Reinster,

When you "lay" the horse you are accepting someone else's bet at the given odds (so if it loses you keep their money - if it wins you have to pay them out at the specified odds). Using your example lets say you put $100 on a horse at $6.00 (5/1) - as you say if it wins you will collect $600 for a profit of $500 - but if it loses you lose your $100. If the odds then shorten in to $5.00 (4/1) you could lay it at that price and accept $120 in bets - if the horse wins you have to pay out $120 x $5 = $600 so you have broken even - if it loses then you have made $20 (the $120 you accepted less the $100 you bet).

Of course you can also lay it for slightly less - if you accept $117 at $5.00 then if it loses you make $17 and if it wins you make $15 (as you only have to pay out $585 but you have won $600). This is what I was doing on Saturday and generally making 5%-15% profit whichever horse won.

If you place both bets on Betfair then you only pay the commission on your profit - in the above example you would pay the 5% on the $15 or $17 profit, not on the $117 or $500 amounts.

When I get a chance (probably tomorrow or Wednesday) I will put some more details on this topic up on my website, including examples of the bets I placed on the weekend.
_________________
"Computers can do that????" - Homer Simpson


[ This Message was edited by: becareful on 2003-02-24 10:29 ]

Another good thing about Betfair is it gives new life to all those old systems that worked well for a few weeks and then fell in a bottomless pit! Any system that shows a huge loss could suddenly become a goldmine as you can "lay" the system selections and as long as they lose you will win :smile:

Luckly Lil's "Lay of the Day" tip could be of much greater interest to me now!

Anyone got any systems out there making a 50% loss or more (particularly those that select shorter priced horses that lose)?

_________________
"Computers can do that????" - Homer Simpson

[ This Message was edited by: becareful on 2003-02-24 10:27 ]

Great explanation BC, thanks. Right, so the Betfair website is set out with a line of prices, eg. (and I hope this formats okay).

Back Back Back Lay Lay Lay.

$4 $5 $6 $7 $8 $9.

$245 $576 $388 $122 $23 $15.

I back the horse at $6 and I want to have $100 on it but does that mean I can't because there's only $388 in the pool?

Similarly if I want to lay the horse at $7 does it mean I can only lay it for $122 divided by $7 (about $17) because if it wins, I have to pay out $122, or do I lay it for the full $122 knowing if the horse wins, I have to pay $122 x $7?

Reenster,

The dollar figures shown below the prices are the amount that is currently on offer (or being requested) at the given price. In the example you gave the $388 @ $6 means that someone is willing to accept up to $388 at that $6.00 price so you can bet up to that amount (so the figure given is the amount you can bet - not how much will be won). The good thing about Betfair is you can place a bet for a lesser or greater amount than what is on offer (I think Twoflys limits you to accepting specific bets - eg. if someone offers $50 on TwoFlys you either bet the full $50 or nothing - you cant take just $10 of it - I could be wrong however as I have not actually used TwoFlys). If you bet less than the amount on offer then your bet is "fully matched" and the amount on offer is decreased by that amount. If you want to bet more then the system will match what is available and then place an "order" for the remainder.

In your example if you bet $100 @ 6.00 then you would get your bet and the system would update to show $288 still available at $6.00. If you bet $500 @ $6.00 then the system would match the $388 currently available and the remining $112 would appear on the "lay" side at $6.00 showing that you are willing to accept up to $112 in bets at that $6.00 price.

The Lay side of things works the same way - the dollar value is the amount that people are wanting to bet at the specified price and you can match some, all or more than the specified amount (so to answer your question if you accepted the $122 at $7 lay then you would be liable to pay $122 x $7 if the horse won). If you are willing to accept more than the $122 again you can enter that and the system will match the $122 amount and display the remainder on the "bet" side showing that you are willing to take bets at the $7 price.

It can be a bit confusing at first so I suggest you start with a few small bets to get the hang of it. I made one mistake when I started and accidentally "layed" a selection at $7 instead of backing it - fortuately I was able to back it at the same price so I didn't lose any money. Once you get the hang of it though it is quite easy.

