Horse arbs

[YorkMag]

Been doing Mbing for a month now and go hang of football. Just wondered how best to go about betting on the horses. Football can do days in advance but do you need the morning off to get the best out of the horses? Also how often to arbs come along as not seen any yet but have found a few on the football.
Have booked 2 days off work for Cheltenham and need to ensure make most of opportunity !!

[munk]

To be honest I didn't notice it myself until I eventually bet on two different horses in the same race, layed them both on betfair and magically found that I didn't need as much in Betfair as I thought I would... I'd also heard people talk about 'sharing liability' on Betfair and was a bit confused, but personally when I saw it in action the first time it all made perfect sense then... is a bit hard to explain.

Basically Andy probably explained it best... say you're betting on two different horses in the same race and you lay then both at Betfair. You have £100 liability on horse1 (ie you have to out £100 if horse1 wins) and you have £200 liability on horse2 (ie pay out £200 if horse2 wins).

First thing is that instead of you needing £300 to cover all your liability on this race, you actually only need £200 - because only one of horse1 or horse2 can win the race. If horse1 wins, you pay out £100 in lay liability but at the same time you wouldn't have to pay out on horse2 because it couldn't have possibly won (and in fact you will have won the lay stake from that). Same if horse2 won, you'd only pay out £200 lay liability (you wouldn't pay out the liability on horse1 because it hasn't won!).

It has the benefit that you can be more efficient in your bet making by placing lots of back bets in the same race, but not having to have so much money in Betfair to cover the lay liability of each horse individually - you only need enough in Betfair to cover the most expensive of the horse's lay liabilities.

Another benefit is that if one of your horses does actually win and you've backed one or more other horses in the same race, usually it means you don't pay any commission on the winning lay stakes - because the lay liability you paid out on the winning horse has meant your net profit/loss on that race is actually negative and you don't pay commission obviously if you lose money at Betfair.

Example - you back 1 2 and 3 in same race. 1 wins the race and you have to pay out £100 lay liability. At the same time though you had £10 lay stakes on 2 and 3, so you're up £20 from those... now the good thing is that your net profit/loss for the race is actually £20-£100 = -£80 so you've not had to pay the commission here because the net p&l is negative.

[LosEndos]

Mbing on Horses is not for the faint-hearted! Prices can move unbelievably fast. (usually the wrong way). Most of the time (not always) if you see an arb, you have less that 10 seconds to bag it before its gone.

Then there is the Rule 4 to take into account - not going to explain it here - search forums, there is loads on it.

Personally I love it but due to work commitments can do very little of it.

[lazza_w]

For big meetings early prices may be shown the day before, but most of the time you won't find many odds available before 10am on the day of the race as the odds depend on lost of factors on the day, most importabtly the weather that will affet the running. A horse that will romp home on hard ground may be rubbish on soft ground so heavy rain overnight will affect odds hugely.

Arbs come and go on horses quite quickly and the rate that the odds change is quite frightening when you 1st start doing horses. If you've not got it already then get the Betfair Refresh add-on from Gruss Software that enables you to refresh the odds at Betfair more frequently (set it to refresh ever 1-2 seconds) and you'll see just how much money moves in the last few mintutes. That's the time that arbs are often found, but the risks of odds drifting is also huge.

Personally I tend to look for matches for races 20min -2hrs away. I may not get such good odds but work/home comittments mean that I can't risk matching closer to the off. No loss matches are still quite easy to come by.

Also make sure you're aware of the affect that Rule 4 on withdrawn horses can have on the odds you get paid out on. The simplest way around this is just to avoid betting on a race where any horses have been withdrawn but there are other safeguards you should check for too.

[darkhorse]

Go to an In-play footie match thats 0-0 and back the Draw, a few mins later "green up" and lay your stake back for a few pence profit regardless.

Ahhh, I was wondering what the term "green up" was referring to.... Now I know. Thanks.

[Makybe]

I understand there are ways to minimise this happening, but every so often, i have an instance where an attempted horse match bet gets away from me

back the horse, within seconds the lay price goes out 0.2 of a point or something and it just keeps going

this can be quite costly

obviously have the back and lay bets ready to go ... then click, click but boy it can test your patience

had one get away from me yesterday that cost me £15 ... most infuriating

sure you get some that go the other way, but the profit is never anywhere near as significant ...

others have similar experiences ?

Cheers

[AmeliesDad]

If its on something that can move quick, like the horses before the off, I'll often set up my lay bet at higher odds than are necessary. If they move you still get in on whatever they moved to, and if they don't betfair will give you the best it can at the time. Otherwise you can find that you are chasing the current lay price and it just keeps getting ahead of you.

[munk]

I understand there are ways to minimise this happening, but every so often, i have an instance where an attempted horse match bet gets away from me

back the horse, within seconds the lay price goes out 0.2 of a point or something and it just keeps going

this can be quite costly

obviously have the back and lay bets ready to go ... then click, click but boy it can test your patience

had one get away from me yesterday that cost me £15 ... most infuriating

sure you get some that go the other way, but the profit is never anywhere near as significant ...

others have similar experiences ?

Cheers

In my personal experience it's more costly backing first and laying later - I would always queue my lay bet first at Betfair, and then watch the back price and queued lay bet closely (keep a bet window open in Bet trader pro) and cancel the queued lay bet if the back price drops (or place the back bet if the queued lay gets matched).

If the back price does drop just as the lay bet gets matched, usually you can trade out immediately for a minimal loss or even a profit sometimes but the most important thing is to trade out immediately whatever you do well unless you want to gamble on where the price will go of course.

The process does require incredible patience and attention to detail though - on the lay side in bet trade pro you want to have one popup with the queued lay bet in so you can cancel it quickly, along with a popup box with the particular horse in so you can watch the 'weight of money' to see which way things are going. Then on the back side you want to have one browser tab with the bet slip in and another with the horse price in and have that refresh every 10-30 seconds depending on how close to the off the race is - I use the refresh every addon for firefox for that.

The second the back price drops, cancel the queued lay bet (or look for another book offering the price you were originally going for). The second the lay bet gets matched, drop the back bet.

Gets interesting when you have more than 4 lots of bets going at the same time - that's where having at least two monitors is a must!

[lazza_w]

Agreed there is a lot of "fear" factor that is probably over hyped.

...

I have only bet on horses twice. I'm no way good enough to find arbs yet - I just love the fast turn around and availability of odds of all ranges. No waiting till saturday evening for games to complete, just get on with it.

I've never hit any problems about Rule 4 reductions but generally follow a few simple rules

1) Ideally don't bet on a race if there have been any withdrawals at the time you place the bet. If they happen afterwards any change will make very littel difference anyway

2) If you do bet on a race that has withdrawals check that Betfair and the bookie both show the same horses and that it's not awash with arbs. If you find any disparities then one or the other haven't accounted for the withdrawal and you may find that you bet at odds of 10 is only paid out at odds of 9.

3) If you can be bothered then check the over-round at the bookie if it's not higher than 110-120% then worry

4) back and lay at the same time (or pretty close to each other)

5) I think that Rule 4 has the biggest impact when you're arbing (which I don't) as your profit is measure in 1-2% of the total money tied up. Therefore small % changes in the odds can have a big impact. If you're using a free bet where the profit is 10-50% of the total money tied up you'd have to cock up pretty badly to make a loss