Exchanges

The_Kew_Tour

Do many of you use exchanges?

I used to do most of my Horse racing bets through the exchanges few years ago now though.

Mostly layed odds on FAV at AW and made little profit. Thinking of going back in.

Who do ye find best now betfair, betdaq or other?
Do you back, lay or both?

Just share what ye think.

Clonsuttonlad

Laying favs is definately profitable on AW. Just avoid laying favs from Gosden in AW maidens.

Francie Barrett

Years back when I first discovered it, I used to use it for all my betting. For awhile, I even got into laying horses. Honestly, I was rubbish at laying though, and that put me off Betfair to a large extent. Another reason I've been using Betfair less is rivals have improved their online offerings and in many cases they actually offer superior odds than Betfair. What I have also found is that Betfair reacts a lot faster than the traditional bookie to overpriced horses. For example, when Rossom tipped Tatanen so well that time, Betfair were something like 30/1, whereas I managed to get 40/1 with Coral. What I don't understand is why people use Betfair for short priced favourites. So often, you see the likes of Man City trading at 1.3 on Betfair, when you can get 1.33 with a bookie. When you strip out 5% commission, the payout is even worse.

I would say the spread of my betting is 85% traditional bookie and 15% Betfair. Betfair is handy for the odd time I fancy doing some in-running betting and for certain big priced horses.

Hulk Hands

Having a full range of accounts is much better than the exchanges for racing. There's little to no liquidity these days on early prices, and even if there was you're handicapped by the 5% comission and no best odds guaranteed. Early prices are generally essential to anyone trying to make a few quid, as the market has generally righted itself by the time board prices come and a bit of liquidity finally enters the market. Betfair is usually best for board prices alright, but its a lot more difficult to win. While you can win at board, I take a skeptical look at anyone saying they're profiting <15 mins before a race on betfair. It's very tough to beat 5% commission doing that.

For the vast majority of bets, both racing and sports i'd be very disappointed if I couldnt find at least one bookie across the countless ones around who are a bigger price than betfair. At that stage its a no-brainer with no commish. So no, rarely use the exchanges bar for reference. That's common these days too as you can see from the amounts matched, just not what they were. Betdaq looks even worse for liquidity even though there is a shorter commission.

Francie Barrett

Clonsuttonlad wrote: »

Laying favs is definately profitable on AW. Just avoid laying favs from Gosden in AW maidens.

Laying favourites blindly sounds like the road to ruin to me.

Anyone who I knew who made money on Betfair had a specific system that eventually stopped working as people started figuring it out. I remember one acquaintance having a lot of success laying horses by certain stalls back when the likes of Lingfield and Wolverhampton were rejigged and went to polytrack. As draw biases were either removed or figured out, the advantage soon disappeared.