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Rob,<br>Yes granted you will have winners and I can understand you think they produce profit but [/b]EVERYONE[/b] has losers and you are not taking this into account as it is the winners profits that subsidise the losing runs so the better the return the longer you can withstand the losing runs or have more profit if you show a winning year. This game is all about maths and increasing your chances of success so why play when odds are clearly against you?
Okay lets concentrate on Ecs bet then, I’ll try to explain it a bit better.
He got a 20/1 shot (assuming that should have been it’s true odds to 100% book) placed which had a real chance of 5.3/1 of being placed and yet he recieved 4/1 which on my reckoning he lost out on £65 to a £50 place stake.<br>Now a 5.3/1 shot has a percentage rating of 15.9% chance so if he repeated this bet he would get (according to the laws of averages) 1 right in every 5.3 bets so in effect if he maintain this 5.3 level of success (as the law of averages should dictate) then every 5.3pts staked on the place bet would return 4pts (20/1@ 1/5) which would result in a loss of 0.3pts per 5.3 staked.<br>Now this only applies to laws of averages and winners will come in fits and spurts but long term it will even itself out and amount to a considerable amount – say after staking 530 points, 30points would have been lost through backing a bad bet, if like me during the NH season £10 = 1 point (whist is a very modest stake compared to some) 30points would equal a loss of £300 just because I am backing bad value bets.<br>I think my maths are correct but it wouldn’t be the first time I got it wrong! :biggrin:
Where I think you 2 are falling down (IMHO) is that you are concentrating on winners and forget the losers as most punters do if they don’t keep records as I used too, its a convenient memory trick to remember the winners and forget the losers that your brain does. More can be learnt from backing a loser than a winner most of the time. It all boils down to how serious you are and how much effort you want to put into it to giving you a fighting chance long term, if your happy just to get a return no matter what it is then carry on by all means as there is nothing wrong with that for enjoyment purposes, I’m just trying to highlight a few things that could help you put odds in your favor if you’re serious. I’m no expert but I’m also no mug any longer!
Of course, we all have losing runs. I see how you have come to the conclusion that Esc was ripped off in his bet – sadly though the bookies are not going to be nice in giving us perfectly round and even bets. They want to keep some (a lot) for themselves.
I think it would be interesting to see how win only punters and each-way punters records compare over a long period of time.
The bookies have the odds in their favour most of the time (nearly all the time i think) because if they didn’t, they’d go out of business!
When you bet on a race you want to come away with more than you started. You can do this with each-way betting.
You’ve shown that each-way punters don’t have much in their favour when it boils down to figures and allsorts which suggests that a lot of the time each-way betting is not value. There are times when it is though – Esc’s example: Yep, he should have recieved better odds than he did (in an ideal world he would have) but the bookies aren’t going to let him get away with that. He still won more than if he’d have backed the winner and he still pocketed a profit.
This game, for me, is about making a profit – i can understand how you feel when you say that each-way bets are a bookies benefit but the bookies make the odds: if a profit is made and money is taken from the bookie’s satchel, i’m happy.
:wave: Hiya Rob, To answer your question…
I have kept detailed records of all my bets over the past 5 years and back in September last year I did a major study of them by pitching the EW bets as Win only bets. What I found astounded me, if I had backed all my EW bets over the 5 year period as Win only instead (1/2 pt win & 1/2 pt place vs 1 pt win) I would have increased my profit by 26.7%. Needless to say I dont back EW anymore except at odds of 20/1 when 1/4 the odds or 25/1 when 1/5 the odds simply because of two personal reasons: a) 99% of my bets are at 2/1+ so the place fractions at the above odds would translate to 2/1 for the EW bet reaching the frame in both cases. b) 3 years ago I had a losing run of 44 bets at odds of 9/1+ which almost destroyed my betting bank (all of them by Pricewise by the way) and after that experience I would rather accomodate the 20/1+ shots as EW for the time being.
There is not much I can add to the obvious, except perhaps a quote from Jack Ramsden: "I think every punter would benefit by cutting out all EW bets"
This is my final attempt to highlight the problem with bad value if backed long term.
