New Years resolution is to

try win more small ammounts instead of going bust trying to win big amounts.. does that make sense ?

i can understand that,as long as you are in the plus  category

Yeah I need to learn to green up when possible instead of going the whole mile! ha a profit is a profit need to get that into my head!

Blockfire - I'd say that would be one of the worst pieces of advice I'd give anyone. IMO greening up, hedging, laying off is ONLY the right thing to do if it you consider it to be a value lay at that particular price. In the majority of cases it will not be but there are odd occasions where they get overbet. It should not be an insurance tool and the insurance will cost you money long term for sure.

Sure you will go longer stretches between winners but the winners will count and total more than the piddly amounts won by greening up.

I see what your saying pal.. Just the amount of times I have lost big money and I had the chance to green up early on is shocking

It may depend on the odds if you only back 100/1 shots then greening up would probably be a constructive idea at the right odds.

Many will say in that case its because your over staking you can't withstand the long losing spells but if you only backing 100/1 shots it could be 3 or 4 hundred goes between winners,

how big a bank would you need to take that number of losses in a row if you always allow the bet to run its course without greening out.

if you're backing 100/1 shots and go 3 to 4 hundred between winners you're a loser anyhow so what difference is it gonna make? Insurance for the hell of it costs money long term - period. There are definitely times when you should be most people do it too often as they are very risk averse.

Are you really that thick racingguru?  If you backed 100/1 shots you would eventually hit a run of 300 to 400 losers.  Even if you averaged a win every 80 bets and showed a profit overall long losing periods of 100's would be inevitable.

Sure thats fine but the whole point of what i'm saying is that whatever the situation unless you are greening up into a value situation ie:laying odds shorter than real odds at time there is a cost involved which eats into your profit or adds to you loss. Sure it may make the ride smoother but the bottom line is affected.

Racingpost you are saying that it is terrible advice to green out, and that the in the majority of cases it would not be value.

Hypothetically if you argue that if the price you are looking at to trade out represents the exact value then it is neither a good nor a bad thing, you must be stating that the majority of prices at any positive trade out position would be poor value.

This is quite some statement given that you are not sure which sport Blockhead operates in or at which point s/he is looking to trade out. You therefore appear to be claiming that in every sport whenever a price is coming in there is value long term if you back that price at any point and if a price is drifting there is value to lay at any point. I personally would disagree with this.

Also compare these 2 completely hypothetical situations.
1) You back an outcome at 5.0 when the true value should be 4.0 and you let the bet ride.
2) You back an outcome at 5.0 when the true value should be 4.0 and you trade out at 2.0 and the trade out price accurately represents the exact value.
In both situations you back £10 and you repeat this 500 times. In both situations you pay 5% commission.
Outcome
1) You win 125 times out of 500 gross profit of £40 per win. Total overall profit is £5000. Take off commission, total profit is £4750. Total losses 375 so overall loss is £3750. So all up after everything you've got £1000 real cash.
2) You win 250 times out of 500 gross profit of £15 per win. Total overall profit is £3750. Take off commission total profit is £3562.50. Total losses is 250 so overall loss is £2500. So all up after everything you've got £1062.50 real cash.

Look at that, in the above example if you trade out at a price and the price represents true value of an outcome, it's actually better than if you let your bets ride.

Finally in the real world people can be significantly affected by losing runs. They can bet more on emotion and chase in order to try to recoup losses which as we all know tends to be a bad thing. In these situations operating on a system which reduces the possibility of a long losing run is a good thing.

I think that there are definitely some situations and for some types of people/betting where it's better to let bets ride than to green out but to make a blanket statement that greening out is the worst advice that can be given is a bit naive and inaccurate.

U.A - In the scenarios you are suggesting obviously its not a bad idea but you know as well as i do the majority of people "green" out regardless of price, regardless of what the true odds are (they don't even think about that) just to show a profit on the market. Now all I'm saying is that this ad hoc approach people take is costing them money as they are not greening out at value prices a majority of the time. If obviously they are doing at true price/below or very close it will save them commission but again you know as well as i do these factors are largely not considered. I did NOT say its wrong to do so but more due care and attention needs to be taken into these decisions as it affects your bottom line.

If they are trading out regardless of price would it be fair to say on average the price they are trading out at is neither better nor worse than true value. In this instance it doesn't really make much difference to your profit whether you trade out or not.

When they green out I bet they don't ask for the next highest price but take the price on offer which is almost certain to be value for the other person in the equation not you. I.e. if your trying to back at certain odds to get out of the bet the layer is probably getting the value from you.

