Since the Betfair betting exchange arrived on the scene over a decade ago, it has grown year on year. At first the bookmakers tried to have this type of site closed down, when they failed in that, they then tried to get the government at the time to tax them out of existence. Of course that failed as well, and now betting exchanges are now part of the normal fabric of the betting market. It is not that long ago that the bookmakers embraced them, and now pour a lot of money into them. It is not unusual to see a race at 9:30pm at Wolverhampton on a Saturday turning over more than half a million.
Using Betfair is easy, and for those who have not tried it, then you are losing out on many prices that are better than SP, and in a lot of cases, even favourites can go off at prices showing a decent margin over SP. The only horses that fail to beat SP are usually those which are heavily odds on. Unlike the bookmakers, there are many ways to make money on Betfair due to the better odds. The most obvious is by doing win bets, but you can also lay horses to lose. Most people believe that finding a loser is easy, but when looking to profit from them, it is actually much harder. This is because lay betting must include the overbet, which is basically the difference between SP and the exchange odds.
Although professional gamblers will use a set of rules when selecting something to bet on, whether that be a horse or a football team, and use them to help make a decision. This is method betting in a systematic way, and so is basically a flexible system. When first looking to profit from betting, though, it is always a good idea to stick firmly to a set of rules. By doing this, it is easy to see where you are going wrong as you should be writing down every bet you do. This should include going, track, distance and race type, as well as the odds, and whether or not it won.
By doing this, after a few hundred bets, whether you have shown a profit or not, it is time to analyze the data. This may show that the system is useless when the ground is soft, and even worse for sprints. So, by excluding the really bad trends, you should be left with a decent one. This may show a profit, or if not, refine it some more. Most people tend to give up on systems too quickly looking for quick profits, rather than being in it for the long term and doing the research.
Below is a free horse racing system that profits over the long term when using Betfair. This is just something simple, many people tend to overcomplicate things. There are thousands of potential profitable systems that are based on only a few rules.
Rules:
AW Only
Tracks Southwell or Lingfield Only
Must be likely favourite
Distance 6f or less
Handicap Only
Results:
2010 +14 – 26% SR
2011 +3 – 29% SR
2012 +30 – 32% SR
2013 +36 – 36% SR
2014 +19 – 35% SR
Number of expected bets is 170-210 per year.
Of course you can also do trading on a betting exchange, and it is essential to use a tool that has an option so you are not using real money, such as Betangel Pro. As mentioned earlier with systems, people tend to jump from one thing to another with this kind of software, rather than keeping to something specific and making small adjustments until it becomes profitable.
Figuring out how to make money on Betfair is quite easy to be honest, you just need to put the work in and be patient.