Spread betting overrounds

i never understood the point in betting on win/lose outcomes via a spreadbet - I guess some people prefer it.

Anyway - lets work it out:

Buy Hendry (back Hendry) = 12.5/25 = 50% (like Betfair 2.0)
Buy Bingham (back Bingham ) = 14/25 = 56% (like Betfair 1.79)

Sell Hendry (lay Hendry) = 11/25 = 44% (like Betfair 2.27)
Sell Bingham (lay Bingham ) = 12.5/25 = 50% (like Betfair 2.0)

So:
overround is 50%+56% = 106%
underround is 44%+50%=94%

"Also could someone also expalin if there is a way of converting the horse indices into fixed odds for a comparable when they offer 50-25-10 .Any answers would be much appreciated !!!"

If you want to do this without betting on every horse you would need to be able to back a horse to come 2nd (or 1st and 2nd).  If you bet on win and place markets (3 horses) you could make a bet which pays x-y-y, but not x-y-z.

Unless there is something I am missing (I don't bet horses)

one more:

I wrote "If you want to do this without betting on every horse"... this is wrong and has nothing to do with your problem.

Thank you very much for that , pretty simple really when you show it like that !!!!!!!!!!!!!! much appreciated and thanks again

The formula for working out race horse spreads is (odds = decimal odds)

Points for 1st / Odds of horse finishing 1st +
Points for 2nd / Odds of horse finishing 2nd +
Points for 3rd / Odds of horse finishing 3rd +
Points for 4th / Odds of horse finishing 4th

(that can be extended up to any number of places if the spread firm were to go beyond 4 in the national for example).


When you're out and about and don't have a computer to do the work for you, you can get a fast and reasonable approximation in open races (e.g. in big handicaps which many spreads are) by dividing the TOTAL points on offer by the betfair win odds e.g. in a 10 horse race where each of the horses is 10.0 the spread in a 50-25-10 market would be (50+25+10)/10.0 for each horse and in a 50-30-20-10 market the spread would be (50+30+20+10)/10.0. Futher example - for a 5.0 shot in a 50-3-20-10 market you'd be looking for around 22.0.

***Please note that I did say open races. It doesn't work in severely lopsided markets e.g. if the favourite is 1.7 the above formula would give you a spread of 50 in a 50-25-10 market which is obviously wrong as 50 is the maximum it can return.

Also note, in handicap races of 16 or more runners the spread will rarely be better value than an e/w bet at 1/4 odds first 4.