In every instance that I can remember, and most of those demos have been live
trades, the staking seemed to me to be very much guesswork rather than planned,
balanced staking.
The video below demonstrates the advantages of
balanced stakes against the guesswork of ad-libbing your way through a trade.
The spreadsheets I use in the video are my Be A Bookie spreadsheet for the
Dutching and Hedge 3 Bets spreadsheet for laying my bets to Hedge out of the
example trade.
Note that those 2 sheets don't include commission in the calculations.
I also use a Dutch and Hedge sheet that I don't sell at present.
If you are interested in a spreadsheet that covers both Dutching and Hedging on
the same spreadsheet,
E-mail Me and I'll sort you out
with a sheet that will combine both Dutching and Hedging.
In my opinion, there is very little advantage in guessing the size of your
stakes at any point in a trade.
June 15th 2011. Bet First or Lay First
demonstration video.
I've been looking at improving my Trade the Winning Team football strategy, but the only improvement that I could come up with was to bet scores
just within the Correct Score market.
If we do that, we can reduce the number of scores that we cover..
The strategy is to lay the Winning Team in Match Odds in order to cover all the
draw scores, plus all scores for the Losing Team.
Then when we bet scores for the Winning team in Correct Score, we have the equivalent of bets on
all but a very few scores.
If we change the
strategy slightly and bet just within Correct Score, we can eliminate some
un-necessary bets by betting just a few of the Losing Team scores and draw
scores, rather than covering them all using a lay of the Winning Team in Match
Odds.
Then, if goals are scored and we need to bet more scores to keep ahead of what
is happening on the pitch, we are slightly better off.
That is only a slight improvement on the original strategy, so unfortunately,
nothing much gained there.
For quite a while, I've thought about putting
some videos together to demonstrate one or 2 things of interest concerning
Betfair trading.
Below, is a demo video concerning trading rising or falling markets.
When we trade odds movements, we need to Bet First if we anticipate a falling
market, but Lay First if we anticipate a rising market.
If we are looking to equalize our trade for an equal profit or loss whatever the
outcome of our event, this video demonstrates the advantage of a Bet First
trade, rather than a Lay First trade.
There are 3 advantages that a
Bet First hedge in a falling
market has over a Lay First
hedge in a rising market.
Our liability is limited to
our bet stake if the odds
move against us..
Our profit can be multiples
of our bet stake if the odds
move in our favour.
The profit per tick if the
odds move in our favour is
bigger than the loss per
tick if the odds move
against us.
The
opposite applies if we Lay First
in a rising market. There are 3
disadvantages.
Our liability can be
multiples of our lay stake
if the odds move against us.
Our profit cannot be more
than our single lay stake
if the odds move in our
favour.
The profit per tick if the
odds move in our favour is
smaller than the loss per
tick if the odds move
against us.
In this demonstration video I use part my Hedge 3
Bets spreadsheet.
The spreadsheet shows the stakes required to trade for an equal profit or loss
whatever the result of our trade. For a bigger view of the video below,
click the icon with 4
small arrows near the bottom right
hand corner, just to the right of the word "YouTube"
As always, good luck with your trading, Howard.
May 18th 2011. Lay the winning team in a
football match, a Dutching strategy.
If you have visited my Strategies web site
http://betandlay.co.uk/strategies/Football.htm
you may have seen that I have a Lay The
Winning Team strategy for Betfair football trading..
This a Dutching strategy that involves betting the with the intention of hitting the winning score
in football matches.
As part of that strategy, we Lay the Winning Team in order to cover a lot of
bets with a single stake.
The strategy is
to step into the game well into the 2nd half or towards the end after 70 minutes
or so.
In the Correct Score market, bet the current score, plus other scores 1 or 2
goals up from the current score.
If more goals are scored, bet more scores to keep ahead of what is happening on
the pitch.