In a football match for example anybody greening up would probably be doing so because they are desperate to make a profit and not lose their money.

If a person waits for better price in the match and the team you backed scores a goal You'll likely be scalped at the wrong price if you leave an offer in play. That's why people are reluctant to leave an offer for a slightly bigger price.

If the opposition score a goal you'll not get matched atoll, majority of people wanting to green out are wanting to get their readies then and there  and don' t want to risk their money anymore

If you just took the price blindly on offer every time and didn't ask for a bigger price in, football or racing, mathematically you would lose money.

"If you just took the price blindly on offer every time and didn't ask for a bigger price in, football or racing, mathematically you would lose money."

I don't think this is always the case, especially when the margins are tight. Take my hypothetical situation 2. Say when the true value is 2.0 you just take the 2.02 on offer (this is assuming that the back value of 2.0 is true value rather than say the true value being 2.01). In this situation your profit after commission is 14.01. Multiply this by 250 and your total profit after having taking off commission is £3502.50. Subtract your loss of £2500 and all up you end up with £1002.50 real cash which is £2.50 more than if you had let you bets ride.

Of course when the margins aren't tight and you've got 1.9 to back and 2.06 to lay it's no good but when the margins are tight, i just don't see it as this terrible thing which you shouldn't be doing, and you must be letting bets ride. I think it's a bit of a myth perpetrated by people who don't trade out. Like I said of course there are situations when it may not be advantageous but there are plenty of times and people where it might be a good thing for them. It is certainly not the worst piece of advice I could give someone.

racingguru is basically correct, imo. if you green up by taking the price on offer you are by definition losing to the spread.

also, if you green up immediately after a key event (eg a goal) that goes in your favour, there's a likelihood that the volume of money trying to do the same will temporarily have distorted the price so that it represents poor value more often than good.

so if you're going to green up, my advice is wait for the market to settle, then put an offer in at or below the market. if you do those two things it should be a more or less neutral strategy, resulting in the same overall return spread over more winners and less losers.

Just to add to that as a true example, I tried greening up every bet years ago over a trial period of 6 weeks, and made substantially less money than letting them ride. Apart from the above mentioned, you need super tight spreads in all your markets and that doesn't happen in reality.

In theory greening up (the earlier the better - pre kick off is optimum) is more profitable, but in practice it didn't work for me for numerous reasons, the main one of which hasn't been mentioned.

Bottom line though, value is paramount, after that greening up requires more work load and is not necessary.

No disrespect to U.A, some people prefer greening up.

“racingguru is basically correct, imo. if you green up by taking the price on offer you are by definition losing to the spread.”

I’d like to disagree with this and say that if it was a single bet on it’s own then you would be correct but when you incorporate previous bets and commission as well this is not necessarily the case.

Imagine an A v B event where you lay outcome B at a price of 2.00 for £200 and you are on 5% commission. If you place a single lay bet on B at 2.00 for 200 then your position changes from A = 0, B = 0 to A = +190, B = -200 after commission. That’s the equivalent of a lay bet at 2.052.
Imagine the same scenario but you have already backed B at a price of 4.00 for 100, so your starting position (real money) is A = -100, B = 285. You put exactly the same bet on of laying B at 2 for 200 and your position changes to A = +95, B = +95 after commission. This time you bet has effected a position change of A = +195, B = - 190. This is very different and much better than the first example. This time it’s equivalent of a lay bet at 1.974 which would be better than the spread which would typically assume the true value is 1.995 if the back price was 1.99 and the lay price was 2.00

Look I’m not claiming that greening out is better than letting bets ride. Not at all. I take the Trevor Brooking stance and believe that in some instances it is a beneficial strategy for some people and for others it is not. My personal objection/annoyance is the general view that I see on the forum, comments or insinuations that you just shouldn’t do it, it’s wrong, or how you are just throwing away value without taking anything into account as to how the person operates.

Finally with regards to goals in games and how the as soon as there is a goal the market gets overbet I don’t necessarily agree with this either. I was looking at the draw price in the Swansea v Man City game. After City scored first, the draw price went up to 6.4/6.6 before coming down to 5.9/6.0. Anyone greening out would have been best to do it straight away. Then Swansea equalised, draw came down to around 2.84 before going up to around 2.98 again greening out would have been best done straight away. Finally when City took the lead again the draw price went up to 5.9/6 before coming down to 5.4/5.5 again best to have greened out straight away. After that I didn’t watch any more of the game so can’t comment on further goals.

