anybody ever made betfair pay long term?

[knot]

doubt it.

[gravitywgy]

Betfair make it pay long and short term

[manager1]

I'm wondering why so many don't make it pay.
It still puzzles me how people lose....people laying horses double the price the bookies offer, others backing horses at half the price available elsewhere, I see it everyday and just wonder why.

If people gamble over/under the odds, they have to lose, when you stick to your edge, you can't lose.

Just astounding.

How many 1000/1 shots in running have won in the last 24 hours

[WhyLose]

I'm currently commenting in a BF thread you may find of interest below.

http://site.forum.betfair.com/jive3/bet ... geCount=40

[manager1]

Trading is whole different animal to straight backing and laying.

Laying/backing it's all about longterm edge, something very few punters seem to have grasp of (judging by prices offered and taken).
Trading is all about predicting market movement.

That poster that suggested that it's all beer and skittles until a trade goes against you, and that basically WOM is useless in such volatile markets was spot on the money.

So why not put in a stop / loss?

Because they get triggered far more often than a trade will be successful, thus ending any chance of profit - you've locked in a loss - guaranteed. The downside of trading.

[manager1]

Of course, you can put the stop loss at the same price, but Murphy's Law will see one price matched and not the other, and the trade go against you more than in your favour.

[GeorgeUK]

It should be possible to make a healthy profit on betfair, but i think it all depends on what you are betting on and the discipline you have. Most people get greedy or just like a gamble.

There were over 8000 uk horse races last year. If you only wanted £1 profit per race, could you do that? even if you cut your losses after a specific time limit for various races, surely with trading you should be making about £5k?

At least that's what i'm hoping

[manager1]

George,

How about thinking outside the square for a moment.
There is trading and there is backing and/or laying.
Both have huge downsides, but when combined together are extremely powerful combinations.
I may as well disclose my extremely successful method here, as it won't affect my profits

I run a combination of both trading and wagering to obtain less than the odds on certain horses I've laid.
I fire lay bets into the market at bookies opening odds.
The one's that are matched and drift, I green up on when there is a point profit.
The others sit as lay bets (the one's that firm in the market).
After greening up, the price I have layed at, shrinks.
Therefore I have layed any existing horses at less than bookmakers opening prices which ensures a long term profit.
Has it's ups and downs, but longterm it's a winner

Best of luck.

[Mattmid]

m1

Couple of questions if I may.

Do you fire in lay bets for the entire field or just up to a certain maximum odds?
Do you do them to a fixed liability or a fixed stake?

[manager1]

Mattmid,

Depends on the venue, for UK and Aus racing up to 20/1 because the markets are reasonably tight and the longshot favourite bias has been reduced, so the likelihood of anything over 20/1 being matched is rare indeed.
For US markets and Harness Racing, I lay the entire field because it's always possible to be matched at any price with low liquidity.

I use fixed payout of 1% of my bank.

[manager1]

Here's an example:

Basically I lay most of the field at bookmakers opening prices.
Some will get matched, some won't.
Of the one's that get matched, some will continue to firm in the market and they are left untouched.
Some will drift, so with those horses I place a back bet on them and use the hedge feature to lock in a profit.
This reduces the liability for the horses that firm.
Here is an example from last night (yesterday) where it worked superbly in a small field and only one horse wasn't matched.

Princely Hero $52.63 layed @ $1.90
Rolyn Rock $26.67 layed @ $3.75
Dutch Bullet unmatched
Freedom At Last $7.69 layed @ $12.00

Princely Hero $52.63 backed @ $2.06
Rolyn Rock $26.67 backed @ $3.85
Dutch Bullet unmatched
Freedom At Last $7.69 backed @ $13.50

After greening up on each of the matched runners, this gave me a no risk profit of $5.63 on all runners, even Dutch Bullet which was never matched for any amount.

Normally however, there would always be a runner that was laid and unmatched on the backing side.
Therefore the $5.63 profit from greening up on the other runners comes off the liability of the lay bet of Dutch Bullet, effectively reducimg the lay odds.

I haven't chased any prices at any time, I put the lay bets up and what's matched is matched.
The only decision I make, is when to back bet on the laid horses, but this is just when there is a profit to be had, and I only back bet on longer priced horses when there is a unit profit to be had.

Hope this helps.

[Mattmid]

Thanks, interesting stuff.

[boycee]

[quote="manager1"]Here's an example:

Basically I lay most of the field at bookmakers opening prices.

Can you define what you mean by this M1. Where do you get your opening prices from exactly?

cheers

[PeteB]

Yes you can - as long as you come up with a system that has an edge, and stick to it. Your alternative is throwing money blindly at the market and hoping for the best...

But the big thing with Betfair is that you can use the power of compounding, so you don't need much of an edge at all. Each time you bet according to your system, you effectively gain a compounding period. In this way you can get many compounding periods per day - it's a bit like having a time machine!

Let's be conservative, and say you start with a £100 bank, and that you can on average turn 0.1% of bank profit per betting event e.g. 10p per race initially, and let's assume you can do this repeatedly without risking more than a fraction of your bank.

You then need 694 events to double your bank. At say 20 races per day, this means you can double your bank in 34 days, i.e. just over a month.

If you can do better than 10p per race on average without risking a £100 bank, you can double your money more quickly. But to make a radical difference, try upping the number of betting events you can make. E.g. if you could make 10 trades per race with an average profit of 0.1% of bank each (increasing bank each time you green up), then you would get your 694 compounding periods in just 69.4 races - i.e. you can double your account in 3.5 days.

So you don't need a 'holy grail' system - you just need to keep applying your system that you know has an edge.

Look at Casinos - the house edge on the roulette wheel is less than 3% - not much, but if you know that you gain a compounding period every time you spin the thing, you are laughing.

The tricky thing is of course working out whether your system has an edge or not.

[PeteB]

(actually forget the compounding thing for the roulette wheel, as it's not the size of your bank that determines who much people stake each go - but at least it shows the effect of a small edge applied repeatedly)