Betfair Betting Exchange Win and Place Markets
Betfair Place Market 3 and 4 Places Two Betting Approaches
Two Ways To Enter a Betfair Place Market.
There are two approaches in entering a Betfair place market for (3,4 places) in UK handicap horse races. However, we can jump into graded races as well when required. This is a personal choice, and you will soon be able to identify the races you want to play in.
We will start our journey now,
1. We first calculate Book value of top 2 favourites in the betting in the Betfair win market (not the place market).
2. We make a fork here based on the book value in (1), in other words we choose Process 1 or Process 2. We can view a process as an approach, but we are from a computing background so apologies for the techy speak here.
There are two conditions with respect to the book value for the win market. We suggest you concentrate on UK handicap horse races first or races were you know the horse form better.
If Book value>=50% We follow Process 1 easiest route.
If Book value<50% We follow Process 2 more profitable.
We will look at Process 1 first and it is a good starting point.
Betfair Place Market Process 1>=50%
This is the easiest approach, but a disciplined approach and skill is needed here by ensuring you get the right decimal odds in the place market.
You should not rush and look at the top of this market first and process the top 2 horses in the betting and ignore the rest of the runners in this market. There are clues that are presented in the market as a whole on a daily basis, do not just ignore read the market.
Note we are only interested in backing one of the top 2 in the betting in the market here so we want to make this clear!
You should look at the place market and all of the runner’s decimal odds and look for any anomalies in it. If there is a cluster horses with low decimal odds in this place market ask yourself why?
The market is either unsure or there are liquidity/volume problems.
This is more important when it’s a 3 place market as you have a law of diminishing returns, the market speaks and these low odds cluster normally sink you!
You should get a gut feel from what the market is telling you and punters get to blinkered on their place selections at the top of the market.
Now this sounds straight forward but some punters do not have and entry, in-play and exit position. It’s easy to enter the market blind and fumble around and hope and don’t bother then the market goes in-play, then the punter becomes paralysed. Then they convince themselves its only a tenner when the text winner does not appear as one of the 3 or 4 selections in the market!
If you don’t do it properly leave it alone.
Now at this point you looking to place a bet or trade one of the top 2 in this market. You have to be pretty confident that your form analysis justifies it.
Now if you think the horse can win the race in the win market you should try and exploit the 2 place market, you will normally get 1.61 to 1.79 decimal odds. The 3 place market will offer very little in terms of large decimal odds, but you will have to find them, but you do have more chance of collecting.
If we fancy horse A at decimal odds 2.62 in the win market and then look at the 2 place market rather than the 3 place market. I would rather cast my net out in-play at decimal odds 2.3 if the horse is 1.61 in the place market pre race off due to short decimal odds. You will definitely get matched if it does not finish in the top 2. You must expect not to get matched even when the horse finishes in the top 2 if requested decimal odds is too large in-play. The market is not your friend and there is stiff competition out there to get the money available from the other punters and likewise.
That’s it for this Process 1 and you should really be able to grasp this Process 1 and if not do not bet or trade in these markets. Try in test mode or paper trade it first!
Summary
1. Be confident of your horse form selections and do not just take the non handicap race route. This is a lazy approach, and punters should know better!
2. Ensure the place market decimal odds spread looks visually correct and this maybe harder than you think, but practice makes perfect.
3. When doing the horse form in the win market and the book value is correct >=50% watch for tight spreads under the top 2 in the betting. Sometimes you will see 3 or 4 horses at the top of the market hovering around less than decimal odds 4.8. This is a market indicator that the market is unsure and this the place market. This could be due to a tight handicap!
4. Finally obtain the best decimal odds in-play and spread your stake across multiple decimal odds.
Remember with horse form if you fail to prepare then to fail!
There are no short cuts in the long term!
Betfair Place Market Process 2 <50%
Now on to Process 2 so fasten your seat belts, this is a lot harder who we will not try to trivialise this.
