2009: Betfair year in review

Time to look back at the year of betfair.

I'll start with a great one

ELLIOT SHORT appears out of the blue claiming a £20 million pound run on betfair, complete with statements.

Within hours, the betfair forum had undone the story by Simon Ward. This was then followed by betfair making a statement that essentially the story was fiction.

Shortly after the article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2009/jun/30/greg-wood-betfair-notw-story

with NOTW releasing:

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/incoming/390755/ELLIOTT-SHORT.html


Here is the original story:

Sacked city trainee took one year to turn his schoolboy hobby into a fortune


BETS KING: Elliott wins on losers

By Simon Ward, 28/06/2009

A SACKED 22-year-old trainee City trader today reveals how he won a staggering £20 MILLION in a YEAR . . . betting on the horses.

Serial gambler Elliott Short was teetering on the verge of bankruptcy with thousands of pounds worth of debts when he came up with a way of winning regularly that has eluded millions of punters since the dawn of racing.


And today Elliott - who scooped £500,000 from one race while he was giving the News of the World this interview - wants to share his secret with YOU.


"It was just a random idea of mine - and it just suddenly started to work out in a big way," says Elliott who has won £1.5 MILLION on a


SINGLE RACE using his system. "I had my idea - and I stuck to my guns and now I'm a millionaire. It's unbelievable but true."


And you can see just how true it is by having a look at his account with online gambling giant Betfair shown on the right. This was how it stood just four weeks ago when his winnings stood at more than £17 MILLION.


Since then, Elliott has won a further £3 MILLION after a hugely successful Royal Ascot week.


His secret - the Holy Grail of the gambling world - lies within the old betting adage: "There's only one winner - and that's the bookie."

Clever
Add to this a clever system - a basic knowledge of racing - and a few hundred quid to get you started.


"The biggest mistake punters make is that they pick up the paper, see the favourite and put all their money on that horse," says Elliott.


"That way the only real winner is the bookmaker because they are the ones picking up the hefty stakes every time these horses lose."


So Elliott decided to turn his betting world upside down - and stop being the punter to BECOME the bookie instead. And gamble on the favourite LOSING.


"On Betfair anyone can become a bookie - and when I discovered this, the money started to pour in," says Elliott.


Members of Betfair - the world's largest internet betting exchange - can back horses in the traditional way - but they can also 'Lay' bets - which means taking bets from other members around the world, just like a bookmaker.


Elliott's system is this: Every morning he picks up the Racing Post and in each race he selects the favourite plus another longer-priced runner.


He then invites punters on the website to bet on these horses winning the race and he acts as the bookmaker, taking a maximum bet of £1,000 on each of the two mounts.


More often than not, the favourite doesn't win - and because Elliott is the bookie, he cashes in. But even if the favourite DOES win the race, Elliott's system means that all the money punters have bet with him on the LOSING second horse can help him offset any losses. "It is much easier to predict which horses are going to lose, rather than which horse is going to win," says Elliott.


"There is nothing**or illegal about it - I don't have any inside information on races. I am basing my decisions on the form of horses which is available to all punters.


"The other key fact is that normal bookies take bets on ALL the horses running in the race. That means that they have to pay out on the winner in every single race.


"I don't. I only take money on two horses - and do a lot of homework to ensure that both those horses will be losers."


The only overhead on Betfair is the two per cent commission the site takes on all bets laid. Betfair has changed the face of the betting industry and works like the Tote on a race course - where all the bets are put in a pool and an individual horse's odds is calculated according to what proportion of the pool is staked on it.


The odds on Betfair are broadly similar to the starting prices in the bookies - but the site attracts high rollers who want to bet in huge sums. And Elliott is only too happy to take their money.


At the famous Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham Festival in March, Elliott won £1.5 million because 6-4 favourite Binocular was narrowly beaten.


At the same meeting he scooped £900,000 when 6-5 favourite Kasbah Bliss toiled home more than 20 lengths behind the winner in the World Hurdle. "Even I was surprised about how poorly it did," says Elliott. "I was jumping up and down on my sofa." Even as Elliott met with our reporter, an 11-8 favourite, Monsieur Chevalier, was losing at Royal Ascot making him a cool £500,000. "It was one of my favourite races - a five furlong sprint. All kinds of things can go wrong for a horse," says Elliott.


