Has PC implications changed your strategies

Previous to PC2 my strategy was to lay or bet on all horses in a race that had a perceived advantage.
My new strategy is to bet or lay all horses in a race no matter what the odds.

Why do you think this improves matters CM? Myself and a few others are of the opinion that backing/laying fewer horses in the race decreases your strike rate which increases your commission generated.

I did notice that this year is easier for me on my favorite markets in certain situations. There is less money pushing odds down when I join to play and I like it.
Plus today I had first this year 1.01 Lay winning (spartak to qualify). All because odds were clearly estimated "from air", not by big punters. Nice.

this year should be this season

Feck

I'm of the opposite opinion. I think it's optimal to back and lay everything to the max irrespective of the (positive) edge. Not sure why, just feel it's right. Fairly soon I'll get round to working it out.

AS soon as I hit PC2 I will be on 2% commission like a flash, I can tell you that much.

Doing what Feck says results in keeping a higher % of your GP, but making less in absolute terms..

You'd be better of doing whatever you normally do, and striking a bunch of breakeven bets in other markets.

good to see a sensible thread about making more profit with bright posters involved.

Feck,
Because of Australian time I did not reply to your question. Let me see if I can explain it.

Under my original strategy I did not back or lay any prices over 50.00 or under 2.40.
Doing that for every selection averaged a profit per selection of approx 0.1% of float. the other selections not supported averaged a profit per selection of 0.02%

So a days betting of 65 selections in 8 races would make me approx on average 6.5% net profit on float. Now, including previously unsupported selections approx an extra 30 bets
times 0.02% has increased profit from 6.5% up to 7.1%

Now if selections are under 7.00 on Betfair I then compare them to the tote, if the tote
price is within a 15% margin, my win bets will be placed on the tote.

An example

Horse	Liability	Bet Type	BSP	Resut
HISSING SID	500	lay	85.52	5.91
ZAGREB	500	lay	65	7.81
TESTASCANA	65	win bet	1.58	37.70
DIGGERSANDDEALERS	500	lay	9.68	57.60
AKZAR (IRE)	500	lay	14.7	36.49
RICEMAN	500	lay	70.56	7.18
DARK NOTE	500	lay	75.75	6.68
LAKEDRO	65	win bet	11.15	-65.00
LANGRIDGE STREET	500	lay	13	41.66

The winner in this race was the odds on fav. which paid a div on the tote 1.60 and that
bet would have been placed on the tote.

My bets are 1.3% of float so on a float of 5K a win bet would be 65.00. All lays are to
10% of float which for the same float would be a lay liability of 500.00.

Looking further at switching win bets to the tote if less than 7.00 if I included all
this year, there would have been 121 winners. If I had 100 on each with Betfair before
commission they would have grossed 31,114, on the tote 27,490. If I had to pay 40% commission on the Betfair gross it would reduce 31,114 to 18668.4 so placing those bets
on the tote would have saved me 8821.60. This of course does not take into account
offsets of losses.

At 20% I worked a lot harder on here, offering loads more bets.  At 50% the return is not worth it, so I spend a fraction of the time on here as I'm busy making money elsewhere.  I only pursue very low risk "in and out" strategies on here now.

If you could carry forward losing weeks I would take a few more chances.  If, say the first £500 a week was PC free, it would probably be back to business as usual.

I find that I get more excited by a successful arb that comes off (ie losing on here) than I used to about actually making money!

Compound Magic, I can't say I understand what you're saying but if some bets are being placed outside betfair my comment doesn't really apply in your case.


Doing what Feck says results in keeping a higher % of your GP, but making less in absolute terms..
You'd be better of doing whatever you normally do, and striking a bunch of breakeven bets in other markets.

Not really. My strategy is similar to CM's, i.e. back everything that's too long, lay everything that's too short (at least it would be once I'm automated - not easy to do when drip feeding manually) but only where there's a margin of error built in to the odds. I initially had the same thought Bayes is maybe having. i.e. including additional backs and lays with practically no margin of error would lead to greater commission generated. After looking at a few examples I found it did exactly the opposite as it increased strike rate. I'm pretty sure if I increased the margin of error I look for it would lead to a lower strike rate and increase the commission generated without decreasing my net profit. In fact I put an example that suggested if I continued to bet in the exact same way but separated high and low margin bets into different accounts I'd gain out of it. Only betfair could come up with a charge that would give an incentive to supply less liquidity.

