Racehorse TALK

Bread is $4 now   
Next you'll tell me Milk is up to $3.
I like that OLD GOLD chocolate  

Someone said they make a horse favourite that shouldn't be to take advantage of the fav mug punter. Wondering how true that is & how often.    

Zorro I have no idea how much bread is or Chocolate for that matter, it was just drawing an analogy(I think that is the word)
I am sure some bookies do(make a horse fav) depending on their clientèle, if you had clients who were astute and bet in the early markets you could get badly burned!

EZ the statement I made is correct, as a runner for a bookie in the past I have seen this take place on numerous occasions. JPs interpretation is also correct. The way bookies frame a market vary in many ways and this will depend on the caliber of the bookie, the venu (metropolitan or country track) the type of meeting (gallops, trots, dogs) the type of race (undisclosed form eg 2yo, maidens etc, or well disclosed form). In general most bookies are percentage takers however some are opinionated.

Not sure what stand up at some race meetings could be confused for Bookmakers, more like accountants, the prices they ask punters to take is a bloody ridiculous, the only thing more ridiculous is the Punters desperate enough to take the prices Offered,  I have seen them open at close to 200%!! and come down around 150/160% at post time, you would want to have bloody good info to bet in a market so tilted in their favour!
I can't believe the number of Punters who don't understand percentages being offered.
Robbie Waterhouse is the Best Bookie in Sydney(well a few years ago when I was in Sydney he was and I would assume nothing has changed) he is always first up with his prices and at a fair percentage from the start,

Which On-Line agancy/bookie would be first to put up their odds each week?

With all the different On-Line Bookies I sometimes wonder who they follow when they put up their odds OR do they each have their own odds specialist. I would think a few make their own book but wouldn't most others just copy & tweak a few of the main chances either way?

This was a great thread in the early part. I like the way Henry and Jim Pike were developing the concepts of price and dutching. Can we pick it up again, and stay on the topic, because we were just getting into some outstanding principles, and the thread died.



Ok - Jim has nailed some decent principles that we can use in our battles against the price-makers:

i) Two out of three favourites get beaten
ii) There are false favourites in some races
iii) The public may make the price ... or the bookie may make the price ... but many times both are wrong

I won't put this next bit in with the principles above, because it is contentious.

But if a horse wins at 66/1 (or 25/1 etc), it does not have to mean it should have been assessed as favourite. It does not have to mean anything at all. Because what we are looking at is historical grouping of prices. And at the end of the day, the money coming for a horse "should" establish its SP. The times this will not happen, is when commission agents are hitting the country bookies, so that the official SP remains optimum. On other occasions, a winner will come from a small stable where big-betting clients are non-existent, or very astute with how they get set.

So ... what we are seeing is an outlier, and there will be times when these smokeys take us all out of the race.
Get over it - take the loss and move on - that's what we do - it does not have to mean the game has been reinvented.

I used to believe that the best way to pick a winner, is to look at the prices of the runners. So far I have not seen evidence that I am wrong. After all, if a horse is "in the money" then it "should" give a sight for that money in the way the result is determined.

My own research shows me that if the favourite gets done, then the likely winner will come from runners at or under $8.50. (I have other refinements that I won't go into here, but I can deal with specifics on a new thread, if there is interest.)

In our scenario, the favourite will get done 2 from 3.

Meaning the < $8.50 shots might salute.

This is where Henry's Dutch Book strategies will shine.

So ... what can go wrong? The usual ... the run of outs!

On level stakes, I can win with the way I make my dutch book.
I could win a lot more ($$ ... not races) if I could manage some kind of dutch betting progression, that could handle the statistical run of outs, plus a margin of another +/- 50% for insurance.

So far, this has eluded me, because I need to do more calculations yada yada ... but I feel sure, given the experience I see on the forum, that some of you have addressed these issues in the past.

I invite your comments, and ideas, with apologies to GamblingMan, the OP. Hopefully he will approve of reviving the thread, and also comment with his own take on this. I know dutch is just one way of dealing with a race. but it does eliminate (largely anyway) the need to spend countless hours studying past runs, ratings, previous placings, $takes won, course-and-distance, track condition, number of runners, barrier, jockey, trainer, weight (and claims) and so on.

The idea is that someone else has done all of that number and data crunching, and the end result is a horse that is getting support in the market. A few less than 66 out of 100 races (probably around 55) will have a result where one from our price bracket will salute.

How can we best exploit that?

Thanks Henry for your earlier dealing with this - great stuff. What I would like to see now, is the best way to stake the selections - level stakes ... progression ... target ... loss recoupment .... partial loss recoupment ... what?

I fully understand if people prefer to keep certain methods private - I have things I won't disclose too, at times.
But if you have some clues that are for public consumption, I think there could be profit in such a discussion.

id put the favourite standout from the other two and field 3rd (if its more then a 3 horse race)

also put the 2nd two in first for the exacta, and standout the fav for quinella.

id also put the two other guys in for first, and fav standout second or 3rd, field for 3rd/4th depeneding on trifecta or first4

the most profitable way ive found if you feel a horse or two are overs then put them in a roving banker, 2 in a tri is 36 combos and 3 in a f4 is 120 in the dogs (8 runners)

i normally go exotics for the dogs as i feel that i can get more value, if i do have exotics for the gallops ill go wider on metro meetings and vice versa for midweek.

as for staking depends how confident i am, ill try get at least 10% of anything that has heaps of combos, but if its under 20 id just go for 100/50%

the only efficient market is the tote, and you have to beat the takeout theoretically. fixed odds are great because the markket isnt efficient, people wont pay to have viewed at 10-1, but they are happy to take so you think at 2/1 because he was a winner.

people back black caviar because shes a winner, im wouldnt say she has 96% chance of winning or whatever it is but we arent tossing a coin, the whole game is based on opinion and ultimately the best judges are the winners.

Can't get highlighting correct. I give up. B/P monitor tells me it is time to give it away.