Let’s examine what it means to bet and mainly trade the horse racing markets and make money out of it. As an example, we will refer to a Brighton race, which offers the favorite horse at odds of 3.00. Before submitting our bets, we’d better do some configuration in the “options” box, put by Betfair in the upper right corner of the image. Upon entering this menu, we apply the following changes:
Then, if we want to bet on the favorite horse, we enter our stake and our screen looks like this, depending on the amount.
If, on the other hand, we wish to lay the favorite, then we will face a screen like the following:
Let’s say now that we want to trade the fixed odds of that horse and in our opinion we believe the odds will drop. We will firstly back the horse and in case the odds fall, we will close our position putting a lay. In other words, we back at 3.00 and lay eventually at 2.70, securing a profit on that particular horse.
On the other hand, if we think the odds will climb, then we lay first and finally back the horse. All the above are done always with the same amount. We again secure a profit on the horse.
This kind of trading is done either prior to the start of the race , or during the race (with a lot bigger risk). We secure a profit on the Romany Princess in both ways, while if we are wrong in our predictions and the odds move against us, we will have a loss on the horse but zero risk on the other horses. However, we usually want to secure a profit on all horses, whatever the outcome of the race. Then we are able to divide that profit equally (or in any other way) to the other horses. All these, of course, if we are correct in our predictions. For instance, in the 2nd situation when the odds drift, we could submit the following bets, taking a profit whatever horse wins the race.
These betting options as we see are unique and entirely new to the betting community, offering many additional acting and betting methods. If the bettor experiments a little with the amounts and the odds like the examples show, he will easily be able to get into the meaning and the philosophy behind trading . Surely, the examples, the help and the instructions don’t stop here. The above were merely the first steps!
Jim Makos