Now if you are at the casion playing Roulette and you are just backing £1 on Red at Even money, the true odds of sucess are 18/19 (18 red, 18 black + zero) assuming the law of averages is correct you stay for 3,700 spins you would leave with £50 (not £100, because zero = 1/2 stake refunded) less than you went in with. Although the chance of zero coming up is 36/1 it will at some point and the longer you stay in there the more likely it is to come up. Now bear in mind 18/19 compared to evens is now great overround percentage (-1.35%, house overround of 5.4% on all possibilties), imagine what damage could have been done to 10% or even 68%!
So summed up basicially the longer you gamble against bad odds the more you will lose eventually no matter how good at finding the winners you are!
Afternoon Esc,<br>I can see I am wasting my time trying to open your mind or as the saying goes that I’m wasting my time ‘trying to teach an old dog new tricks’ (not that your old or a dog….LOL) but it’s the law of averages that you seem to be missing by presuming you can constantly defy them which at some point you won’t so why continue to aid the bookmakers advantage.
Regarding the roulette example each and every spin has an overround of 105.4% so eventually if you stay there long enough you will see your bank slide. I agree each spin is exactly the same odds and has the same chance of the last spin but if you backed to a 105.4% book last spin as you will this spin, it would catch up with you eventually albeit 10, 100, 1,000 or 10,000 spins.
Daylight, a sterling defence – I agree wholeheartedly.
Except of course you can still find ‘value’ in each way betting – as Escorial plainly did in his one example. (And taking this thread and the other one on value it is obvious Escorial that youare a vlaue investor in denial!)<br>It’s just harder to find, and probably even harder to evaluate what represents value.
Pixo – I too have just gone through my records for last 4 seasons (flat and jumps).
I used to bet a lot each way, until I saw the error or my ways and moved towards taking a couple of nice-priced horses against the field in races where I was formerly going each way on one long-shot. I also usually add a small exacta as a get rich quick bet.
Here are my returns
Each Way 57 bets 11 places (19%) Returns 91%<br>Single win 366 bets 52 wins (13%) returns 117%<br>Split bet plus forecast 214 bets 43 wins (20%) returns 126%.
If I look at the each way bets and say I put the entire stake onto win, my record would be a rather miserable<br>bets 57 wins 1 (0.2%) Returns 60%.
No wonder I moved from each way to backing a couple.
ESC- see what you mean, i dont think you`ll find internet bookies willing to accept 70/30 bets and probably no bookies willing to accept 70% on the place part.
If you want a 70/30 bet with an internet bookmaker, then place two bets – one of 40 win and one of 30/30.
They are ways and alternatives to backing each way by using the Tote online or Betabet’s place only market.<br>There you will find the bet you should have made ;)
<br>esc<br>on the flat in large fields where the draw can be either high or low (such as ascot) it can pay to back one each side of track
wouldnt recommend backing 2 in same race as a regular policy though but there again i dont back ew either
Seem to have missed most of this debate; I’m one of those who use EW & WP place bets on quite a regular basis. I’ll concede it’s not the most efficient way to win money, but I honestly don’t see the problem, providing you understand what you’re doing, & why you’re doing it.
About 50% of my bets have some sort of place portion. I run a win only model alongside my actual bets to monitor the difference, & my figures come out eerily similar to those of Pixo. In 2001, I totalled 64 bets, & if I had placed them on a win only basis, my profits would have been 28% higher. I think DL said in a different context, would you be happy to knowingly give an extra percentage to bookies? Where I differ, is that my answer to that question is; Yes I would. I’m happy to concede some extra profit, if it allows me greater control in managing & turning over my capital, & provides me with a more acceptable (lower) level of risk. This also allows me to enjoy horseracing & maintains my confidence at a decent level. If you wish to call it “a comfort zone for people who can’t handle losing runsâ€ÂÂ
The facts are :
1) Betting is about maths you beat the odds you win you don’t you lose
2) ew betting generally offers worse value than win betting (see my first post and DL’s various excellent posts)
Of course anyone can quote some specific examples where ew offered value and we can all be aware of these but two people have now reviewed their records to see a 25% + increase in winnings if betting win all the time and amazingly one of them intends to carry on doing it !!
