Working out Forecasts??

[Zamorston]

Is there any particular easy way to roughly work out how much a forecast may pay in a race going by the odds?

There’s a race today where I strongly fancy two horses, one marginally more than the other. Just wondered if I would be better off putting all my stake money on the one I fancy the most, or doing a reverse forecast and ending up with a potential greater return whichever one of the two win (providing the other then finishes second)?

Cheers..

[Glenn]

Rough rule of thumb is:

SP of first * SP of second plus one

For example, a 2/1 to beat an 8/1 shot would be around £18 while an 8/1 shot to beat a 2/1 shot would be around £24.

Returns will be higher than this if SP margins are higher and lower if SP margins are keen. In races with favs that are long odds-on, combinations excluding the fav pay much lower than the guide price above.

[Zamorston]

Cheers for that Glenn, but still not totally sure by that, just taken from one bookmaker the odds in the race in question of the first 5 in the market are…

5/4
13/8
13/2
10/1
16/1

There’s 11 runners, not sure if that makes any difference?

So basically I’m looking at the front two in the market, marginal preference is for the 2nd favourite, so just say for example I was betting with a tenner.. Just a straight win on that would return £26.25. What sort of return could I expect for the forecast either way round?

[seabird]

Good luck with this project.

I posed this question of my employers when I was working for a bookie and they either couldn’t or wouldn’t give me an acceptable explanation.

Glenn’s rule of thumb is the accepted guideline.

Colin

[Glenn]

A £5 reverse forecast would pay around £17 typically on those two, so you’d get less than your straight win bet.

I’d generally advise against forecast bets unless you really know what you’re doing – the margins on them are pretty horrendous.

[Zamorston]

I’d generally advise against forecast bets unless you really know what you’re doing

That’s me screwed then.

Thanks a lot for that anyway… I did end up doing the r/f/c so I’ll update how I got on shortly!

[Author]

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