betfair prices

[marky72]

hi folks i run the two backing systems running for profit and jumping for profit i was looking for some advice im new to betfair i was wondering is it whens the best time to place your bets just before the race starts or early on:)

[presto]

to be honnest it's a bit of an unanswerable question.

- place a bet early, and you could get much better / worse than SP.
- watch the odd's and 'predict' the peak, though this is very time consuming, you have to be a good market reader and it often makes no difference.
- just before the race, you 'should' beat SP every time.

though nothing is certain. best advice i would give is put them on at a convenient and consistant time. though 1 hour before the start of racing is probably the very earliest you should consider - any earlier and the markets won't have formed properly.

[marky72]

thanx presto

[ITooAm]

Presto, I have heard many people say things such as "- just before the race, you 'should' beat SP every time.".

My question is how can you beat SP if you don't know what it is going to be? I am beginning to doubt my own understanding of what SP actually is? I have always assumed it is Starting Price (i.e., what most bookies' offer price was immediatley before the off), perhaps I am wrong?

[ITooAm]

(my post is regarding Lay prices)

[presto]

SP (starting price) - is the price the bookmakers pay out on the horse.

usually (well IMO) the betfair price represents the true odd's of the horse (open to debate) - but as the bookies want to take there cut - so offer below the betfair price, the movement of prices on betfair is usually replicated by the bookies price.

................................

with laying, you will vary rarely beat SP, as you have to offer the true odd's (or more) to get matched. and as the true odd's are bigger than the SP you have to offer bigger odd's than the bookies. betfair claim there odd's are around 20% bigger than SP (affects bigger prices more). so if the sp is 8/1 at the bookies you would probably have to offer 10/1 on BF.

when talking about laying - beating SP we mean laying at lower odd's than SP.
and vicwe-versa with backing - beating SP is backing at odd's bigger than SP.

although we don't know the SP till mid way through the race - you can always look back at what odd's you did actually get and compare to see if you got a good price or not.

[ITooAm]

Thanks Presto (and sorry for hijacking your thread Marky72),
you have confirmed what I originally thought. I was worried I was missing something as have read a few posts recently (on other forums) talking about beating SP but now think they were talking about RP forecast prices (in the context of their use).

[Win2Win]

(and sorry for hijacking your thread Marky72)


We're quite used to that.....EH VEGY!!!!! :lickme