Question from Chris

I received this 'comment' earlier this evening and rather than just respond to it (and it quickly get lost in the depths of the blog) I have decided to create a post with it.
Thanks to Chris for doing the asking....

Hi TVB - well done on a cracking blog. Haven't followed you in with any yet but always look out for your selections with lots of interest. I was just wondering - how long has it been since these "earlybird" prices were put up by the books? Obviously Betfair's been forming early markets for a good while now, but is it relatively new thing for the bookies? I just wonder if they do it purely to help them set their prices for the next day when clearly there's a lot more business around - i.e they will adjust their prices accordingly if even just a few quid's coming in for any particular horse. If that's the case, it must be frustrating for, say, a big stable gamble if a price goes the night before - and then I wonder if it could lead to the odd selection, shall we say, not putting their all in, or given wrong tactics. At the moment you're hammering SP with your prices and there's no question you have a very profitable thing going on, well done! Cheers Chris


Hi Chris. I can’t give a definitive answer to your questions – but I’m happy to give you my opinion…
Firstly, the early bird bookmaker market has grown significantly in the last year or so. I suspect this is down to the weakness of Betfair in the evenings. Betfair used to be relatively strong in the evenings – but this has stopped, presumably because the people who were making the books, got stung once too often!
The issue with Betfair for layers, is that it is ‘faceless’. Bookmakers know exactly who they are dealing with – Betfair layers have no idea. Bookmakers can stop successful punter – Betfair layers can’t…
There can be little doubt that the bookmakers need something to mark their card before they are prepared to take decent bets. This used to be Betfair – but with it’s relative demise, they are being forced to test the water themselves.
You could argue that they shouldn’t need it and that they should have sufficient confidence in their odds compilers. However, nowadays the margins the bookmakers play with are so tiny, I can understand why they do what they do…
With regard to the presences of overnight markets messing up potential gambles and big bets – then again, I suspect you are spot on ! There are doubtless a few people cursing the fact I’ve put up Opera Og this evening. The 13/2 lasted no time – and it is now 7/2 ! Relatively speaking, it’s not cost Paddy Power much to find out that they got the price of that horse wrong !
I suspect that this kind of thing could, on occasions, result in a horse maybe not running to it’s merits. However, I do try to pick out horses/stables where I think this is less likely…
In a case like Opera Og, the price was so far out, someone was always going to capitalise quite quickly. I figure it might as well be me (and my followers) as anyone else !!
To be honest, I find the whole thing quite fascinating. It really is a pure battle of wits !
I appreciate that what I’m doing isn’t really scalable – the bookies will see to that ! - but hopefully it will show that you can make money on early bird races if you know what you are doing.
Early bird betting accounts for a relatively small percentage of my racing betting – but it should be the most profitable, percentage wise.
I hope that the blog will enable a few others to make a bit of money – and also educate a little.
If I can achieve that, I will consider my efforts worthwhile :)
TVB