I know that it is only 1 game but in my experience of the games I watched I wouldn’t say that prices are temporarily distorted in such a way that it is better to wait before the market settles before greening out. There may be people with more trading experience that say that it is the case and if so I stand corrected. However let’s face it if someone can’t wait a minute or two before trading out and just wants to take the first price available what likelihood is there that he has painstakingly gone to the trouble to research prices/trends etc and place his initial bet. S/he is more than likely to be a loser (betting wise) anyway.

For the record I totally agree that if you operate in lower liquidity markets then chances are you are probably better letting bets ride than green out.

I think where your example falls down is that, if you green up you may be losing less to commission, but you're losing it more often, and over a series of bets that more than compensates when greening out at any price above true value.

for my counter-example I'm going to make the following assumptions:

5% commission
for all bets, back price is true price, lay price is true price + 1 tick.

two punters are betting 1 point a time on the now world famous coin toss, 100 times. they are both betting H,H at 4.0 on two sequential coin tosses, and both have the option of greening up at 2.02 after a winning first toss. punter never does, punter b always does.

punter a's return is 25*(4.0*0.95)= 95
punter b's return is 50*((4.0-2.02)*0.95)= 94.05

in other words, commission is neutral, and returns over time reflect the relation of the green out price to the true price.

that's my take. be interesting to hear one of the maths types here's way of figuring it.

The bottom line is you can create a million examples to prove the point either way but its the mentality of the punter who wants to green up. If he's doing to max his long term profit, laying back at value to real odds or at real odds then fair enough. That sort of person will have a good outcome whatever he does as the thought process has been correct.

I somehow thing this is the minority and most people who green up see a nice big positive on one side, don't want to feel gutted, are risk averse and green up at what ever is available.

Hi Viv

In your example you state that Punter A return is 95 but it's not because he only pays commission on winnings not the whole stake. It's 75*.95 + 25 which comes out at 96.25
For Punter B the same applies and his return is 96.55 and not 94.05.

Hi racing. The same argument also applies to people who make straight bets. The majority don't care about value just who they think is going to win. I think if someone is good enough to spend the time looking for value bets they are not so likely to fall into that greening up mentality of just doing it for the sake of it and taking the first price that comes along.

fair point UA - you're right on the numbers.

on your other earlier point though, I'm not so sure. prices are volatile for say a minute after a goal; unless you know accurately what the price should be, you're basically betting blind without the value indicator that comes from a stable, tight market.

that's not something you ever want to be doing, and my gut feeling from watching markets on a daily basis is that trade out money does temporarily mean that more often than not you'll get worse than true value rather than better if you green up before weight of pro money re-stabilises the market.

My guess is that a lot of people who green up for a nice win don't red out for a hefty loss.  So all they do is cut their winners short and let their losers run, which can turn a winning punter into a losing one.

Bottom line is if you're backing value prices, as long as your staking is correct, you should always let your bets run safe in the knowledge that long term you'll be in profit.  If you feel the need to lay off a winning bet, only do so if it's a value lay.

That is certainly what I used to do Rob even more so with spread betting. Sometimes take a profit but if I was losing then I would hope that things would turn around when in my head I knew they would not

redding out at value is possibly the hardest lessons to learn, imo.

Jan 8, 2014 -- 3:09AM, Rob_The_Bantam wrote:

My guess is that a lot of people who green up for a nice win don't red out for a hefty loss.  So all they do is cut their winners short and let their losers run, which can turn a winning punter into a losing one.Bottom line is if you're backing value prices, as long as your staking is correct, you should always let your bets run safe in the knowledge that long term you'll be in profit.  If you feel the need to lay off a winning bet, only do so if it's a value lay.

Agree here.

If you green out, you have to red out.
If you don't red out, then don't green out either.

If you green out, you have to red out.
If you don't red out, then don't green out either.

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This isn't really true. If all the bets are at value, it would be fine to always green up and never red out, so long as you got your initial staking right and weren't over-exposed in the first place.

That's the other advantage of greening up. It gives you the freedom to re-enter a market in which you'd otherwise be at maximum acceptable exposure if value subsequently presents itself. So letting bets ride has a hidden opportunity cost equivalent essentially to the likelihood of a wrong price presenting itself in what remains of the event.

Therefore greening up (or to a lesser extent redding out) at true value makes more sense the longer there is to run in a market, other factors being equal. In fact, in some circumstances this translates to it making sense to green out even at less than true value.

I mean if you're greening out for the sake of it, you have to red out. Or vice-versa. If you have value strategy behind it, then it's not really greening or redding out just adjusting position accordingly as the match/race/etc and odds fluctuate.