Ridiculous Ideas for 2024

[Mike]

Hi
I have just been awaiting the full result before updating and am feeling pretty chuffed with the result. With the obvious exception of Hunting Brook not managing to hold on for the win we had both of our full each way wagers placed in the top 4 and got both of our lay bets beaten. 🙂 Mr Sundancer disappointed but we did manage to get half the win part laid so reduced the loss there. I can see this throwing up a lot of questions and will await the queries before going over the final post mortem for todays “Ridiculous Idea” . 🙂

[Mike]

Hi
I knew there would be questions over this thread and please do post on it if you like. There is no such thing as a silly question especially when it come to exchange betting. The first query was on exactly why I had laid some horses and backed others and then why only the win part. Here is the original post containing my initial bets.

Oneforgonzo 4-1 11-4
Rockbrook 5-1 11-1
Hunting Brook 11-2 10-1
Milk Market 6-1 11-4
Gabriel Ranger 8-1 10-1
Mr Sundancer 9-1 33-1
This means I have taken an each way punt for 5 places on these
Mr Sundancer @ 33-1
Hunting Brook @ 12-1
Rockbrook @ 12-1
I will now put up a few win lay options on Mr Sundancer, Milk Market and to a degree Oneforgonzo.

When we formed our market (our prices in bold) any horse that we thought could finish in the top four was listed. If the price we had forecast was lower than the bookies price we believed we had a value bet therefore we backed them each way making sure we had the extra place (always look for an edge). We then had the option that we thought the bookies had to short a price on the favourites so we then looked to lay them (back them to lose). We only backed them to not win the race as we felt they could quite easily get a place. We also then laid the win part of the bet on Mr Sundancer as we thought at best he would place not win.
Unfortunately nobody took up the bet on the two favourites but we did get half the win bet matched on Mr Sundancer. Rockbrook then became a non runner so we then took an each way bet on Gabriel Ranger.

I will try this again soon and hopefully we can find a way of making it easier to explain exchange betting when we get all our bets matched so that you can see what is happening.  🙂

[Mike]

Hi
We finally had a race today which suited us down to the ground it was the 6.10 at Kilbeggan and we started to place our bets. We had taken the position using our speed ratings etc that Brave Fortune would win the race and we had assumed that Gaucher the then 6-4 favourite was over priced.
Having taken that position we backed Brave Fortune @ 85-40 to win and laid Gaucher @ 4-6 to lose. Using the 10 point profit/loss target stake to avoid to many fractions this left us in this position.
If Brave Fortune 85-40 wins we win our target +10 points but if it loses we lose 4.71 points the amount we had to back to obtain our 10 point target 4.71 divided by 40 x 85 = +10
If Gaucher wins 4-6 we lose 15 points as we had to lay it we become the bookmaker and have to pay out the person who took the bet. So to make 10 points we had to take the shorter part of the odds so its 10 divided 4 x 6 = 15.
Now you can see the problem if Guacher wins we also lose our 4.71 points (the win bet on Brave Fortune) so our total loss on the race would be 15 + 4.71 = -19.71. However if Brave Fortune wins we also get our 10 points profit from laying Guacher to lose (as he will obviously have lost for Brave Fortune to have won). This means we now have a +20 profit if the result goes our way.
Should any other horse win the race we lose our 4.71 the win bet on Brave Fortune but gain 10 points from Gaucher losing so would still make a profit of + 5.21.
We are now left watching the markets to see if our pricing up of the race was correct. ?? We want Brave Fortune to shorten in price and Gaucher to drift out in price.

[Mike]

Hi
We have been keeping an eye on the markets and it appears we may have been lucky and got our position on the race correct. Brave Fortune is now favourite and Gaucher has drifted. With this in mind we now have backed Gaucher to win for 7 points @ 11-4 on the exchange.
This may seem ridiculous as we backed him to lose this morning but bear with us. If Gaucher now wins we would win 19.25 points minus the 15 we laid for him to lose this morning so we make a +4.25 point profit. If he loses we lose our 7 points but make a +3 point profit from our 10 point for him to lose. So its a win win situation on Gaucher either way. If he wins we get a 5% deduction (on winning bets) as a commission to betfair so that reduces our winnings to 18.29 minus the 15 points we laid against him so its now only a +3.29 profit.

[Mike]

Hi
Brave Fortune is now 1-1 favourite but we can now lay him to lose for 7 points @ 10-11 (you can only take the lay price that is offered which can be less than the market price) which means if he now wins we lose 6 points but will make our 10 points from backing him this morning so we still win +3 points. If he loses we win our 6.36 points on the lay bet we just placed but lose our 4 points where we backed him to win this morning and still make a 2.36 point profit (less any 5% commission that may be taken).
Now I hear the cry what happens if they both lose. God only knows my head exploded about two hours ago. 🙁
Only joking you have still backed both to lose so it does not really effect and the result of the race in reality becomes a non entity. But where’s the fun in watching the race is the real question. ? The fun part to me would be to get a safe position on Brave Fortune and leave part of the bet to run but that would defeat the point of the exercise I suppose. 🙁
But as experiments go this one was successful but you would have to be a really serious punter with nerves of steel, plenty of cash and huge kahunas to play this game every day (so count me out). 🙁
I will redo the maths and someone will be bound to correct me if I have it wrong but it looks good to me as when you place bets on the exchange it list all your liabilities on each horse for you. We have devised our own data base which we may add to this to show you how it works (eventually).

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