Lay to Lose With Betfair - Gold at the End of the Rainbow? Truth and Fiction, Part 1

What is Lay to Lose:

Ultimately trading horse races on Betfair is a direct result of the exchanges providing the facility for a new kind of bet, namely the ability to back the loser or losers of any given sport or event as oppose to attempting to find the winner.

In terms of horse racing, this facility is known as "laying" a horse to lose.

Just to clear up any confusion, technically speaking, laying is feasible even in a traditional bookmakers setting.

One would have to apply a "Dutching" technique, i.e. backing several horses to win a race to produce a set amount of profit by using variable stakes.

To lay a horse using this mechanism you would just have to leave the horse you want to lose out of the Dutch, and back all the others.

Notice how I say "technically" possible, because to attempt to do this sort of advanced mathematics while sitting in Corals or William Hills one would have to be some sort of autistic savant and you would probably attract some very suspicious looks from the staff.

The clever chaps at Betfair have setup a system so powerful that all the complex maths has been made totally unnecessary, and the Betfair interface presents you with a simple decimal representation of the proposed odds for "laying" your desired selection.

On first glance new Betfair players often assume that making a profit by laying horses to lose should be a much easier proposition than trying to find those "oh so elusive" winners.

The problem is that of course, as with anything that looks too good to be true it usually is, and this case is NO exception.

I will state boldly from the outset.

Making a profit from laying horses to lose is no easier or harder than backing horses to win. What is different is the mode of operation you must employ to find your candidates.

Seasoned professionals who attend the race meets at which they place bets can and do make consistent profits from identifying horses that look out of sorts for some reason directly before a race.

The problem here is that you can only be at one race event per day while there will be several happening all around the country every day.

For advanced traders with a serious budget, Satellite Information Services can make a big difference to spotting pre-race fundamental issues with form, but the problem with SIS is that it does not always focus on the the same horse as you.

Anyone adopting a lay to lose strategy will need to employ techniques and systems just as advanced and time consuming as any back to win strategist.

So what is the problem with a "lay to lose" strategy.

Basically the problem is exactly the same as a "back to win" strategy and that is, that without being able to visually see a horse as it comes into Tattersalls and goes down to the stalls, it is not possible for the average punter to truly assess the viability or otherwise of their chosen steed.

You will have seen the professional layer at a horse racing event.

They will be watching their quarry closely in the paddock and will be comparing the top 3 or 4 contenders and assessing whether the favourite is a true "take on".

This is what they do each and every day.

If the favourite:

* looks nervy,
* has jumping eyes,
* is over-sweating,
* is foaming,
* has his head down
* refuses to gallop or trot properly,

then the close competition should be closely examined for the opposite traits, which may include:

* shiny glossy coat,
* bright steady eyes,
* showing off a nice canter
* ears pricked up.

The professional layers are waiting for all this information to tally up right before the race before getting their lay to lose bet on the unlikely out of sorts favourite.

By getting in before the average punter, the TV cameras, and the on course bookies and pundits, the professional layer can get the price and the size of bet that allows them to profit from this type of strategy.

The professional lay bettor will also frequently operate an inplay strategy by watching the horses closely during the race.

Particularly of note to lay bettors are:

* the way they are jumping over fences and hurdles,
* their overall position in a race at a certain distance,
* comparative data from previous races,
* whether the horse is a front runner,
* Whether the horse is a late finisher,
* whether the jockey is a bridle jockey.

The question is how you, as an average punter can compete against the professionals, the bookmakers, the market and Betfair.

The answer of course is that you have to be better than most of the rest and this is something that takes time, effort and dedication.

Only you can find out who is and who isn't up to the job.

One has to take ones own style, personality and attitude to loss and profit fully into account, when entering into a pure back to win or lay to lose strategy.

Without seeing all the horses directly before a race it is very difficult to predict in advance which favourite will win or lose a race.

If your chosen horse wins after placing a lay to lose bet you have to pay the entire liability for the rest of the field.

As I detailed earlier when laying to lose you are technically setting up a Dutch that backs to win every other horse in the race with wagers designed to return an equal amount independent of the actual winner.

Should the horse that you exclude from the Dutch win then essentially you are paying for every other horse in the race.

There is also one point which i personally consider highly significant with respect to Betfair, and that is that a great deal of the initial attraction of Betfair is that the odds that it offers the average punter in terms of bet to win are significantly higher than those available in the betting shops.

The problem here is that on closer inspection you will see that as the odds for back to win are higher, and we then have the market spread to consider before we reach the lay prices, the lay prices offered are in fact quite poor and statistically worse than would be offered if a betting shop offered lay to lose options.

In Part 2 of this article I examine more closely why a pure lay to lose strategy can be poor value for the average punter.