How
To Use The Betting Exchange Place Markets To Your Advantage…
Introduction
In article one, I introduced you to the Betting
Exchange concept and explained the basics of LAY Betting (Lay
to Lose). Now in this article, I'm going to introduce you to another
unique and powerful feature of the betting exchanges, the Place
Markets.
What Are Betting Exchange Place Markets?
Place markets are as the name suggests, markets
which allow you to bet on a selection to be 'placed'.
Eg. a horse to finish 1st, 2nd or 3rd in a 8 runner or larger
field (Handicaps over 16 runners offering 4 places).
Now, the first and most important thing to highlight
here is that these place markets are completely different to the
well known Each Way (EW) betting markets offered by traditional
bookmakers. The Each Way bet is in fact 2 bets of equal stakes.
The 1st stake is on the selection to win and the 2nd is on it
to be placed. So a £10 EW bet will cost you £20 in
total.
A £10 place bet on a Betting Exchange is a
single bet and therefore will only cost you £10. If your
selection finishes in a place, you collect your winnings and smile.
Think about it for a minute. How many
times have you been certain that a horse will be placed, but you
have not been confident that it will win...
Traditional Each Way Betting
Take the following example. A horse named 'Im
gonna be placed' that is available to back with traditional
bookmakers at 4/1 (5.0). Your very confident that it will finish
in the top 3 in a 10 runner field.
With a traditional bookmaker, your options
are:
- Take a chance on it winning and place a win single on it.
E.g. £10 at 4/1
- Place an EW bet on it. E.g. £10 EW at 4/1 (5.0). Total
stakes £20. The bookies will pay you 1/5 odds on the place
element of this E/W bet based on their standard EW rules. On
our horse which is available to back at 5.0 this equates to
1.8
Now, the only time the above race will be profitable
for you is if the horse actually wins. In both cases you would
make a very nice profit if it did. For option 1 you would win
£40 profit and for option 2, £48 profit.
BUT, if as you suspected the horse
only finishes placed in 2nd or 3rd, you actually lose money in
both cases. With option 1 you obviously lose all your stake money
so are down £10. With option 2, you win £8 on the
Place side of the EW bet but still lose £2 overall as the
win part of the bet was a losing one.
Enter The Betting Exchange Place Markets
Using the above example and depending upon the prices
of the other horses in the race, you would probably see the Betting
Exchanges offering odds of around 1.60 - 2.00 (evens) on this
horse being placed. You can therefore put your £10 PLACE
bet on at say 1.8 and collect £8 profit (minus commission)
as long as the horse finishes 1st, 2nd or 3rd. Only if the horse
finishes outside of the top 3 do you lose your £10 stake.
I'm sure this has got you thinking and you can probably see the
power in this straight away!
When combined with a good staking plan and a sensible
selection process, it can be common to have very long winning
streaks when backing horses to be placed on the betting exchanges.
These longer winning streaks more than make up for the relatively
short prices that are offered on selections to be placed.
Place Market Important Notes
A few important things to note about place markets:
- Unlike the betting exchange win markets,
Place markets DO NOT go "In-Running" when the race
starts but this is true of the traditional E/W bets offered
by bookies as well.
- If a race is planned as a 8 runner or more event but a number
of horses become non-runners leaving less than 8 runners, the
betting exchanges still offer odds on 3 places. This is different
to bookmakers who in such cases adjust their odds on the place
payment from 1/5 to 1/4 of the win odds BUT they only pay out
on 2 places. If a 5,6 or 7 runner field is shortened to less
than 5 runners, the betting exchanges will still offer place
markets and payout if the horse finishes 1st or 2nd.
- You can make up the equivalent of an E/W bet on the betting
exchanges by placing a bet on the win market and a separate
bet on the place market. Depending upon the type of race and
the form of the market, you will often find that this offers
more value in terms of odds than an E/W bet with a bookmaker.
Backing Or Laying On The Place Markets
As explained in article 1, the ability to Lay a
selection is perhaps the most important feature of the betting
exchanges. You now have the ability to Lay selections to be placed.
In other words, if you have a valid reason to believe that a selection
will not even finish in a place, Lay it to Lose on a betting exchange.
The real beauty of laying on the place markets, is the odds are
always much lower than the outright win odds so your lay liabilities
are much lower.
Trading On The Place Markets
As the place market prices are much lower than the
outright win market prices, they also offer a great place to learn
the skill of TRADING without much risk to your balance! Betting
Exchange trading is simply the process of betting on price movements
for guaranteed profits. E.g. Back a horse at 4.0 and then Lay
it later at 3.0 for a no risk bet or guaranteed profit regardless
of the outcome!
Betting exchange trading will be covered in detail
in a future betting article.
Summary
Place markets should be used as part of your betting
armory. They offer you the chance to make money frequently with
long winning streaks being very common. This helps to build your
confidence as well as your betting bank!
Bookie Each Way bets are not always poor bets but
in the vast majority of races, the odds are stacked firmly in
the favour of the bookmakers. They simply love punters taking
EW bets on these races as they know its their bread and butter.
A small proportion of races where the market is formed in a certain
way do offer the punter very good value but that's for a different
day...
Well that's it for part 2 of my betting exchange
articles. If you don't already have a betting exchange account,
please open one right now. It will only take you five minutes
and you'll soon be thinking 'How did I ever bet without using
an exchange'?
In part 3, I will be explaining the Betting Exchange
In-Running markets and how you can benefit from them.
Author: Martin Bailey
Visit www.the-secret-system.com for more free betting and gambling related information by Martin. |