A traditional bookmaker moves his prices (within reasonable bounds) in response to bets taken. The Betfair market appears to entirely ignore bets taken and the anticipated fav (top line) will always take an apparently out of proportion volume of bets.
An example from today:
The market has 8m.30s to go to the off
Horse A is priced at 3.05 and has taken 47% of all bets and 23% of its PreEvent total has been staked.
Horse B is priced at 4 and has taken 25% of all bets also 23% PE total.
4 mins to go
Horse A is now 3.35 and horse B 3.85, but still 47% of total bets for horse A and 26% for horse B (37% of PE total now staked)
2 mins
A now 3.5, B now 3.65 A has 48% of total bets, B 26% (56% of total now staked)
1 min
A now 3.55, B 3.95 – A 47% B 28% - 70% total staked on A, 77% on B
At the off
A is 3.65 B is 3.8 – A finally 47% of total staked and B 25%
So despite there being little between the 2 horses in probability of winning, Horse A while drifting consistently took almost half the money staked. I can’t understand why this should happen, it seems to defy logic that money should push down the price.
Please have a read and ask if (quite likely) my point isn’t clear.
I can’t understand this apparent paradox
...consistently took almost half the money staked
with a traditional bookmaker money are staked
with a exchange money are matched. The difference is that if I make a tick than lose a tick the matched money increase when in fact I did not stake any money...
with a traditional bookmaker money are staked
with a exchange money are matched. The difference is that if I make a tick than lose a tick the matched money increase when in fact I did not stake any money...
Dav
I am looking at the stats for a race whilst reading your post and here they are.
In this race the fav drifted from 3.7 to 4.3 and then returned to 4's at the off. During this time there were Back bets to the tune of £94,544 and Lay Bets to the tune of £94,724 (leaving a mere net £180 on the downside).
None of this makes sense except to note that this is what traders do
.
I am looking at the stats for a race whilst reading your post and here they are.
In this race the fav drifted from 3.7 to 4.3 and then returned to 4's at the off. During this time there were Back bets to the tune of £94,544 and Lay Bets to the tune of £94,724 (leaving a mere net £180 on the downside).
None of this makes sense except to note that this is what traders do
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JollyGreen
- Posts: 2046
- Joined: Sat Mar 21, 2009 10:06 am
Completely agree, I have been following betting for more years than I care to remember starting out in smoke filled rooms with no natural light and a horn bellowing out the commentary. I then started using Betfair about 10 years ago and tried to combine knowledge across the two platforms.James1st wrote:Dav
I am looking at the stats for a race whilst reading your post and here they are.
In this race the fav drifted from 3.7 to 4.3 and then returned to 4's at the off. During this time there were Back bets to the tune of £94,544 and Lay Bets to the tune of £94,724 (leaving a mere net £180 on the downside).
None of this makes sense except to note that this is what traders do
Lately I have noticed that price movements beggar belief, they just totally contradict basic principles. I usually refer to it as traders batting the prices back and forth.
I think that Betfair has a shocking marketing strategy, some may call it a lack of strategy and I would not be able to disagree. The punters have run away because they simply cannot be bothered to use Betfair's complex process...their words not mine. I found out recently that Betfair ran a survey and >80% of people taking the survey said they couldn't understand the Betfair site. How crazy is that? Here we have Betfair who started out saying "we're different" and "winners are welcome" and yet most people have no idea how to use the site!
With no punters to counter the effect of traders then it just comes down to what James1st said "
None of this makes sense except to note that this is what traders do"