"The race can be lost in a split second. And that is what happened with Monsieur Chevalier."


Yet there was a time when the former public schoolboy with A Levels in Economics, Maths and English was a loser himself.

Thrill
He caught the gambling bug at prestigious Malvern College. "I used to bet on everything with my friends and it was an immediate thrill," he says. And he was sacked from his £22,000-a-year job as a trainee City trader because his firm caught him betting during office hours.


"I am ashamed to say I turned to drink and was losing thousands of pounds on stupid bets. My mother was particularly worried. I thought I could bet my way out of trouble. I was wrong." His debts meant he was verging on bankruptcy. But then he decided to throw the dice one last time and join Betfair. To get started laying bets he borrowed "a few thousand" from his stepfather and a school friend. "You can limit how much you have to pay out on Betfair - so losses can't spiral out of control on one race," says Elliott.


"Say if you wanted to lay a favourite at 1-2 odds and you had £200 in your account, you would be able to take bets up to a total stake of £400.


"If the horse wins you lose the £200. But if it doesn't, you get the £400 worth of bets. And that's how you start to earn big bucks. It does sound easy, but it is risky and you have to have capital available to cover the bets if it doesn't go your way."


When Elliott started out, he would limit his potential losses by taking bets of £1,000 on two horses in each race.


But as favourite after favourite was beaten his winnings spiralled into tens then hundreds of thousands. That gave Elliott leeway to take even bigger bets.


"I've had my knocks and my off-days, says Elliott who once lost £1.9 MILLION on a day - but only when he was already a multi millionaire. "But the profits have by far outweighed any losses and the system has shown itself to work on most occasions, I have paid back all my debts, along with giving both my friend and stepdad a nice commission for their faith. Not many people would have bet on me."


Now single Elliott - who split with his girlfriend just before he made it big - is planning to close down his Betfair account and bank his TAX-FREE £20 million winnings. But he'll start gambling again with a £2 million float after some time off.


"I'm going have a holiday and buy a couple of properties. That's the plan anyway," he says. "Then I'll start again. These days I don't rigidly stick to my system because now I'm more experienced.


"But I think if you've got the courage and the determination, and someone who will back your idea in the early stages, then you can earn a lot of money in this manner.


"And if an academically lazy jobless guy like me can succeed, then so can anyone."


Biggest win
I won £1.5m in one race
IT was Elliott's biggest win - and by a split second. Binocular was hot favourite for the Champion Hurdle at 6-4 - but Elliott was convinced it would lose.


So he abandoned his system and took bets totalling £1.5 million on the Nicky Henderson-trained runner. "I was in my office and had the TV on. I remember every inch of the race vividly because it was so close. I could see how hard jockey Tony McCoy was whipping Binocular to get it to the front.


"My heart was in my mouth as Binocular, Celestial Halo and Punjabi, a 22-1 outsider, were heading for the line together at Cheltenham. When 22-1 outsider Punjabi won I leapt up in celebration. Then I got my breath back and worked out how much I had just won. That was a very good day at the office indeed."


Biggest loss
I lost £1.9m in one day
HIS worst day began with a horse called Main Aim. Elliot expected it to lose at Newbury - but it won. And then he made the fundamental mistake of trying to chase his losses.


"I threw all my rules out of the window and tried to win back my money, but I got it horribly wrong," he says. "I put a packet on the favourite in the next race. But it was won by a 25-1 outsider ironically called Never Lose. And in the next two races neither favourite won. If I had actually stuck to my system I could have probably earned back my winnings.


"It proved to me once and for all why regular gambling is a mug's game. And when I looked at my bank balance, I had racked up losses of £1.9million Luckily, by then, it didn't dent my profits too much."


Tips
ELLIOTT'S tips for picking his 'winning losers' are:


CHOOSE favourites in short distance sprints - like five furlongs. "A short race is always congested and the favourite can get hemmed in. It's a real lottery.
WATCH trainers' form. "When a stable is doing badly, often these horses are not well with a mild virus and they go into races with little chance. Trainers can go for weeks without having a winner."
WATCH your second horse's weight. "Avoid laying runners with the bottom weight in a handicap. Lightly weighted horses can often win at long odds."