bookmaking questions

[mikj]

Where can I see horse races live? Those I've seen requires US citizen or money. What does it mean when both the back and the lay side of the book is way over 100%? Sometimes then I lay a horse, it gets the weird odds of 1.01, why? thanks

[fintron]

Re: bookmaking questions A 100 % book is called a 'round' book. If a book is over 100 % then the bit above is called the 'overround'. it is the bit above 100 % that enables the bookmaker to make a profit. The higher the percentage, the less value for punters betting on that race. As a punter, it is best to have a low overround, as close to 100 % as possible, but it will never be less than 100 % otherwise a punter could bet on all runners in the race and make a profit regardless of who wins, providing they stake correctly. To understand it all you need to understand how bookmakers convert odds to percentages. Other guys on here can explain this much better but I'll give it a go.... For simplicity (and because I found a handy example on the net with these figures) assume there are five runners in a given race. The bookmaker thinks all have an equal chance of winning, i.e. a 20 % chance of winning. Now if all of the runners have an equal chance of winning he should price them up at 4/1 (20 %), but if he did this his book would total 100 % exactly. If he took an equal amount of money on each runner he would make no money on the race. As a bookie its his job to make money so he needs to build a profit margin into his prices, so what he needs to go is offer punters lower prices than what they should be getting. In the above example, if he offers them 3/1 on every runner instead of 4/1, then when the odds are converted to a percentage (3/1 = 25 %) his total book equals 125 %. He has now got an edge over the punters and if he takes £125 of that race he will only pay out £100. He has managed to acheive a £25 profit.