This approach goes like this,
Check horse form in terms of any of the horses in the win market including the top 2 but be a bit imaginative here. You are really looking for races were the decimal odds of the top 2 are 4.5 or larger.
The book value for the top two in the betting is <50%.
We do not look at horses that exhibit Process 1 decimal odds characteristics at the top of
the market as you will break the book value>=50%.
At this point this is where your horse form analysis should be razor sharp. Try and focus on race codes and distances you excel in. This will give you an immediate advantage and the more you look at this the better you get.
If we have identified a selection or selections in the win market, we now check which decimal odds band these selections fall into the Betfair place market for 3 and 4 places.
Which decimal odds bands do we use is a predicate or condition that needs to be applied.
The best decimal odds band in the place market in our opinion is decimal odds 3.0 to 5.0) and that is pre-race off. We now and try to obtain the bigger decimal odds in-play with part or all of your betting or trading stake.
Now at this point you are betting and trading with a hybrid approach here it is up to you. You could take a pre-race off approach but then you run the risk of greening out too early before in-play.
Note. This will frustrate the purist traders!
We personally like to not green up in play as you lose profit but just take an offset position at low decimal odds in-play, this gives us a potential risk free bet or trade. We will explain more on this later.
Note: All of this can be automated to take the strain and error out of this manual process!
We sell bots or automation to do this for you, please check our website.
Let’s go into an example race.
Wetherby 11-40 Mademewhatiam Win odds 25.0 and 4 place odds 3.9.
The horse finished 4th
Now this is a great example race of being able to choose Process 1 or Process 2, the book value is over 50% but we decided to choose Process 2.
Now we have bypassed Process 1 here even though the book value >=50% and we did state this is as a prerequisite for Process 1 to follow. But you have a choice here to follow Process1 or Process 2 and that choice is up to you.
Go of your gut feel and qualify it with your brain, the gut tells you first and your brain qualifies it. We love the flexibility of these place and win betting markets and always feel the market not just look at it.
The horse form we analysed for the race showed us we did not like the favourite in the race. So, our gut feeling based on form was to pick horse Mademewhatiam.
Now the form analysis for this race was a rushed approach here we think about 3 minutes before the race started.
In our opinion there are approximately 5 decimal odds bands in a Betfair place market, and we will show you screenshots.
The bands will be clear after practice, but you should know two already,
Top and bottom of the place market and we are interested in Process 2 the band above the bottom of the market. Process 1 is interested in band 1 which is the top of the market. We have noticed start deviating away from these two bands in our opinion becomes a little bit tricky, but that is up to you, practice makes perfect!
This is how we visualise the market and every market is different.
The horse Mademewhatiam was in the correct decimal odds band in the place market below. In our opinion once you start hitting decimal odds at decimal odds 5.5 or 6.0 or above in the place market the profits diminish as horses do not tend to get placed.
The greed always catches the punter out here, we have all been there riding the large decimal waves at the bottom band of the market.
Tip: Watch the win markets for a number of UK races over a period of a month and take note of the betting at the bottom of the market. Mark were these horses finished and see how many finish in the top 3 or 4 finishing positions!
There is a possible exception to this look for adverse weather conditions and stamina sapping race courses and racetracks which have a high statistic with large priced placed horses.
Food for thought!
We have tracked horse price movements across runners in races over many months and winning horses tend to be around the decimal odds range in a win market are 0 to 7.0 these are shorter at SP. You will get the double figured priced horses popping up now and then.
When conditions are right i.e. the ground etc implied probability is more efficient and kicks in and the odds get you all the time! The market is so efficient that you need to know your entry and exit positions, and this can be achieved many ways.
If we look at the above place market a couple of observations come to mind.
1. The horse Stonegate decimal odds 6.8 in line with its win odds of 90.0 make this not a bet or trade. So, this eliminates one horse from the 9 runners. We are looking at the 4 place market so this puts us in a good position.
2. The horses Great Ballinboris and Ballywood with decimal odds 2.16 and 2.22 make us nervous. This is just the odds not the horse form talking.
