Help on Betfair place bets please

[plater]

Hi All,

Could anyone give me a bit of insight into backing horses to place only on betty ??


What are the place rules ?
Are the odds better than normal e/w place bets E.G 5/1 @1/5 odds =evens ?
What is the take out by betty for a win ( % wise) ?
+ Anything else you can think of that may interest me.


The reason I ask is I may have found a system for betting place only (not totally proven yet), and would like to find the best medium for placing these bets.

Thank you in advance .

Plater

[Micky T]

Hi All,

Could anyone give me a bit of insight into backing horses to place only on betty ??


What are the place rules ?
Are the odds better than normal e/w place bets E.G 5/1 @1/5 odds =evens ?
What is the take out by betty for a win ( % wise) ?
+ Anything else you can think of that may interest me.


The reason I ask is I may have found a system for betting place only (not totally proven yet), and would like to find the best medium for placing these bets.

Thank you in advance .

Plater

This is my limited knowledge of the place side of betty

1, place rules, read these on betty,
the number of winners is always shown in the area that you bet and you often get a extra place i.e 8 runners pays 3 places if there is non runners then it still pays 3 places

2 you can normally get odds of normal odds x .25

3 your normal percentage will be deducted 5% to start, the more you bet the less this is.

4 no

Hope this helps.

[plater]

Thank's Micky.

Plater

[TheOldhamWhisper]

If you want to check to see if you are getting 'value' for your place only on Betfair, I have put up a spreadsheet you can use. Make sure you use the right 'tab' for handicaps and non-handicaps.

You can find it here. (http://www.racingwhisper.com/placebetting.htm)

Link has been approved by Keith and permission given to post it.

[plater]

Thank you for the spreadsheet Oldham, it will come in very handy.

Did the formula work for your problem ??, if not let me know and I will contact you via your website.
Plater

[TheOldhamWhisper]

Didn't quite work as I wanted it to do. I found a way round it, but I'm still not sure the workround is doing what it is supposed to do. Basically, I need something that if the last entry is in row 21, I need the value from the row above (row 20). As each entry is made, the reference is always to the row above. Any ideas?

[Onlyforfun]

Plater,

Have been doing places for a few weeks now and here are some initial observations:

- place odds are often significantly higher on BF in the mornings (don't know why)

- beware of "live" tote prices, there was one yesterday which showed on a certain website as £5.90 (BF was 2.3) and the actual return was £1.20!

- BF also the daddy on place terms, no removal of place places for non-runners except where only same number of places as runners.

If I come accross anything else, will let you know. :spinning

Oldham- one solution to this would be to change the cell reference style on the workbook to R1C1. Then when you reference the cell in your formula it is relative to the position of the formula. As long as your formula stays in the same place relative to the second last value, it will automatically change every time you insert a new cell. If you want an example I can send or attach. (i.e. - it looks for the cell 5 rows above and 1 column to the right and so on)

[TheOldhamWhisper]

Thanks Onlyforfun - the problem is that the formula has to be static as the cell holding the formula is referenced by other cells for calculations. I'll write a bit of code behind the sheet (should have thought of that first!) to solve the problem. With all the functions available, I can't believe nobody though of adding a 'LastInRow' or 'LastInCol' function!

[Onlyforfun]

Don't have Lastinrow or Lastincolumn on my excel, is there an add in?

Usually use code for these myself as saves any hassle with circular references.

[plater]

Try these for size Oldham

Determining the last non-empty cell in a column or row
This tip presents two useful VBA functions that can be used in worksheet formulas. LASTINCOLUMN returns the contents of the last non-empty cell in a column; LASTINROW returns the contents of the last non-empty cell in a row. Each function accepts a range as its single argument. The range argument can be a complete column (for LASTINCOLUMN) or a complete row (for LASTINROW). If the supplied argument is not a complete column or row, the function uses the column or row of the upper left cell in the range. For example, the following formula returns the last value in column B:

=LASTINCOLUMN(B5)
The formula below returns the last value in row 7:

=LASTINROW(C7:D9)
You'll find that these functions are quite fast, since they only examine the cells in the intersection of the specified column (or row) and the worksheet's used range.

The LASTINCOLUMN function
Function LASTINCOLUMN(rngInput As Range) As Variant
Dim WorkRange As Range
Dim i As Integer, CellCount As Integer
Application.Volatile
Set WorkRange = rngInput.Columns(1).EntireColumn
Set WorkRange = Intersect(WorkRange.Parent.UsedRange, WorkRange)
CellCount = WorkRange.Count
For i = CellCount To 1 Step -1
If Not IsEmpty(WorkRange(i)) Then
LASTINCOLUMN = WorkRange(i).Value
Exit Function
End If
Next i
End Function

***************************
The LASTINROW function
Function LASTINROW(rngInput As Range) As Variant
Dim WorkRange As Range
Dim i As Integer, CellCount As Integer
Application.Volatile
Set WorkRange = rngInput.Rows(1).EntireRow
Set WorkRange = Intersect(WorkRange.Parent.UsedRange, WorkRange)
CellCount = WorkRange.Count
For i = CellCount To 1 Step -1
If Not IsEmpty(WorkRange(i)) Then
LASTINROW = WorkRange(i).Value
Exit Function
End If
Next i
End Function


Plater

[TheOldhamWhisper]

Brilliant - Thanks Plater. That's exactly what I was looking for.

Once again - Thanks for the help and the time spent on this problem. When the Spreadsheet is ready and tested, you can both have a copy for free. Hopefully it will produce similar results as a 'service' currently on offer somewhere else at £50 per month!

[TheOldhamWhisper]

Edited the code slightly - included 'As Variant' in the LastInColumn code.

[plater]

Do I get another Star Now :JK

[plater]

Seriously Only been looking at Excel for a couple of months and have not got round to looking at the VBA side of it, used to write a lot of programmes (work & play) in the old basic, so I might just get round to it one day.

I usually just concentrate on the formula and bending it to fit my needs, sent you a mail with what i came up with.

Thank's for the thank's..

Plater

[plater]

Onlyforfun

Thank you also for the betty info, (got carried away with this Excel stuff), and forgot to thank you properly.

Plater