EW Double System

[slapdash]

Re: EW Double System I'm still doing a lot of thinking about this, and if anybody has any ideas or comments, I'd be very interested to read them. It's a bit early to draw any conclusions from the results so far, especially after a few days when the individual race results have been somewhat exceptional. I've certainly been very lucky so far with the results, and you'll have to wait a long time for me to have another week with five winners at those prices. On the other hand, I think I've been a bit unlucky with the way the good results have paired up (or failed to) at the same bookmaker. Overall, I'm not unhappy with the small loss I've made so far. When you bet in doubles, it's to be expected that you won't make much of a profit even on those days your luck is a bit better than average, but you'll make a big profit when your luck is much better than average. (In case anybody is feeling sorry for me after my five wasted winners, I have continued to back these in singles as well as doubles myself!) I have wondered whether I should accept a second-best price when the best prices on two selections are not available with the same bookmaker. This would reduce the long-term yield, but would reduce the short-term fluctuations. It would depend a lot on the prices: if the best price is 40/1, the second best might be 33/1, which is proportionally a lot less, but accepting 18/1 instead of 20/1 or 17/2 instead of 9/1 would not be quite so significant a drop. I'm still undecided whether I should continue to back trebles, not so much because I doubt their long-term profitability, but because the opportunities will tend to come up on days when there are a lot of selections, and on those days it's quite enough work dealing with all the doubles. In case anybody has not appreciated the reason behind this system, let me stress that I am in general against betting in doubles. I have occasionally put two short-priced selections into a double for the practical reason that it lets me bet a decent amount on both selections without depositing more money with a bookmaker. I've also done it because a bookmaker has limited the amount I can bet on singles, but has allowed me to bet more on doubles. I can't say I've ever done it myself, but another good reason would be if the success of the two individual bets was correlated: bookmakers won't let you do this if they are correlated in an obvious way (e.g., Chelsea to beat Arsenal together with Chelsea to win the Premiership), but there may be less obvious examples (e.g., a double on two horses who like soft ground in the hope of rain). Apart from considerations like that, I'd always prefer to put on two win singles rather than a win double. But this system is based on the (to me) rather peculiar fact that each-way doubles are settled by win returns going on the second horse to win and place returns going on the second horse to place. So if you had two selections where the win bet had an expected yield of -50% and the place bet had an expected yield of +50% (so each-way singles would break even on average), then putting them in an each-way double, you'd have an expected yield of -75% on the win double and an expected yield of +125% on the place double, for an overall expected yield of +25%. So the reason is that my selections seem to have a good yield on the place bets, but not on the win bets. If I could somehow bet only on the place, I wouldn't even consider putting them in doubles. The system is not in any way based on the dream of a huge payout on a big-priced win double or treble, although that would be nice and will eventually come (I hope): but I'm expecting to lose money on the win bets, even in the long term. The bet on Fire Two today may have seemed a rather odd each-way selection. It started at 7/4 and I didn't know it would be even this big a price, as the few early prices were around 6/4. But I suspect this was one of my best value selections, at least in the context of this system. This was in a 2yo race with an unraced but odds-on favourite (who won). Apart fom these two runners, there were two who started at 20/1 (the other two I picked in the race) and the other five runners started at 100/1 or longer. I was getting a price of 1.35 on the place, which I think was a huge price. The place price on Betfair was around 1.12 early this afternoon, which was actually shorter than the place price on the favourite. I was disappointed that there weren't more selections today to put it in an each-way double with. If anybody bet on Fire Two to win, I think they'd have been mad not to take the place price by making it an each-way bet.

[Tulenos]

Re: EW Double System Watching the system with interest, slapdash, as I've been betting each-way doubles for quite a time and find them one of the bets giving you the best value. You might be aware books just HATE each-way doubles and they also slightly increase your chance the bookie will tell you to take your business elsewhere (which is why I wouldn't recommend anyone to place such bets at a favourite book, esp. if this favourite book is called B365 - very quick to axe limits). I personally prefer teaming us two second favourites at an appropriate price so that you break even if they place and get a nice return if both win (not always available as some books go just win only in appropriate, ie, eight runner races etc., I'm sure you know what I mean. Your approach is a bit different, but I find it interesting as well and as I said, I for one am watching with interest.

[Tulenos]

Re: EW Double System Also forgot to add, in reaction to your contemplation above - an each-way double makes a whole lotta difference in comparison with a win double.

