BETFAIR DRIFTERS and STEAMERS?

POINTBREAK

Does anyone have an opinion on this?
http://tipsterform.com/betfair-drifters-and-steamers/

Is it something that has become an accepted fact but without having the substance to justify the assertion?

UrbanSea

I use the oddschecker one.

Verance

You know my opinion

I think it's to do with an over-reaction, ie. people see a horse drifting from say 2/1 to 3/1 and think it has no chance so people continue to lay it until it hits 4/1. My theory being people 'knew' it was underpriced at 2s so layed it, it's true price was 3/1, but now it's become value at 4s due to people jumping on the bandwagon!

It's kinda the same with share trading. When new information is available on a stock (eg. Apple release their profit figures), people rush to buy (or sell) so the price rises (or falls), but there's almost always an over-reaction - the price rises too much but levels off again in the weeks after. The same over-reaction can be seen in Hugh Taylor's, Tom Segal's and Henry Rix's tips on Betfair.

POINTBREAK

Its not really what I was talking about though Verance. I was looking for opinions on whether the 2 studies done by Betfair that appear to show that backing drifters shows a profit have any value at all.

Verance

POINTBREAK wrote: »

Its not really what I was talking about though Verance. I was looking for opinions on whether the 2 studies done by Betfair that appear to show that backing drifters shows a profit have any value at all.

Verance wrote: »

You know my opinion

Can't see why not tbh! How are those Betfair follow the money tipsters doing btw? Haven't checked in on them in months!

POINTBREAK

Can't see why not tbh! How are those Betfair follow the money tipsters doing btw? Haven't checked in on them in months!

Not good. They had 4 consecutive losing lays that weren't exactly short prices and their win rate is akin to just backing favourites.
Lays 53/69 Tips 38/137

The claims by betfair are way off imo and misleading. They say.........
In a sample of over 65,000 horses who ran in 2006. Noting the price of all horses two hours before the off and their starting price, I categorised all “steamers” as those whose odds had shortened by five per cent of the book or more, and all “drifters” as those whose odds had lengthened the same.

The categorisation was arbitrary, but showed compelling evidence as to the folly of blindly following market moves. To a £10 stake, you would have lost nearly £3,500 backing steamers, and won nearly £2,310 backing drifters.

Note: compelling evidence is claimed as to the folly of following market movers. Why then if this is compelling evidence did Betfair introduce their Follow the Money Tipsters?

How many bets were there?
What price range did the winners come from?
I can't believe that you would make a profit backing drifting favourites for example, but I could easily believe that you could make a small profit if you backed everything that went above 20/1 that drifted.

POINTBREAK

Here are a few example of what I am talking about

Short Priced (under 3/1) Late Drifting Favourites that Lost

7th Sept

14.45
Looksmart 1.91 out to 2.62

16.30

Hajjaan 2.02 out to 2.68

Short Priced Late Drifting Favourites that Won

Please post any that you notice so we can get to the bottom of this.