LAYING
I have found targeting 3 horses a race works better than just targetting 2 horses a race .

Then decide which is the worst, using ones favorite Neural setting, for example.

Think twice if one is going to take the market fav on.
They have an unnerving habit of getting up inspite of what form may suggest

Targeting the price range up to $8.90 works well.

I feel one needs to have at least a 90% success rate to make it profitable if one is targetting the greater price range .

Try & target races with 11+ runners.
That way we have 10+ runners working for us to knock our selection over from winning.

I found the best distance range to target is the 1100-1400m range.
They tend to run truer as form may suggest.

With lay betting one has to be mindfull of the liability of the race should our selection win instead of lose, therefore its a very strong idea to bet to the liability of bank percentage ,one feels comfotable exposed to.
Example.
Betting to 5% liability of bank. This allows for 20 outs in a row.
$1000 bank = $50
Now divide the fractional odds of our selection into the above amount to calculated the outlay.
e.g. $3.00 = 2/1 Fractional odds
$50 / 2/1 = $25 O/L
$50 / 7/1 = $7
$50 / 5/1 = $10
$50 / 9/1 = $5.55
$50 / 1/1 = $50
Treat odds on horses as if they are even money (1/1)

This way, ones exposure to risk is always under control & one will have a greater chance of gleaming a profit.

I feel one should use one of the Betfair betting tools to work more easily with Betfair .
Also the programs get around the $6 min bet policy, whereby one can place bets as low as 1 cent if they wish.

These tools range in price & complexity.
Here are just some of them.
Bet Angel (the original) -$600
Bet IE V2.5 - $225
Fairbot -$132
Bet Trader Pro - Free.

Please keep in mind that they all draw on broadband usage so make sure one has an unlimited broadband account otherwise it could be a costly exercise with broadband bills being in excess usage for the monthly allocation..

For those interested in Marias staking plan.
$1.00 - $3.50 Bet 1% of bank.
$3.55- $7.40 Bet 0.6%
$7.60 - $11.00 Bet 0.4%

As one can see from above , she is also betting roughly to liability of bank as to odds.

Cheers.

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Cheers.

Yes, there was much talk of her "staking plan", it was simply a liability calculation.

Forgetting about trading, or making books, Betfair is a backers market.
At close to 100% books and deducting 5% commission, backers are 10%-15% better off. Layers are 10% - 15% worse off.
It takes a good deal of ingenuity to beat these percentages.

However, the number of times I'm able to get matched at TAB prices for racing here astounds me, the UK market is far less generous.

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Appreciate the comments, guys. That's exactly what I was hoping for. I realise there are many other factors to take into consideration before one has a "system"! However the results I referred to yesterday, the earlier comments of six or eight months back, and the generally supportive comments of you guys, at least give one hope

Specifically:

Michaelg, those figures are most encouraging. Will have to learn more about BAT. Thanks.

Mark, in fact, I just presumed the final Unitab price (going back over the results on that site). I realise decisions have to be made about all the things you mention -- and even then, they are sometimes thrown out by last minute scratchings or other hold ups (to use only one example).

I think I would tend to use the prices on the TAB. As you would realise the Betfair prices are often different. In one sense I don't see that it matters if they drift out or firm. The old "swings and roundabouts" conundrum! But you are right. All these matters have to be addressed.

Bhagwan, appreciate the thoughts you have put down. I agree decisions have to made about the races one follows. In the last at Taree yesterday there were (Unitab) 5 horses out of 11 starters in the band. Not a proposition for me --- and one of them won! (By the way, your typing must be a lot better than mine. This is taking me ages and your reply, generously, was three or four times longer ). Thanks.

And, Chrome, your comments are appreciated. Its just that laying seems more attractive (despite the disadvantages you mention) especially on days that are full of "rubbish" races. I know, I know, one shouldn't bet on such days, but.............Always respect your posts.

Merriguy, I had a look at last Saturday's results because there were Group down to the low class races which were held at country tracks.

For the $6.00 to $9.90 price band using BAT, the results are:

103 smiles = 97.85 units profit.
17 accidents for a loss of 106.32 units.
A loss of 8.47 units.

I also looked at a few factors, such as type of race, distance, amount of selections per race, amount of runners per race, price of the fave, but I could not find any consistency - the accidents seemed random.

Thanks for that, Michael. Some possibilities surely?

One thing that hasn't been mentioned, of course, is that if there is more than one starter in the band (at a guess about 80% of the races) then you do not pay the full "accident" penalty because the other horse(s) lost

I don't know about that Chrome. I still do very well on the lay.

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Pixie

"It's worth remembering that profit isn't profit until it's spent off the racecourse." -- Crash

In relation to the laying "sweet spot", I don't think anybody was suggesting that you lay all horses in that price bracket. The suggestion was that your selection(s) arrived at by other means should be in that bracket. At least that's what I was talking about. You still need an angle

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Pixie

"It's worth remembering that profit isn't profit until it's spent off the racecourse." -- Crash

Merriguy, I included the smiles in races where there were multiple selections when an accident was encountered. For example, if there were 4 selections and an accident of $9.00 occurred, then the liability on the accident was $8.00, but the 3 other horses then reduced the total liability.

However, I did make an error in my calcs for these races. I reduced the total liability by 0.95 units per smile and not by 1.00 units. According to my revised calcs an extra 2.75 units should be added to my original results which makes it 100.60 units, but unfortunately it shows an overall loss of 5.71 units.

Ta, Michael.

Agreed. Each to his own I guess.