Want to Lay All the Favourite Horses on Betfair?

A major change in the way you can gamble on horse racing, which is the most popular form of gambling, is the introduction of Betting Exchanges (such as Betfair) which give you the opportunity to Lay horses to lose as opposed to just backing them.

If you are laying a horse to lose and don't know anything about the horse apart from it's price then the shorter the price of that horse the more difficult it will be to get a value lay. Shorter priced horses win at a much closer percentage rate to their expected rate of winning and this is the reason.

The next paragraph explins how the shorter priced animals have a more efficient winning rate than the bigger priced horses.

The odds efficiency of a 1/1 (evens) bet is 96%. These horses are expected to win 50% of the time but only win 48.2% of the time. 5-1 shots are expected to win 16.7% of the time but only win 14.8% of the time (89%) efficient. The odds efficiency of a 10/1 horse is 77%. These should to win 9.1% of the time according to the odds and actually only win 7% of the time.

Most people fail at laying horses because they simply lay all favourites. It's easy to assume that your bank will not go down quickly because you are laying lower priced horses but it's a proven fact that this method will simply not succeed and you will lose your money.

Laying odds on favourites is an exception to this fact and I'll show how in another article that consistent profits can be made laying odds on favourites and how these profits are impressive in one particular type of race.

Finding False Favourites.

The only way of consistently making profts laying favourites is to find the false and 'over bet' favourites

Over hyped horses that are continually talked about by media pundits, and by punters in message boards, are profitable for laying. But over hyped horses do not appear regularly. Only now and again do the really hyped horses such as Sixperfections appear on the scene.

There are lots of false favourites every week that are 'overbet'. They have decent for and also good trainer and hockey stats but they are bet on so much and talked about so much that the price comes down to low and doesn't reflect the true odds of the horse winning the race. These are the horses it's safe to lay as the value in backing them is false.

What is needed is an approach to finding these false favourites. The only way you can do that is to know something else about the horse which the masses do not.

It's always a great idea when finding a race where the favourite looks weak to also look for a couple of other horses who have good enough form to give them a good chance of winning the race. This asserts the opinion that the favourite can be layed.

Thousands of punters every weekend back horses based on their last three form figures. Lots also bet based on their particular favourite pundit in the newspaper. Many others simply follow tipsters tips and these are all largely form based as well.

So the task is doable but needs some knowledge. Seeing as a typical race will have a favourite who is going to be 'overbet', then all we have to do is to find chinks in it's armour and assess whether if it is worth risking a lay.

About the Author

Russell Marsh is a very successful layer of horses on Betfair and his very popular website 'Only Profit Betting' gives out free tips for horses to lay on Betfair. The Current strike of his service is 90%. You are welcome to reprint this article - but get your own unique content version here.