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Even thought I am a believer in value betting the coin analogy though it illustrates the maths of the argument is not really very applicable to the real world. We have to bet on much more subjective events and here there are far more ways than one to skin a cat. If you saw a bookie offering 6/5 heads 4/5 tails and 9 times out of 10 the coin kept coming down tails would you still keep backing heads ??
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.
The maths of each way betting is pretty simple and has been explained on another post. The only time the simple maths of ew favours the bettor is when 1/4 the odds first 4 in 16 runner events. A few examples follow
8 runner events a very popular medium generally 1/5th the odd first 3
True price of each runner 7/1 therefore returned place price 1.4-1 actual chance of a place 1.66-1 . This is ignoring overround.
12 runners 1/4 the odds first 3
11/1 equates to 2.75-1 the place actual chance of a place 3-1.
16/1 1/4 odds first four
15/1 equates to 3.75-1 the place actual price 3-1
<br>Of course the specific make up of a race might make a certain selection value each way but the maths as above is fact and in the long run ew betting is bad value. The figures above ignore overround and the effect of the losing win stakes.
Rob your maths is right but your argument in wrong this doesn’t illustrate value in any way shape or form why not make your 10/1 shot a 100/1 shot then the value is even better. The truth of the matter is if you back 10/1 shots ew or 1/2 shots win blindly you will lose far less on the 1/2 shots in fact you might even make a profit on them.
I didn’t personally have a bet but evs was a fair price and I would have been seriously tempted at 6/4. The competition was well below Gold Cup class and you were basically betting on LLT retaining 75% of his ability I’d say about which 6/4 was a good price to me. Often the time to catch these horses if their first time out next time will be the really big test more competitive race and the chance of the horse ‘bouncing’ I wouldn’t be interested in the AON at less than 5-1
I have done various doubles and accas MAtron so far my strike rate has been pretty astounding really but more by luck than judgement I think
Well said DL much of the back biting here is wide of the mark. The maths is simple if you back at consistentley greater odds than the true price you win if you don’t you lose. The method by which you achieve this is a matter for personal choice if Esc likes to look for the winner and this works for him then good luck to him. If someone else prefers to price up the event and back anything at a bigger price than they make it then GL to them too. Personally I fall somewhere between the two camps and that works for me.
Recently however I started a little experimental betting bank starting with a free 17.50 first bet offer thingy I decided to bet at 25% of my bank. The criteria for my selections is they must be priced between 1/2 and 1/20 and that is it.No horse racing though they are all sports bets and as of last weekend my bank stood at £280. Then this week sadly I managed to back for the first time ever a 1/12 loser !!! so bank now back to £210 but still pretty good from a 17.50 start in around 2 months. Maybe it has just been luck maybe all these heavy odds on bets are value maybe something else still I continue for now. Generally I bet at around 2/1 to 10/1 so this has been an interesting experiment.
I did once also analyse SP’s over 3 national hunt seasons 1990-1993 I think but not 100% sure and basically the rule was the bigger the price the more you lost backing every runner to level stakes and in fact if you backed simply all odds on runners you made a profit actually quite a healthy one if you avoided novice chases.So more food for thought there.
The only way to make money in the long run is to bet at an offered price greater than the real odds of the event occuring ie getting value. However in the real world maybe it is easier to pick winners than detect which horses are value ???? At least I am sure this is true for some people.
Smithy came up with the classic description of value then ruined it with an awful example 2-1 Fujiyama Crest was value 1-2 would have been value the horse won and that is that those people who backed it who ‘ must have been mad’ went home with cash spilling from their pockets.
The coin toss is an interesting example the odds are evs tails ev heads we all know that. Imagine then this scenario the bookie offers 4-5 heads 11-10 tails you of course back tails he tosses it is heads he goes again again heads and again and again he changes his prices 4-6 heads 5-4 tails he tosses heads again and again and again he reprices 4-7 heads 6-4 tails. Punters are lumping on tails right left and centre. What do you back ??
Incidentally blue square recently offered 11-10 the toss of a coin in the recent England tour of India !!
Fascinating thread first to Bosspunter I would recommend Value Betting by Mark Coton this book which I believe is now out of print but you may find a copy somewhere gives an excellent run through the basics of pricing up your own book. You may not agreee with all Coton has to say but it is an excellent starting place for those wishing to start pricing races from a standing start.
Once in the dim dark past all people used to do was look for winners tipsters tipped the horse they thought most likely to win and punters backed them. Bookmakers used maths and soaked up the sun on long Caribbean holidays !! Nowadays it is all about value so much so in fact that some basics seem to have been forgotten.
The only way to make money in the long run is to back horses at a longer price than that which truly reflects their chances that’s the maths. That is no necessarily to say that Escorials methods will not work though if you pick the winner every time who cares what the price is you win !!
Value is indeed the key but I hear so much nonsense nowadays even after horses have won people say well it might have won but it wasn’t a value price *** Alarm bells if it won it doesn’t matter what price it was, it was value. The most common mistake seems to be to confuse big prices with value prices some punters seem to be greatly impressed with 25/1 shots that finish 5th ‘good run for my money’ ‘far to bigger price to run that close’ etc *** Alarm bells no return = no value I’m afraid.
ANd my final bugbear …. ‘It was a value price I got 7/1 and if the race was run again 6 times I’m sure he would win twice’ sorry I’m afraid they only run each race once you lost !!
I have attended the last 14 festivals and am still not sure which would be my favourite race maybe the QM as Dario says but probably the Arkle which has been good to me as a punter. My one favourite race would be Henry Manns Coral Cup victory which was the first bet I ever had returning over £100 a whopping £100-5 those were the days !!
My least favourite race is much easier I watch every race at the festival bar one the NH chase during this race I am to be found in the bar !!
