How Many Favourites Win Horse Races In The UK?

The answer to the question “How Many Favourites Win Horse Races In The UK?” is something everyone one should know who bets on horses as it is probably the best variable for targetting potential winners. So what is the answer?

The figures below clearly show that of all the horse racing favourites over the last 5 years just under 32% won, this includes turf, NH and AW. That is pretty decent, but then when you look at the losses you would have had with a normal bookmaker to £1 stakes your eyes may pop out!!!

Runners Wins SR P/L Exchange ROI Exchange P/L to SP Lay P/L BF
62079 19672 31.69 -2003.34 -3.23 -4850.76 -1996.08

Even losses with an exchange look pretty daunting, although nowhere near as bad as with a bookmaker. Losses if you laid all the favourites are huge as well.

This leads us to two other questions, and also one way of easily targetting more winners:
How Many Favourites Win Handicaps In The UK?
How Many Favourites Win Non-Handicaps In The UK?

Type Runners Wins SR P/L Exchange
 P/L to SP Lay P/L Exchange
HANDICAP 35051 9000 25.68 -1184.32 -3122.59 -1270.7
NON HANDICAP 27028 10672 39.48 -818.72 -1728.17 -725.09

Now we see something not a lot of people in High Street bookmakers are aware of. The fact that out of all the Favourites that run in non-handicap races, nearly 40% win!!

The picture gets a bit mudddied when I tell you that both sets have a negative exchange ROI of 3%. So in reality although the SR’s of both are far apart, they actually both produce the same losses, and this is because non-handicap favourites start at lower prices.

Let us concentrate soley on the non-handicap winners from here on, and we will split the stats into turf,NH and AW and see if anything stands out.

Race Type Runners Wins SR P/L Exchange P/L to SP Lay P/L Exc
A/W 4754 1905 40.07 -111.35 -297.93 -159.89
Chase 3574 1498 41.91 -103.28 -212.9 -91.93
Hurdle 6652 2764 41.55 -206.54 -382.1 -159.25
NHF 1178 392 33.28 -115.69 -161.65 44.9
Turf 9531 3626 38.04 -249.91 -582.95 -309.31

Well the one thing that stands out here is that you need to be extremely careful when getting involved with National Hunt Flat races (NHF). The other 4 categories are fine, but as chase and hurdle races shower a higher edge we will dig a little deeper into individual race types. The reason for additional edge with jump racing Favourites is that the form is more reliable with most horses running year after year.

Type Runners Wins SR P/L Exchange ROI Exchange P/L to SP ROI to SP Lay P/L Exc
 Lay ROI Exc
Amateur 38 13 34.21 0.22 0.59 -1.72 -4.53 -2.8 -7.37
Auction 8 6 75 5.08 63.55 4.71 58.88 -5.56 -69.46
Chase 3569 1496 41.92 -105.22 -2.95 -214.02 -6 -89.58 -2.51
Claiming 155 52 33.55 -21.35 -13.77 -23.58 -15.21 12.51 8.07
Classified 15 7 46.67 6.98 46.52 5.71 38.09 -8.17 -54.44
Conditions 95 41 43.16 3.85 4.05 0.23 0.24 -9.29 -9.78
EBF 20 8 40 -3.78 -18.91 -3.61 -18.06 2.75 13.75
Fillies 36 14 38.89 -2.79 -7.75 -3.98 -11.06 0.68 1.89
Grade 1 254 106 41.73 -1.57 -0.62 -10.25 -4.04 -13.03 -5.13
Grade 2 412 156 37.86 -62.22 -15.1 -71.23 -17.29 41.18 9.99
Grade 3 113 47 41.59 -2.35 -2.08 -5.91 -5.23 -4.09 -3.62
Hunters 308 127 41.23 0.5 0.16 -9.68 -3.14 -18.49 -6
Hurdle 6651 2764 41.56 -205.54 -3.09 -381.1 -5.73 -160.2 -2.41
Juvenile 529 212 40.08 -57.92 -10.95 -69.76 -13.19 29.56 5.59
Listed 89 38 42.7 -7.06 -7.93 -9.25 -10.4 2.5 2.81
Maiden 2380 912 38.32 -66.54 -2.8 -135.52 -5.69 -72.31 -3.04
Mares 761 281 36.93 -84.45 -11.1 -103.81 -13.64 42.4 5.57
Novice 4426 1965 44.4 -148.03 -3.34 -256.78 -5.8 -83.01 -1.88
Rated 4 3 75 4.15 103.73 4 100 -4.47 -111.75
Selling 440 167 37.95 22.87 5.2 6.57 1.49 -50.04 -11.37

In order to make use of the above table you need to target those races that are either showing a profit already, and remember these are based on favourites (including joint), non-handicap races over jumps. You also want to pay close attention to any showing a small loss with less than -2% ROI, as a bit of targetting on your part should easily turn them into profits.