Re "striking a bunch of breakeven bets in other markets" it's easier said than done. Many have suggested it, none have said how.

1.01 layer,i am exactly the same.I now spend much less time on here as it is only worth playing the 'low risk' strategies.I used to enjoy betting on a lot of the less popular in-play markets on football,tennis etc where I thought I would have a small edge but it is not worthwhile now with PC2.I notice many of these markets now offer little betting opportunities and I wonder if this is due to other PC2 payers not offering odds also.It is this type of betting that has suffered with PC2.The losing weeks element is hugely important as I would still play these markets if I knew I would effectively have the PC reduced on losing bets.I do all my bets manually with no other edge other than long-term experience of market odds.

I'm no botter either, nbd.  Mainly the "side" markets on cricket and rugby as well as minority sports like basketball, bowls.. you name it and always IR.  Those markets have really died a death sinc the supertax, too.

Are you finding your skills transferable?

I find I'm having to adapt a fair bit, betting elsewhere. I am position taking on the match odds a lot more, as that's where the adequate liquidity is.

A By: 1.01 Layer
Date Joined: 23 Aug 03 Add contact | Send message
When: 26 Aug 11 10:33 Joined: Date Joined: 23 Aug 03 | Topic/replies: 2,569 | Blogger: 1.01 Layer's blog
At 20% I worked a lot harder on here, offering loads more bets.  At 50% the return is not worth it, so I spend a fraction of the time on here as I'm busy making money elsewhere.  I only pursue very low risk "in and out" strategies on here now.

If you could carry forward losing weeks I would take a few more chances.  If, say the first £500 a week was PC free, it would probably be back to business as usual.

.........................................


By: CLYDEBANK29
Date Joined: 10 Jan 02 Add contact | Send message
When: 19 Apr 11 10:05 Joined: Date Joined: 10 Jan 02 | Topic/replies: 1,803 | Blogger: CLYDEBANK29's blog


Only one year and one hundred days to go.  One year and one hundred and seventeen days to go till I hopefully give up full time gambling.  :)

.............................................................................

I'm generally doing similar to layer 1.01 and echo his sentiments.  I bought up a post I made in April 2011.  That will represent 10 years full time gambling and that's enough.  The only thing that would make me change my mind is if I did really well in the interim and it gave me a second wind.  My best years were 2008 and 2010 when I made marginally over 6 figures (even years are better for me)  This year I've had a sudden turnaround.  It is easily my worst snce betting full time.  I've only made 27k so far and I've only paid £300 in PC2 charges (so that fundamentally is before PC2 which best case would reduce the Betfair element of those profits by a minimum further third, sequence related).  Even allowing for the fact that October to December is my most consistent quarter, especially in an odd year it's a massive fall in profits.  Several reasons why..I felt I had a good roll of the dice in 2010 and am not getting it this year, my motivation and dedication is not what it was, but by far the biggest factor is that the opportunities are just not there, they were running out rapidly in 2010 tbf.  This is a combination of liquidity, certain markets no longer offered at all or only offered in far fewer places and more effeciently priced markets.  I think PC2 might make the markets marginally less efficient, but that is easily offset by parasites and lower liquidity so the trend is definitely down.

1.01
  I am fortunate in that I have done reasonably well over the last few years and at an age where I can afford to spend less time and earn less money without affecting my standard of living.I have not yet tried to do any different betting sites/methods.It is certainly harder to make money here over the last few years anyway(even without the PC factor).If I could turn the clock back I would have bet much bigger sooner than I did as it used to be relatively easy to make money.

If we could turn the clock back, nbd If only...

Clydebank, it's sounds like PC would be a game killer, with your volatility.  As a pc payer you either need to be highly efficient, highly inefficient profiteers or a thief.