Betfair Horse Racing Markets

Why Betfair Horse Racing Is The Best Option

I have been trading and  betting on the betfair horse racing markets since 2007 and I have certainly learned a great deal from then and certainly lost a great amount of money in the process. Life is a learning curve and you certainly learn very quickly when you lose real money. I am not an avid fan of betfair trading horses in practice mode or paper trading as this presents a no emotion scenario. In other words when you lose money in practice mode it does not hurt. When you lose real money you feel it followed by the negative emotions. You ask yourself should I give up and do something else but the next day you sit in that chair and start all over again. Now I am not promoting irresponsible gambling you should only bet or trade with what you can afford to lose.

I have used conventional bookmakers and all I can say thanks for the Betfair betting exchange and other betting exchanges like Betdaq that have come on the scene in recent years. In my opinion there is no contest between a betting exchange and a bookmaker for obtaining better odds and value. The betting exchange wins every time in terms of flexibility and control when I used bookmakers in my early 20’s I felt constrained the bookmaker’s websites were overpowering like slot machine too many options like bonuses, price guarantee and flashing lights. When I trade or bet in the betfair horse racing markets on the exchange not the betfair sports book the interface looks clean and very easy to use. I do have one criticism of the betfair exchange is its cash out functionality being rather slow to react. To combat this I use specialised trading software like www.betangel.com that uses API’s to interact with Betfair at incredible speed at 40ms. Greening up or cashing out with this excellent software is relatively straight forward I thoroughly recommend this.

To summarise the main reason why I trade or bet on betfair horse racing markets is down to pre race off and in-play odds being available on betfair it’s a no brainer. When using bookmakers there are odds for a particular horse race are lower than betfair and you are betting to a large over round unlike betfair which is nearly a perfect book. With the betfair betting exchange you are betting or trading against the public.

www.betfair.com

Should I Bet Or Trade On A Betfair Horse Racing Market

This is a great question and one I feel very well qualified to answer. In my opinion trading and betting at the same time in a betfair horse racing market should be avoided. You need to do one or the other as each approach has a different end game which I will explain. When trading on the betfair exchange you are trading an amount of money with a small risk at horse race pre race off for a smaller return and repeating this process where appropriate until the race starts. With betting you are aiming for a larger return for a smaller stake while the horse race is in-play at greater risk as the horse has to win the race.  You could argue and say well I can lay my selection at lower price in-play and yes you can. But I view the latter approach as trading a betfair horse racing market not betting and this comes with risk for a smaller return in the long term with less risk. This can be seen with punters or traders using the old system of Dobbing – double or bust you might place £10 on a horse race to make a profit of £10 if the horse reaches a required lay price in-running and if not lose £10. In my opinion Dobbing horses require a high strike rate and you need to have researched your horse selections to adopt this approach. If you back horses at low decimal odds say 3.0 then the horse has to run pretty well to reach the low lay price for the Dob to be successful if dobbing at 50%. If you can read horse form very well then Dobing horses might be for you.

To put my final conclusions on this it is better to master one of these strategies horse race pre-off trading or pure betting on horses. When I started to trade on the betfair exchange I was constantly mixing and matching these two strategies which affected my trading and betting profit. With pre-off horse racing trading you are just interested in the market and making an assumption on which way the market will react. I would often look at a horse race pre-off and then use my horse form analysis to anticipate the market movers which is wrong.

Making Profits From The Betfair Horse Racing Place Market

I started to get interested in the betfair horse racing place market 2 years ago especially in UK handicap horse races. I was looking for horses to be placed for 3 or 4 places at decimal odds of 4.0 or over. Using real money I tested this system and it worked very well my wife uses this horse racing system to date. I documented the system for selecting the correct betfair horse racing markets to bet in and horses in those markets to back. The system is really easy to use and I have left a link below for further information.

 

Betfair Horse Racing Markets

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How To Green Up On The Betfair Horse Racing Market

This is where you edge any profit on a horse or horses you have traded or backed across the market so that any horse can win and you will make a guaranteed profit pre-off or in-play. As mentioned earlier greening up in-play as the horse race is running on the standard betfair interface is not as easy it seems. You will need betfair trading exchange software so you can automate the greening up process for example hot key greening up were by you hit a designated keyboard key like ‘G’ which fires a trigger to green up for a profit i.e. where the profit is greater than 0. This is quite easy to implement in the Bet Angel software mentioned earlier even better automate it. You can designate any keyboard key other than key ‘G’ to do this. If you are trading pre-off you can green up 10 seconds before the horse race starts automatically.

How I Get 100.0 On The Betfair Horse Racing Market

Yes I have traded horses in the Betfair horse racing markets in-play at decimal odds of 100.0 which have gone on to win. This is when the initial odds of my horse selection before the races started were decimal odds 3.0. Now this does not happen all the time to back horses at 100.0 which then go on to win, more lose than win. A more realistic approach is to trade horses at a higher decimal odds of 20.0. I can never understand why people take the BSP – betfair starting price ask for higher prices!

Betfair Horse Racing Summary

  1. Are you a betfair horse racing market trader or a gambler you will have to decide which you adopt. I personally found mixing the two approaches difficult to manage using horse form did not help my trading. I trade and my wife gambles on horse selections using my horse racing betting systems with her own betting bank and her own betfair account. There downside here if I have a losing day trading on betfair and my wife has a bad day gambling I have two headaches to deal with.
  2. I still do not understand why people use bookmakers rather than betting exchanges like Betfair and Betdaq the prices on the exchanges are so much better and no large bookmaker over rounds to sap your profits.
  3. To effectively green up on betfair you need dedicated betfair trading software when dealing with large stakes and to automate were possible. It removes any emotions and human error. I find this useful for trading football matches in-play I just harm the bot and sit back and have a beer or watch the television. With this approach you need to understand your green up or red up exit strategy.
  4. Yes you can get large prices on a horse in-play 100.0 sometimes 500.0 or 1000.0 but this does not happen every day. Do not take betfair starting prices BSP ask for a few ticks more this does affect long term profits.