Escorial your bet basically boiled down to 5/2 your selcetion to win and 11 runner race if you thought that was ok then I suppose it was worth a bet but I will state now if anyone consistently backs horses ew which have no chance of winning they WILL LOSE MONEY. Your horse must have a chance of winning.
Can I just point out the reason why I started this thread, as people seem to be taking it personal for some reason and missing the whole point!
The point of my postings is to highlight very poor value bets in a bid to help anybody reading this to eliminate the bookies edge when things are clearly in his favor and not yours! Whether you take any notice is entirely up to the person reading the thread, if my input eliminates 1 bet that is clearly in the bookies favor and makes you seek alternative more fairer bets then it’s been a sucessful post in my opinion. There will always be people who swear blind they can continue to beat massively overround bets and who am I to argue if it’s true as I’m sure some people can defy the laws of probability regularly.
The ‘comfort blanket’ does hold true to me as if you are not confident to do a win bet then a place bet would suffice would it not? Escorial’s bet seems to be the focus in this thread and what I was saying is that Escorial paid out a 30% bookies tax on this bet and was forced to place a £50 on a win bet (by his own addmission) on a horse he did not feel was the winner. There are, and were alternative bets instead of a £50ew bet he could have had £100 on the place bet which eliminates the massive overrounds in some each way bets and had a full stake on instead of having to only placing half his stake on the bet he fancied.
Colin,<br>Whether this appears "childish and actually untrue" is a matter of opinion as this is my opinion and what confusses me is at the top of your post you back up my arguement with "if I had placed them on a win only basis, my profits would have been 28% higher". Isn’t the point – making better profit even if it means the losing runs are higher? <br>
Jjimps, I’m sorry but I think you’re making a horrible mistake there.
I think you may be confusing something that is only a statistical probability….with a mathematical certainty.
I’ve got to work now, so I’ll try to pop back lunchtime & add to this.
Absolutely – I repeat what I wrote on the previous thread, which is,  if win only punters’ apply the same logic to win bets then they should never back a horse at lower price than the number of horses in the race. It is all subjective – from picking a horse to what you have on it and how. If win only works for you then fine, but some seem to be trying to convince us that this is an exact science, which it most definitely is not.
Each way betting is another tool in the punters favour – I will treat a EW bet as two bets, and it will be backed if I consider the place element and the win element to be better than I would be prepared to lay.
Oops, seem to have rattled the master’s cage. :argue:
DL, This thread is entitled “Is each way betting a waste of time?â€ÂÂ
Colin, I can assure you I am not ‘rattled’ nor the ‘master’, just a contributer who feels he has highlighted an extremly bad bet on certain occasions by showing you all the stats.
I have highlighted that in big fields of 16-20 in handicaps when a bookie pays the first 5 home is the best time for each way bettors to as the odds on this bet are actually quite largely in your favor. It is of course your choice to ignore those stats I put up earlier and debate the fact that each way betting can possibly be profitable (which I have never stated otherwise, just said there are alternatives and fairer bets on occasions) on all each way bets. From a personal point of view I have been more successful since giving up nearly all each way bets as my records showed I should make this step which I am glad I did. I do take the view that each way betting is a ‘comfort blanket’ as I have been there experiencing this first hand (still do on rare occasions) and if you find that insulting then I’m sorry but it’s my belief be it right or wrong I can’t see me changing my opinions now. What I am highlighting is the fact of ALL the obsticles that are to be overcome to make a profit on certain each way bets are likely to prove difficult. It has drifted off topic occasionally about the each way betting as a whole and admittedly I could have chosen a better title thinking about it now.
On this topic alone I have posted on numerous occasions that I felt Esc didn’t maximise his pay-out and I hope that he or someone else will take note next time but again it’s entirely up to the bettor, as it always is.
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