To cut down on the number of bets required, we lay the Winning Team in Match
Odds as insurance
against the game ending with a Draw scoreline, or a win for the "Losing Team"
The liabilities of that lay can be very small.
As an example, a £100 lay at odds of 1.09 has liabilities of only
-£9,
but can cover a lot of scores in Correct Score if we lay one of
the teams.
A Match Odds lay of the Winning Team is the equivalent of betting all the draw
scores, 1-1, 2-2, 3-3 etc. in Correct Score, plus all the possible scores of the
Losing Team.
When we then bet some scores of the Winning Team, we have the equivalent of a
lot of Bets of all but a few scores in Correct Score.
A problem with this strategy is that if goals are
scored and we need to bet more scores to keep ahead of the game, we can trade
into an overall red position . . . . .a losing trade.
An answer to that could be to reduce the number of bets involved in my Trade The
Winning Team strategy,
To achieve that, we could either place all bets in Correct Score, or use an
equivalent market that covers just a few Correct Scores rather than the large
number of scores that the Match Odds lay covers..
Cut down on a lot of un-necessary bets and we will improve profits and have more
to play with if we need to bet more scores.
Also, as part of my re-think of this Trade The
Winning Team strategy, I have built a new spreadsheet which includes a Hedging
facility.
So, if a goal is scored and the odds move in our favour, we may be able to Bet
in Match Odds and Lay in Correct Score to exit our trade and show a profit
overall that covers any losing bets that we may have in Correct Score.
That all sounds very nice in theory, but I need to watch the odds in quite a few games
and do some trading before I can see a way of improving this Winning Team
strategy.
I have a couple of testing buddies lined up for this new sheet who have e-mailed
me with some very positive feed-back on the existing method.
If we can add some improvements between us, things could get very interesting.
Good luck with your trades, Howard.
April 26th 2011. Trading Correct Score with
0-0 insurance using a bookie refund.
A suggestion that keeps cropping up in my e-mail in-box is that a bookie 0-0
refund could be used as a free insurance bet if we are trading the Correct
Score market in a football match on Betfair.
The theory is that we could :-
Bet a score such as 1-1 with a bookie who
offers a refund if the game ends 0-0.
After a goal is scored, we lay 1-1 to
profit, providing of course that the 1-1 Lay odds drop below our bookie Bet
odds.
If the game ends 0-0, the bookie refunds our
losing bet stake.
The 0-0 refund is in effect free insurance against the game ending 0-0.
If there is no score, the bookie refunds our bet
stake . . . . so in effect, by betting with a bookie who offers a 0-0 refund, we
can trade with a free 0-0 insurance bet.
In theory there is nothing wrong with getting a free 0-0 insurance bet.
However, it is cheaper to trade just within Betfair :-
Bet our 1-1 score in Betfair,
Place a small bet on 0-0 in Betfair to
recover our bet stake if the game ends 0-0 instead of betting with a bookie
who offers a 0-0 refund
After a goal, Lay 1-1 to an overall profit
that also recovers our small 0-0 insurance bet.
In the video below, the calculations do not
include commission deductions.
I have set the spreadsheet up to see the £3 insurance bet on 0-0 as a losing
bet.
The £3 is deducted from the profits shown in the Betfair part of
the example shown.
Both examples are trades of 1-1 at the odds available for the Champions League
Semi-Final between Real Madrid and Barcelona, April 27th 2011.
The bookie odds quoted are taken from the Bet365 web site as Bet365 offer a
refund if football matches end with a score of 0-0.
Due to the very poor bookie bet odds, these 0-0
bookie refunds may not be your best trading option,
Howard.
April 14th 2011. A bit of tidying up.
I'm very busy at present with other things not related to my
trading.
Once I get that out of the way I hope to get back to some
trading and maybe a bit of spreadsheet building again.
I've had a clear out on here as this web page was getting a bit
long.
To see my most recent posts, click the Spoil Heap tab above.
Howard.