__________________
"Computers can do that????" - Homer Simpson

The arb. win either way method is great if you can manage it but you still have to guess which way a horses odds are going to go before your initial move. Can get an idea from IAS odds for eg. but if things don't go as expected you may be forced to close out the "trade" with a potential loss on one side. Also requires a large account dt marginal, albeit certain return if things do pan out.
The big attraction for most I think is just the ability to lay horses, this being obviously a heck of a lot easier than backing them.
As backing all favourites at SP gives an 18% lot, and as bookies have long proven, there is a fair bit going for laying favs.
The interesting thing is how far the stampede to the sell side is going to erode this losing margin creating other opportunities. It is hard to predict, for my dull mind anyway, how such a seismic shift in betting arrangements is going to eventually impact on markets and betting behaviour overall.


[ This Message was edited by: Tony on 2003-02-25 12:40 ]

[ This Message was edited by: Tony on 2003-02-25 12:43 ]

As much as I like the idea of BETFAIR, isn’t our money going oversees?

Money traded on BETFAIR is money (percentage) not being fed back into the racing, pacing & chasing industry.

In the long run won't BETFAIR have a detrimental effect on the state of racing in Australia?

Very good point Rogan Josh!

All money that is won or lost or traded on Betfair does nothing to support racing in Australia as far as I am aware.

It's really the regulation of the TAB's and bookies which is at fault here. If the market percentages weren't so excessive (greedy) then many punters would not flock to more viable markets so readily.

TABCORP et al - pull your socks up!

Rogan Josh,

You sound like an advertisement on Sky :smile:

Seriously though the problem, as Chrome Prince points out, is that the TAB take is so high that it makes it quite hard to make a long term profit betting on the TAB (and the bookies aren't much better - in fact sometimes they take an even higher %). Also despite what the ads on Sky imply the TAB take is not all going to support the industry! For every dollar you bet on the TAB between 15 and 20 cents is retained - that is then split into 3 roughly equal portions. One third goes to government in tax, one third to TAB and the last third to the "industry". My desire to support the industry is outweighed by my desire not to pay any more tax than I have to!

As to the overseas thing if the Australian government hadn't been so stupid as to completly stop all development of Australian based internet gambling a few years ago it is quite likely that we would have had several Australian based competitors to Betfair by now.

Of course if you can make a profit on Betfair then a reasonable portion of that money you are winning is probably coming from punters in other countries - so you are helping the trade deficit :smile:

As much as I like to support Australian industries, etc, I am afraid I have to look after my money first - if I can make a lot more money by betting with Betfair then I am going to go with that. When I make my first million I will donate 10% to the "industry"!

_________________
"Computers can do that????" - Homer Simpson

[ This Message was edited by: becareful on 2003-02-25 11:18 ]

Tony,

There were several situations on the weekend when it was extremely obvious which way the odds would move. For example that $6 one I mentioned - when I backed it at $6 it was showing around $3 on all TABs and on IAS. Although it did drift out on the TAB there was no way it was ever going to drift to $6 so the Betfair price inevitably came down and I had no trouble laying it at $5 (I was being super-cautious, if I had waited until just prior to the jump I could have layed it at $4.50 or so). However I agree that you would probably not be able to make enough doing this alone as the margins are fairly slim (although you may if they start covering more meetings and as the turnover increases) - but if you are going to be online placing your normal bets anyway then it is just icing on the cake.

The bigger opportunites are probably in laying certain horses and in taking the far better than TAB/Bookie odds on others. For example you could easily get around the $2.00 mark for Northerly on Saturday which is way better than the TAB and Top Fluct. prices.

__________________
"Computers can do that????" - Homer Simpson

Becareful
A couple of questions. Have you tried to withdraw any of your winnings, & what do they mean by "your total withdrawal on each registered card must be equal to or greater than your total deposits before you can withdraw additional winnings"? Does this mean if you deposit $1000, that you cannot withdraw any $ until your a/c hits at least $2000, or you must withdraw at least $1000, or to make a withdrawal you must empty your a/c & make another deposit before betting again?
I used to work in a govt dept & know that they have to cover themselves by quoting gobbledegook, it just seems a little ambiguous to me.
Thanks
Mark