Laying very long shots - can you make a living from it?

[jumperabv3]

I asked this question about 10 years ago, in this forum:

From my experience I wanted to suggest the following:

• You can lay very long shot horses and by very long I mean those with preferable 250-300 or more in BetFair (i.e. you use a bankroll of 2,000 so if there is a horse to lay for 1000 you would still get a profit of 2 if it gets matched - as 2 is the lowest stake allowed on BetFair).
• You only lay in UK races, avoid South Africa by all means, avoid Singapore and avoid Australia as well - in their races long shots of 150-1 win much more often than in the UK - that's my view and my experience anyway.
• Avoid if possible a maiden race and avoid short races unless the horse has a huge price on it (e.g. He Knows No Fear won in August 2020 with a price of 300/1 but that was a maiden race - i.e. maiden = horses that never won before). Prefer long tracks and only normal ones - i.e. avoid big events like Cheltenham (now closed anyway due to COVID19).
• If you have a budget of 2000 you can easily find in one day at least 5-10 horses that will get you matched anywhere from 300 to 600 (these are the prices I like the most) - that means in one day you would be making around 30-100 a day, so in 20-40 days you would break even.

I tested this system so many times, I saw almost no flaws with it - it seems to me in the UK there are tons of bad horses you can lay without worries and simply grab some "pocket change" for it - some of you might be risking in a normal bet 100 to win 20 in some football/tennis match but if your desire is to make easy 20 - I see nothing better than this.

Can you please tell me what's your opinion about all this?

I've been doing it for quite a while and my only "losses" were in Australia which is why I stopped laying horses in Australia except for those with prices of 500+ which are much more solid.

Would love to hear your opinion.

 

Edited November 11, 2020 by jumperabv3

[MCLARKE]

Over the last 7 years in NH racing there have been 5,901 horses that had a BSP of 1,000. Of these only 3 won which does back up your experience.

I am not an expert on Betfair so I do not know how possible it is to lay these so called no-hopers. If they are that bad who would be backing them and why?