[slapdash]

Re: EW Double System

You might be aware books just HATE each-way doubles and they also slightly increase your chance the bookie will tell you to take your business elsewhere (which is why I wouldn't recommend anyone to place such bets at a favourite book' date=' esp. if this favourite book is called B365 - very quick to axe limits). [/quote'] They've already axed my limits, so no danger there. One of the bookies I seem to be using most for this is Sporting Bet (or Sporting Odds, essentially the same for horse-racing bets). They have also axed my limits to the ridiculous extent that if I want to place a bet on a horse at a longer price than about 20/1, they limit me to an amount that is less than their minimum bet. But they seem to let me put on as many £10 each-way doubles and trebles as I like, even when the same horse is involved in several. So if I have several horses to put in doubles and trebles I can get quite a lot on this way. I'm sure they'll eventually cotton on, but with any luck not until after I've managed a big win or two.

[Tulenos]

Re: EW Double System - you must have the cheek when dealing with them sometimes, mate. I find SportingBet and their group a bit difficult to use as my favourite races - 8 runners with a clear odds-on fav which give you a great chance to put together a crafty ew double - are often listed as win only over there. Which never happens at PP, BSq and I think also B365;) BTW, PP and BSq are very slow to axe your limits.;)

[slapdash]

Re: EW Double System

- you must have the cheek when dealing with them sometimes' date= mate. I find SportingBet and their group a bit difficult to use as my favourite races - 8 runners with a clear odds-on fav which give you a great chance to put together a crafty ew double - are often listed as win only over there. Which never happens at PP, BSq and I think also B365;) PP have cut my limits (although not to the extent of Sporting Bet or B365). WH won't take my horse-racing bets online at all (they could at least have sent me a letter I could have framed and put on the wall, but their website just started saying "Sorry, your limit on this selection is £0.00, please try a smaller bet"). Ladbrokes, BSq and VC usually take bets as large as I want to place. So far.

I've bet on a lot of races like that with them, and never come across them refusing ew bets on a race, although I have at some other bookies (don't remember which). Maybe they have you marked down as an "each-way thief".

[DeepBlueDevilFish]

Re: EW Double System Hi Slapdash. Playing poker at the moment but like Tulenos I've been following your thread. I'll add some thoughts later regarding how you pick the doubles to go for as I'm not 100% sure how you decide on this and I'm guessing you may be rejecting (or probably more accurately not picking) some value EW doubles. You alluded to this in your write-up above.

[slapdash]

Re: EW Double System

Hi Slapdash. Playing poker at the moment

Good luck.

but like Tulenos I've been following your thread. I'll add some thoughts later regarding how you pick the doubles to go for as I'm not 100% sure how you decide on this

I've simply been picking those where the same bookie has the best price for both horses. As I'm taking best early prices, these will not infrequently get cut and I'll miss some that I could have got on if I'd been quicker.

[DeepBlueDevilFish]

Re: EW Double System Thanks. It was more how you were picking the horses to go for really. I know it's based on the place part of the EW bet giving a substantially better price than Betfair but I was wondering how you quantify or decide what's substantial ? I'm guessing if you were to slacken your criteria a little bit when placing these doubles you might still be placing good value double bets and increasing your chances of hitting a good priced double as well.

[slapdash]

Re: EW Double System OK. There are two slightly different cases. For the selections for the system I originally used on sports-punter.com I look for races with a short-priced (odds-on or slightly odds-against) favourite or races where all but three of the runners are big prices (e.g., the prices are 6/4, 6/4, 6/1, 16/1, ...). These are the kind of race where if the win prices are fair, then the place prices (not on the favourites) are likely to be relatively favourable. Then I look for runners where the lay price on Betfair is at least 10% lower than the place price I'd get from the best early price. For example, if the best early price is 12/1 with a place paying one-fifth the odds, the place odds are 3.40; subtracting 10% gives 3.06, so if the lay price on Betfair is 3.06 or less, that's a selection ... roughly. I also take the win price on Betfair into account. If that is less than the early price I'll be lenient with the place price criterion, but if it's much more then I'll be more severe, but I don't have any precise rules for this. For the "large handicap system" the idea is similar, but here there isn't usually a short priced favourite and the only a priori reason to expect good value for the place bets is that there are four places, paid at one-quarter the odds. So for these I require the Betfair lay place price to be 20% less than the place price I get at the bookie, again being more or less lenient according to the win price on Betfair. In borderline cases I'll also take other things into account, such as looking at the prices the place has previously been matched on Betfair. You're probably right that if I'm putting these in ew doubles I could afford to lower the requirements. Until a few days ago the "handicap" selectons had yielded about +45% on the place bets and about -45% on the win bets (winners in the last three days at 40/1, 20/1, 20/1 and 14/1 have improved the win yield, but the variance in the returns at these odds is so high that it's hard to accurately estimate the yield after "only" a couple of hundred selections). The original system has had a lower place yield (I've not calculated it recently, but I think it's around +30%) but only a small loss (5-10%) on the win bets. The main thing that makes me a little reluctant to loosen the requirements is the amount of work it would involve. On Friday and Saturday I must have spent a couple of hours or more placing bets and posting here. There were an unusually large number of selections on both those days, though. By the way, one thing I can't explain about the "handicap" system is that there are some races with four or five qualifying selections and other, apparently similar, races where nothing comes close to qualifying. "Major" races seem to give fewer selections, but apart from that I don't really understand the difference.