3. Now we missed the The Jad Factor as we had little time to do the form before the race and this was the correct decimal odds band like horse Mademewhatiam. There were two selections here, but I recommend going with one with the strongest form.
4. Finally, the Irisante was a small market mover, but we look only for decimal odds 3.0 or higher.
You must watch out for erratic price movements as the market decays at the business end of a race for the horses not in contention. This means large gaps in the place market appear due to no resistance or roadblocks thus odds can swing from 5.0 (or more) to 1.20 in an instance. You can capitalise on these as well, its swings and roundabouts.
Our horse Mademewhatiam was lucky to finish 4th but it did get there as it was tired on the run in. Using the screenshots above we can see the horse is decimal odds 25.0 in the win market and decimal odds 3.9 in the place market. So, in our opinion after form study was a good bet in the 4 place market as it had a chance in the win market not at the implied odds but was priced incorrectly in our opinion for a place. The odds of 3.9 were a bit too low and we did not manage to set up a position in the in-play market to obtain larger decimal odds.
Now the decimal odds 3.9 was not large enough but we wanted to show an example here, this was a good example indeed.
With this horse we should have placed a back order/bet at 4.8 and clustered around this decimal odds and try and get matched in-play. Some of this gut feel and experience.
Decimal Odds and Stakes
£200 at 3.9
Could be broken down better as follows
£50 at 4.2
£50 at 4.3
£50 at 4.4
£50 at 4.9
Can you see the extra profit but only if you get matched in-play.
Now try and get £1000 spread across decimal odds 4.2 and 4.9 range it would take longer to get matched.
Understand the market decimal odds crossover points when obtaining larger in-play decimal odds can be to your advantage, more profit. If you have a trading bot or automation you can look for low liquidity/volume gaps and exploit those decimal odds gaps.
Conclusions
The horse form of your selection’s accounts for 90% of success here, look at the form for larger priced horses that are capable to running to a place. You cannot expect 20/1 shots to win races in the win market all off the time. We are not interested in the win market but only in the place market.
If you cannot be bothered to look at horse form, take up another sport or hobby, there are no excuses here.
The remaining 10% is,
The odds spread win and place market and look for weaknesses in the market, i.e. 2 or 3 large priced horses sitting at the bottom of the win market and this is not necessarily reflected in the place market.
So, if we had a 9 runner race we are really looking at 7 runners as we have eliminated 2 or 3 runners. If the top of the market has 3/1 or 4.0 odds in the win market then we need to tread carefully if we are playing the 3 place market for Process 2 approach
Most of this is common sense but it’s linking it all together is the difficulty.
If you think a decimal odds 2.4 is not going to win in the win market, don’t just go ploughing into the place market, work that one out! This applies to backing larger priced horses in the place market, you are at a disadvantage.
The 2.4 chance has a good chance of getting placed thus putting you on the back foot for process 2. This is a common mistake you have lost before you have started, and this made worse by 2 or 3 horses at the top of the win market with cramped decimal odds.
It might sound difficult to understand but look at both win and place markets side by side and visualise the position of the horses and the market as a whole. But do not assume synergy between the two markets place and win, there is some overlap but little in our opinion. Volume of money flowing through the win market does not flow through the place market and that’s it.
Number of Runners a Final Word
Do not shy away from large fields especially handicap but then just do not ignore small fields. Every win and place market is different this applies to the win market as well; however, you do get repeating race decimal odds patterns, that what traders bank on.
An example Win market 3 decimal odds a trader will focus on flip flopping the top 2 as one drifts the other will most likely shorten to a cross over or resistance point.
2.82
3.2
6.0
Enough on that.
A juicy 16 runner handicap at York maybe off putting to some but not to others. It’s your choice and how well you can read form.
I hope you enjoyed this, remember process 1 is the easiest and process 2 is the hardest.
We hope you enjoyed this we will expand on this with more example races later in the future.