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View Full Version : My experience with Betfair


satrabyk
09-06-2010, 08:30 PM
On Betfair since 2005. In those days you could find bargains galore. I remember catching G. Gomez at 40 to 1 at Befair - he closed at 9/2 at the track. It was very common to get odds at even or better on 3 to 5 shots without worrying if someting fishy was going on. As time went on bargains were harder to obtain as more and more SMART MONEY infiltrated Betfair. As a matter of fact when things look too good to be true it usually is. I vaguely recall an incident earlier this year at Sam Houston. Steve Asmussen had a
horse entered in a race that was at 1 to 2 odds a couple of minutes to post time. At Betfair 10's of thousands of dollars were available on this horse at even money or better. In this same race Cash Asmussen had a horse entered at 3 or 4 to 1. Cash's horse wins and Steve's horse runs 3rd or worse. Wonder if any investigation was ever conducted ?

I was thrilled when Betfair offered INPLAY(betting while race is running) on US Racing in 2007. It added a whole new dimension to the game allowing for new betting strategies and can be very addictive. At this time I referred several friends to join Betfair. It was great to see part of the race before making a bet - eliminating horses with bad starts , etc. even if that meant getting much lower odds. We also would love to BACK before the off and LAY at much lower odds after the off. In 2008 Betfair decided to no longer offer INPLAY on US Racing except on Breeder's Cup races. Never could find out why this decision was made especially since they offer it on almost every other market. They offered it on a race from Turkey the other day. Now most of the guys I referred have lost interest and no longer bet on horses.

Nowadays it is very common to see odds on horses at Betfair lower(even before commissions) than at TOTE shortly before post time forcing me to bet through TOTE or not at all. If North American racetracks were to drastically reduce the takeout on Win/Place/Show it would definitely hurt Betfair. Recently they introduced BSP on US Racing - have trouble figuring it out and besides no one seems too interested in it anyway based on handle. Since Betfair resists to offer it why can't N.A. tracks create pari-mutual INPLAY
betting were people can bet up to a certain point into the race (ie. head of the stretch) ?

Some_One
09-06-2010, 09:05 PM
Very common to see horses below the tote? If the back side has a total overround of 105%, it should be very uncommon to see that, especially at the major tracks. There are some tracks that have low liquidity and there are idiots out there who want to offer 2-1 on a 10-1 shot before post time, screw them and play the tote pools instead, or put your own price out there, you can be the market maker.

The only trainer I've seen suspicious activity with so far is with Carla Gaines horses, when they're backed real well on Betfair, they all seem to be live.

Oh, the official excuse for the stopping of in running was that the Brits weren't happy the Canadians had a 15 or so second advantage in the in running (I guess your friends were Canadian)...but the idea of a parimutuel in running is pure fantasy, because it would require a cutoff during the race (which tracks have trouble doing at the start of a race), would never work at the race track and sites like YB, TS, Xpress have terrible infrastructures as it is, doubt they could handle the extra load of in running betting.

Seabiscuit@AR
09-06-2010, 10:33 PM
Betfair on USA horse racing markets will not work well until American customers are allowed to sign up and bet

Some_One
09-06-2010, 10:48 PM
I would say it would be better with the US, but I'll take it for now over the pools

satrabyk
09-07-2010, 05:19 PM
Some One: Posts on Betfair forum mention what you claim (Canadians have unfair advantage) but I never got that officially from Betfair. A guy called "Canadian" on their forum claims that Canadians have no edge. I am Canadian and never noticed much of advantage. Same applies to my friends.
Then why have it at all - someone somewhere may have an advantage.

Seabiscuit: If Betfair accepts US citizens it would put a big dent to US Racing handle. Friends I referred were diehart racegoers averaging over 25 years of banging their heads at the track. They got hooked with the Betfair concept and no longer bothered betting into pools were takeout is over 18 %. Most of them now have packed it in as mentioned above.