Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2014

Articles

The lay system you are about to read is a quickfire system which i have used to produce good quality lay results without spending hours tied to the PC. As with any betting system the more you put in the more you get out. We still have to do a little homework to allow us to take confidence from our selection before putting our money down on the chosen horse.

One of the main methods of loss retrieval as a layer is the ‘stop at a winner’ system. When you take a bet on the betting exchanges, it is easy to see yourself as a bookmaker. You’ve set up your virtual stall at a race course or football stadium and you can already see yourself in a sheepskin coat, puffing on a cigar with the mantra ‘you never see a poor bookmaker’ cascading around your head.

I mentioned in my previous article about what a potent weapon laying could be in our betting armoury. One of the key advantages of laying is that by opposing one horse, we are effectively backing the other horses in the race. So if we have laid one horse in an 18 runner race, we have 17 other horses running for us.

Too many gamblers are still living in the dark ages and will only ever place a bet with a traditional bookmaker. They either can't be bothered to learn how the exchanges work or simply don't realise the features and value that can be had when betting within an exchange environment.

In this article, Neil looks at how to choose your own horses to lay on Betfair. He examines some of the factors involved in picking losers. Spotting weak favorites to lay on a Betting exchange is not quite as easy as it sounds and if you get it wrong your betting bank can take a serious dent.

This article will not show you how to make a profit by laying horses. It will not even explain exactly how you lay a bet on a horse to lose. My intention when writing this article is merely to demonstrate that laying bets on a betting exchange is not some kind of ‘black art’ and there is nothing ‘smoke and mirrors’ about it.

One of the strategies that I often employ is to lay very short priced favourites with the sole intention of backing them later on in the event. Let me explain, let us say that you are looking at a tennis match between Roger Federer and a low ranked unseeded player in a first round match at Wimbledon.

Back in the old days, most successful professional punters were in attendance on the actual racecourse itself. With the abolition of betting tax and the advent of the betting exchanges, this is no longer necessary. There are many roads that lead to Rome in the realm of successful professional punting and taking on the favourites is one of them.

Anyone who has never tried in running betting on the exchanges is missing out on perhaps one of the greatest adrenalin rushes in the punting world. In running betting in horse racing especially is a white water ride of unsurpassed excitement for the uninitiated.

Losing runs can quickly decimate a betting bank to the point where it is difficult, if not impossible, to recover the losses without an outrageous run of good luck. Losing runs can occur at any time and without any warning whatsoever. In my opinion, it is foolhardy to remain ignorant of the existence of losing runs. Anyone who does so is courting with danger.

By laying a selection to lose for 3 units at odds of 10.5 and then backing the selection to win for 2 units at odds of 11.5, we have, in effect, layed a selection to lose at odds of 8.5 that was trading at 11.5. In effect, a selection has been layed to lose at odds much less than those at which they were trading on the betting exchange.

One of the prime aspects of the rise of Betfair as a resource for betting on horse racing (and other events), was the opportunity to act like a bookmaker and lay horses. Nothing about Betfair caught the imagination as much as this facility. Everyone could become a bookmaker, and we all know that bookmakers make lots of money; therefore it followed that we would all make money if we used Betfair.