[DeepBlueDevilFish]

Re: EW Double System Thanks for the detailed reply Slapdash. From your description, like you say, it's an awful lot of work and I can certainly see how slackening the requirements would make a lot more too. After thinking about it again I would probably leave things exactly as they are at the moment if I was in your shoes. EXCEPT I would drop the trebles since they certainly won't work if the doubles don't and as you don't know for sure that the doubles will work yet I think it's probably just a bit cavalier to be throwing in trebles too. And that's before you even start accounting for the extra work with them.

By the way, one thing I can't explain about the "handicap" system is that there are some races with four or five qualifying selections and other, apparently similar, races where nothing comes close to qualifying. "Major" races seem to give fewer selections, but apart from that I don't really understand the difference.

Can't really offer much here I'm afraid except to say the only worry I've had about the methods you're using here are that they could be influenced by Betfair market abuse from "interested parties". Especially at the lower volumes that are encountered on the place market on non-major races. But from your description it's clear you've got some other checks in place which will help minimise the risks and hopefully help you to spot anything fishy that may be going on. Everything considered it's a very interesting system. Thanks again for sharing it with us. :clap

[slapdash]

Re: EW Double System

EXCEPT I would drop the trebles since they certainly won't work if the doubles don't and as you don't know for sure that the doubles will work yet I think it's probably just a bit cavalier to be throwing in trebles too. And that's before you even start accounting for the extra work with them.

You're probably right that I should drop the trebles. To be honest, the main reason I included them is that if I'm betting on a small number of horses at SportingBet/SportingOdds, then I often have to bet trebles to get on as much as I'd like. Although I'd disagree that the trebles certainly won't work (in the long term) if the doubles don't. If the place halves of these bets are profitable and the win halves are unprofitable, then the effect of putting them into doubles or trebles is to magnify the profitability of the place halves and diminish the unprofitability of the win halves. And the magnification/diminishment is more for trebles than for doubles, Say the win bets had a negative yield of -50% and the place bets had a positive yield of +25%. Then an ew double would have a negative yield of about -9%, but an ew treble would have a positive yield of about 4%. In the long term I think the trebles are more likely to be successful, although they suffer more from the usual disadvantages of betting on longshots in terms of short term fluctuations.

the only worry I've had about the methods you're using here are that they could be influenced by Betfair market abuse from "interested parties". Especially at the lower volumes that are encountered on the place market on non-major races.

Actually, I've been a bit puzzled about how the Betfair place price can be an effective filter for these bets (which it does seem to be) when the volume is often so low. It might be that it's just because the volume is so low that it's not worth anybody's while to manipulate the market. Maybe the connections of a fancied horse will not want to bet on the win market on Betfair because the big bookies would notice this and the price on the track would be affected, but they feel they can bet small amounts on the place market because nobody will be paying too much attention? I don't know, I don't pretend to know exactly why my methods seem to work.

[slapdash]

Re: EW Double System Only one qualifying runner so far today, which isn't much use for an each-way doubles system. But just in case something else turns up later: A. Mill By The Stream 4.50 Carl. It's currently 12/1 at Stan James.

[slapdash]

Re: EW Double System We do have a bet. B. Mon Secret 4.20 Carl. Bet: AB (12/1, 33,1) at Stan James. 2 points staked.

