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?

 

[jumperabv3]

1 hour ago, MCLARKE said:

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?

 

To be honest I'm asking myself the very same question.

In Australia I could understand why people back them because in OZ land paying out 200 to 1 seems like a normal thing for the bookies there (I guess Australians in horse racing never back these horses? I don't know) - in the UK the rational is the opposite ... yesterday there was a 200 to 1 horse I think in Exeter, in the 2nd race ...

It went down to 50 in BetFair, 50 lay price, before the race even started ... with a budget of 2000 that is easy 40, for just 1 race. I had no doubt it's bookies who do that, there was 0 rational to that, absolutely no reason - that horse I think finished last and far behind all the others.

[jumperabv3]

I am checking results of some races I haven't tried.

On the 5th of November there was a race in Sedgefield - Race #4 - distance of 3882m - a horse named Muroor won the race, it was SP 100-1 in the bookies.

Can anyone tell me please what was the highest price this one was traded for please? According to TimeForm.com

https://www.timeform.com/horse-racing/horse/form/muroor/000000390739/sedgefield/2020-11-12/1220/46/2

I see the BSP (BetFair SP Price) - was 161.23 - which is a no no price for me, but I'd like to know if it's possible to know the highest price this was traded for, thank you.

 

Edited November 12, 2020 by jumperabv3

[Johnrobertson]

All the trading prices are on the betfair results website  https://promo.betfair.com/betfairsp/prices

I believe the highest trade for Muroor was 350

 

 

[richard-westwood]

Sounds super risky to me ....you could have 100 wins winning 2pts but 1 murror like above fluke it and your broke ....all that work for nothing ....as been said before if it was that easy everyone would be doing it ......

[jumperabv3]

5 hours ago, Johnrobertson said:

All the trading prices are on the betfair results website  https://promo.betfair.com/betfairsp/prices

I believe the highest trade for Muroor was 350

 

 

Thanks Richard!

35 minutes ago, richard-westwood said:

Sounds super risky to me ....you could have 100 wins winning 2pts but 1 murror like above fluke it and your broke ....all that work for nothing ....as been said before if it was that easy everyone would be doing it ......

I have to say I tend to agree - it used to go well for me but I'd probably stop doing it moving forward i.e. can't see how to make living from it.

Just today, in Sedgefield Race 4 a 101 horse won (Horse name = Ivors Involvement) - TimeForm.com shows the BetFair price although was 146 but this is just taken at a certain point - I wouldn't be surprised if this was traded for 250-300 at some point pre-race (I haven't watched the market nor the race itself).

It seems like those winners come much more often, I do have to say 1-2 years ago UK racing was almost perfect for the theories I brought up but it looks like the BetFair market is not predicting things right ... or ... like in any other sports - the odds won't make sense anymore (in football/basketball it happens all the times but it seems like there is no "solid" way with this neither)... which is why I created this thread as I had lots of suspicions on this - it seems like no matter where - this could happen and there is simply no solid way around it. (and perhaps I was lucky since a few years ago).

 

[jumperabv3]

It's already in the news btw:

https://www.thesun.ie/sport/horse-racing/6142666/watch-second-100-1-winner-sedgefield/

But there were so many similar winners who got no highlights and no one even "noticed" them ... 

And this is from a week ago:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/horseracing/13118202/watch-100-1-winner-muroor-sedgefield/

Kudos to the Sun for noticing those things and actually posting some info on those winners because most others don't even bother posting about such things.

 

[richard-westwood]

On a diff level but similar because I never had time to try and find a way to win ....a friend showed me a system where you back 4 horses ....the timed fav in the first 4 races across the cards stopping at a winner and recouping your losses and 1pt profit as you go .  .....it used to win 25 days out of 27 ....it was crazy but the two losing days could wipe out your monthly profit if you were unlucky .....but I did hear of someone making it work by limiting your losses to 8 points a day and no bet if you couldn't do that due to prices etc .......I really need to go back and look st that ...it might be a gold mine lol 

[MCLARKE]

I got in to racing many years ago one Saturday when the pubs used to shut between 3 and 5 so for something to pass the time we went in to the bookies. My mate insisted that at every race meeting a favourite wins one of the races so all you need to do is back the favourites at each meeting to make a set amount and once the favourite wins then you stop betting.

So if you wanted to make £10 and the favourite was 2/1 then you bet £5. If it loses then you need to make £15 on the next race so if it was 2/1 you would bet £7.50.

That 1st Saturday we made £40 between us which in those days was a lot of money (I think beer was about 40p a pint).

Even in those days I had quite an analytical mind so I spent an afternoon in the library going through old newspapers and looking at the racing results.

I found one sequence where there were 33 losing favourites in a row and to make my £10 I would have had to bet something like £40 million on the eventual winning favourite !