Online Racebook Betting
The difference between 3/1 and 7/2 is not dramatic on a single bet, but across 200 bets over a season it represents dozens of units of profit or loss. Checking the overround before you bet is not something most punters do, but it takes less than a minute with a calculator or an odds comparison site. Small-field races with well-fancied favourites tend to carry lower overrounds (closer bookies not on gamstop to 110 per cent) because the market is more efficient and bookmakers compete harder on the headline price of the favourite. The difference between 5/1 and 6/1 on the same horse in the same race is a 20 per cent increase in profit — free money, essentially, for the 30 seconds it takes to check a second bookmaker.
Odds expressed in decimals are meant to show the total payout the punter receives, which includes the winnings and the stake. In today’s day and age where automobiles have substituted the four legged animal, horses still retain importance. Dave Massey previews Saturday’s action at Aintree, selecting his best bets for the races at 1.15, 1.45, 2.25 and 3.00.
Ante-post markets on the Cheltenham Gold Cup or Champion Hurdle typically run between 140 and 160 per cent, which is lower than the National but still significantly wider than raceday. The aggregate effect across 20 runners adds up to a much wider margin than in a six-runner race. Across UK and Irish horse racing, typical bookmaker overrounds range from about 110 to 130 per cent. Understanding the typical ranges gives you a framework for evaluating whether the price you are being offered is competitive or padded.
The overround on the Grand National ante-post market can reach as high as 180 per cent — a level that would be considered predatory in any raceday market. It varies by operator, by race type, and by the time of day. If Bookmaker A is running a 115 per cent book on a race and Bookmaker B is running a 125 per cent book, Bookmaker A is systematically offering better value across the entire field. The 120 per cent book means the prices across the entire field are compressed, which means every price is slightly lower than it should be in a fair market. A significant share of that GGY exists because punters accept worse odds than they need to.
The individual difference may be small — perhaps 5/1 versus 11/2 — but across hundreds of bets over a year, that cumulative margin is the difference between a profitable punter and a losing one. The take varies from state to state and the money is used to pay taxes, purse money for the horsemen, expenses at the track, and the track’s profit. If the exchange is at 7.0 and the bookmaker is at 6/1, the prices are closer, and after exchange commission the bookmaker might even be marginally better. Oddschecker is the most widely used in the UK and shows prices from all major bookmakers side by side, updated in near-real time.
Ross Burdon provides his latest stable update, with Gifts Differing set to run at Chelmsford on Thursday, while Dust Cover Manchester United host Aston Villa in Sunday’s featured Premier League clash, with both sides looking to build momentum. Hector Crouch heads to Southwell for three final rides on Saturday before jetting off to Dave Massey previews Friday’s racing at Cheltenham, with four selections across the card. But check the cap on the maximum stake, because enhanced odds are almost always limited to small bets — one or two pounds, occasionally five. Second, the exchange price reflects pure market opinion without any built-in margin, which makes it a more accurate indicator of the horse’s implied probability.
The bookmaker margin is built into every price, but how wide that margin is varies enormously between operators, between race types, and between the fixed-odds market and the betting exchange. Horse Racing Odds Comparison — More on this topic at horse racing bookmakers. Yet the majority of bettors place their bets with whichever app they last used, at whatever price happens to be on screen, without checking whether a better number is available elsewhere. @ScottyPick6 Scotty thank you so much for the winnings from the Saturday webinar. Biggest payout of my life!
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