Using the information here you should have no problem putting together a profitable horse racing system.

How Can I Profit On The Exchanges? Profiting On Kempton’s AW Track.

A question you may have asked yourself numerous times is ‘How Can I Profit On The Exchanges?‘

Well first of all as a betting exchange should give you at least and average of 10% better odds than SP over the long term, it is a lot easier profiting on this betting exchange than it is with a bookmaker. Imagine if a bank paid 10% more per year than everyone else, you’d be stupid not to take advantage of it wouldn’t you?

The simplest way to profit is to stick to WIN bets only, as your money is only riding on one result, none of this bookmaker holiday fund multiple bets.

In order to profit on the exchanges, or a normal bookmaker if you enjoy lower average odds, is to concentrate on those horse fancied in the markets, such as the first or second favourites as these win the most races. Then target a specific surface/race type whether it is chase, hurdle, NHF, flat or AW, and then a particular race type.

For this example we will concentrate on the favourites on the AW as this track has decent horses running at it on the AW, and so horse form stands up well throughout the year.

One thing I do know on tracks that have quality horses is that what are considered low quailty races on low quality tracks can prove profitable on the tracks that have quality horses.

So taking that into account I’m going to zap Apprentice races through Proform and see if they are profitable. I could use Raceform and add 10% to the SP but that’s an extra bit of work and I’m being lazy!

Now you don’t get many Apprentice races but as the results show below this simple free horse racing system is something you can add to a portfolio of profitable systems. You will find a few on this site, with many more to come in the future.

Year Ran Win SR PL BF ROI  Exc
 PL SP ROI SP
2009 25 8 32 8.06 32.23 6.25 25
2010 20 7 35 5.08 25.4 2.69 13.47
2011 21 11 52.38 25.35 120.72 22.03 104.89
2012 17 6 35.29 4.42 26.01 3.28 19.26

So the betting system rules are simple:
Kempton AW track only
Races with the word ‘Apprentice’ in
Must the be the Fav
Use Betfair, although this is still pretty good at SP

Does a Simple Profitable Exchange Betting System Exist?

I know from my days of gambling before I turned professional that a Holy Grail must exist, and it’s the thought of winning big or finding the magic system that makes us bet again and again, and of course losing long term. Most punters will spend their whole life doing this, and losing £1,000’s every year.

So does the betting Holy Grail exist? Of course it does and there are actually 1000’s of them!!! More professional gamblers exist than you could guess, as the majority keep their heads down. Some have found a way of trading on Betfair that makes long term profits, other systems that show profits whether it be winning or laying.

Around 0.7% of exchange users are classed as pro-gamblers in that they make more than £10,000 profit a year, but many more make less than that each year. If you are building up small betting banks then you’ll be in the ‘nearly a pro-gambler’ category.

Making some systems public can make them worthless in the long term, but with an exchange that rarely is the case these days as a heavily followed system can still show a positive ROI% after years.

Although I’ve made money from gambling for years, I’m always looking for new profitable angles, the search never stops, and with so much software and online information these days it’s not as difficult as in ‘ye olde days’ when everything had to be done by going through a form book a few 1000 pages thick!!

Anyway, the question in the title was Does a Simple Profitable Exchange Betting System Exist? And the answer is yes, many, many of them, and I’m going to pass one on today.

Now this is a very simple betting exchange system, I do use it myself, and I have made good money with it over the last 5 years. The qualifiers must be laid to lose, this is NOT a win system, it is a LAY system. Now don’t expect it to make you rich, you will have to have a large starting bank, which you shouldn’t use, always start small and let the system build up the bank. The overall strike rate is around 87%, and should be part of a portfolio of systems with different SR’s. I sell other systems that have proven profitable of years.

The longest winning run is 32, and losing run is 3. While the highest winning odds was 8.

Year Runners Won SR PL
2008 68 6 8.82 34.11
2009 87 10 11.49 33.1
2010 101 17 16.83 -2.42
2011 93 14 15.05 15.51
2012 88 10 11.36 26.98

 

On with this profitable horse racing system you are looking for.

Rule 1: Completely ignore ALL AW races, but include all other races in the UK & Ireland.
Rule 2: The race title must contain the word AMATEUR. It can be a handicap or non-handicap.
Rule 3: Horse must be 2nd Fav or joint 2nd Fav in the betting. Use a live bookmaker site like Ladbrokes to see what the likely SP odds will be just before the off.
Rule 4: LAY any qualifiers on the BETTING EXCHANGE.

That’s it!!! You couldn’t really have a more simple betting system than that!

If you are working during the day, you can use BSP (Betfair Starting Price) and find the likely 2nd Fav on the Racing Post card. This will result in reduced profits, but you will still profit long term.

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