[slapdash]

Re: EW Double System There seems to suddenly be a slew of qualifiers in the 4.50 at Carlisle. Maybe I should be suspicious. There's a non-runner which was around 6/1, but if I understand the bookie's rules, there shouldn't be a Rule 4 deduction because of that, as they all have it marked as non-runner. Maybe they know there's going to be another non-runner, cutting it down to 15 runners and only 3 places? There's nothing to put them in doubles with (the price on Mon Secret has gone), so it doesn't matter as far as this system is concerned. In case anybody is interested, they are: C. Geordie Dancer (9/1 Ladbrokes) D. Compton Spark (12/1 Ladbrokes) E. Straffan (20/1 Stan James) F. Desertina (25/1 Stan James) G. Faithisflying (33/1 SportingBet) And Pinafore (14/1) and Weer Yer Tern were selections as well, but the prices have gone now.

[DeepBlueDevilFish]

Re: EW Double System I see the 4:50 @ Carlisle is down to 16 runners now. I'll be very surprised if there's not another non-runner before the off. :@

[DeepBlueDevilFish]

Re: EW Double System Think I posted at the same time as you there Slapdash. Just seen your reply. I wonder if you might be best waiting in a situation like this until later in the afternoon or until just before the off if that's possible. If the runner's do get cut to 15 or less do you regard this as a huge problem in terms of the overall profitability of your systems ?

[slapdash]

Re: EW Double System The downside to waiting is of course that the price may go: as I said, the prices on Pinafore and Weet Yer Tern (I'll spell it right this time!) went before I posted here, and I see the price on Faithisflying has now gone as well. Getting cut to 15 or fewer runners presumably does have a big impact on the place returns, as you'd expect it to reduce the chance of a place by around a quarter (a bit less than that, actually, as the withdrawn horses might have been placed). And reducing the place returns (not just the profit) by a quarter is a big slice. On current figures (around +45% profit on the place bets) the place bets still ought to be profitable ... just. At least one bookie (BetDirect) does pay out on the 4th place in these circumstances, but that's not much help here as they don't have early prices on this race.

[Tulenos]

Re: EW Double System VC, I think, also pays out for the first four in such cases.;)

[slapdash]

Re: EW Double System

VC' date=' I think, also pays out for the first four in such cases.;)[/quote'] I also thought I remembered that they did, but I had a look at their website and couldn't find any reference to it. So maybe they've stopped doing it ... or maybe I was looking in the wrong place. They don't have early prices on this race either.

[DeepBlueDevilFish]

Re: EW Double System Yeh I think the EW bet from being a good one when there's 16 runners changes to being a very bad one when there's 15 runners and imo this greatly outways any plus you have in getting early better prices. What I've done in the past in this situation is to have a quick look at the 24 hour weather forecast for the track on the BBC website. I know it's more work but it probably only takes a minute. Unfortunately for Carlisle this afternoon things aren't looking too great. It's sunny at the moment but rain is forecast by the end of the afternoon. A classicly bad situation for some more non-runners unfortunately. But :hope it doesn't happen today.

[slapdash]

Re: EW Double System Um, in the interests of completeness ... H. Compton Classic 4.50 Carl. At 22/1 with Stan James. Maybe fortunately, no more qualifiers have emerged in the 4.20 that I can put these in doubles with.

[slapdash]

Re: EW Double System Compton Classic's going to win, by the way, ... because it's the only one I haven't posted on sports-punter.com.

[DeepBlueDevilFish]

Re: EW Double System :lol Sod's law says that will happen. But you don't need the points anyway ...

[slapdash]

Re: EW Double System So far so good. Sixteen runners in the opening show. Don't like the fact that one of them's called Evanesce, though. Mon Secret came nowhere in the 4.20, so a loss of 2 points for the system anyway.

[DeepBlueDevilFish]

Re: EW Double System Yes that's good so far. The prices you got all look to be better than the likely SP's too.

[DeepBlueDevilFish]

Re: EW Double System Think you might have got a nice 9/1 winner there Slapdash. :clap

[slapdash]

Re: EW Double System Yes, and Pinafore was 4th, which is just good enough to make a small profit on my sports-punter picks. Good thing I didn't post Compton Classic there, or I'd have made a loss of 1.25 points.

[slapdash]

Re: EW Double System 2 point loss on the day. Starting bank: 1000 points. Staked: 166 points. Current bank: 986.33 points. P/L: -13.67 points. Yield: -8.23%

[slapdash]

Re: EW Double System I have an idea about what might have been going on. Carnivore was available at an early price of around 14/1, but the Betfair price earlier was much bigger: more than 20/1, I think. It was backed down to 5/1 and almost won. Maybe the Betfair market was being manipulated to try to make it look as though it was unfancied, to get a better opening show on-course.