Where have all the layers gone???

1000 isn't always reasonable m8.

Very true, Stake

There's a horse I'm trying to back for the Gold Cup, that has never run further than two and a half miles (twice - both times beaten, weakened), is probably a mudder, isn't quoted by any high street firm and would be about tenth in his trainer's pecking order for the big one, if indeed he's in the order at all.

Four years ago he would be a 500+ poke, easy.

I have tried to get on at 300, 250 and 220 to no avail.  It seems the only price I could back him at is one that I'd be happy to lay myself - and I fancy the flippping thing. 

Are you finding these ante-post markets have thinned out too?

I agree the markets are definitely thinner than they used to be.

I have given up putting up requests, as they rarely get matched, or are just undercut. Best policy might be just waiting and picking off the prices you find acceptable...but is increasingly difficult as layers on here struggle to top bookies best price (unless they know they are virtually certain non runners).

It is very disappointing that after 10 years the AP market on here is so weak. There is very little chance of getting sums of a few hundred down or more let alone grands, and unless you are a £10 punter , you are obliged to still find ways of getting on with the books. Before long the AP market will be like the early price markets on day of race - dead. I can't help thinking that this is an area where Bf could step in.

Best thing to do is take a price that you think is acceptable when it is availanle as Stakey says. Whenever you put in a request it always gets undercut. I dont know if that is related to bots, or not.

* available

Sandown,
It seems to be regressing, doesn't it?  Betfair have made few friends by introducing various charges....and their stock response seems to be 'well, we need the extra money to advertise for new accounts and restock the pond'.  They're not doing a very good job, imo. 

Sint - I am finding very few prices on here acceptable...if you know of any flag them up!  Although I suspect they're available to peanuts and you'll rightly snaffle the lot.

Am I right in thinking the three of us are generally backers?  Where are all the layers???

Yeah I am predominantly a backer. I rarely bet on horses to lose but if I do they are under 6/4.

I have nothing but respect for any layers that can make it pay.
I personally will always find it easier to find a 3/1 winner than find a 1/3 shot that gets beat.


Tbh it will always be hard to get a lot on at big odds, ie 100+. I would imagine there are very few people on Betfair who could afford to tie up loads of capital for periods of up to 6 months at a time.

Lay £100 @ 100 for a Cheltenham Festival race = nearly 10K

The people laying these days are probably getting brighter and brighter making it increasingly difficult to get
an Edge in the AP market. Their looking to take money at either under the bookies odds or on horses that
probably won't run. Like any business it will get more and more efficent and its probable that bots are envolved. It's possible to set traps for bots to sniff them out and then take advantage of their predictabilty
(they been used in Int poker for a while) you have to be careful though that they don't get re-programmed
to try and throw you. A constant game of cat and mouse.

if you are closed down by the books, then the only way to get largish sums down is to request a back price which gives a fair margin against the books so that large arbers can be attracted. This is one area where th eBF  20% better odds claim just doesn't apply.

Unless a person is an SP better the 20% claim is meaningless. I wonder if every race that is run on a saturday that
had a pricewise column listing of all the prices(often making a book close to 100% and sometimes less,with
no commision)for each horse and the winners best price was noted if it would compare favourably BF's sp.My guess is that it would. So the best option is to take a bookies early price in most races. The problem for those betting bigger is getting the money on. If a person has enough confidence in his judgement he'll find a way to get his money on at the EP to decent money.

It's no cakewalk being a layer either. I made a reasonable book on the PP Gold Cup
and hoped the Hennessy would shape the same way, but it was atrocious - I came out
with one horse green and the rest in red - which meant I had bet a 10/1 shot at evens!
In both races I was being shadowed by bots every step of the way. If I was able to
monitor the market 10-12 hours a day I could probably do better, but I don't have that
sort of time. I don't want to use a bot myself because I can't be there to keep an eye
on it... and I don't trust them to behave themselves.

To be honest, my stakes are a long way below what you'd want to bet. I also do most
of my laying on the left hand side, simply because I can't devote the time to the job.
Like many other layers on here, I don't want to spend a lot of money backing an opinion
by taking on punters on the right hand side.

Punters would be better off abstaining from the Ante post and Early Price markets until the big bookmakers
have given out their prices. This would force the bookies to trust their own odds compiler. Punters on BF
are just giving the Odds compilers free information . Pre-betfair the odds compilers were often way out in their opinions on a horses chance.

used to specialise in the ante post market but virtually jacked it in all together.
Trading bots moved in as per overnight markets

Unsure as to what happens in the last few minutes of betting on Betfair before the off. If a horse drifts dramatically it usually means he won't be running on his merits or is unfit or conditions have gone right against it .But this isn't always the case. An example on Saturday was Planet of Sound who drifted to nearly 20/1 for no apparent reason. He looked very fit pre-race,the stable was in very good form, connections and jockey are straight and conditions appeared OK. Is the price drift due to a bot or individual following a chart
on a graph and spotting a trading movement that believes it will get bigger and a sort of charting lemmings
effect ensuing. Or is it due to the horse not being backed at all by the off course bookies or possibly both.
I don't really know what is actually going on in these frantic last few minutes were a lot of money is traded.
Could anyone enlighten as to what they believe is happening.

tinkler, in the last few minutes  ordinary punters are subjected to

not betting time but shafting time.

Could you explain why you believe its "shafting time" for punters Wee eck?

A layer seems to be keen in taking Long Run on for the Gold Cup...

Hurricane Hymnbook Willie Musson at Lingfield on Friday.

Traded at 4.4 to 5.5 all day.
In last 15 secs as they put the last 2 or 3 in the stalls, some layers falling over themselves to take all the thousands available up to 6.0

Could not have been a trader, could not have been someone with a view that it would lose, as was available to lay at much shorter all day.

Only one other type of layer available - someone who knew it was not winning.

whoever it was, those are the accounts BF should be investigating

Spot on, ped. It's also pitiful how the racing 'pundits' on tv don't draw more attention to these goings on.

Could have been someone who'd seen something amiss in the paddock to be fair pedro, or on the way to post, or at the starting stalls. Probably wasn't, but could have been.

"Willie Musson" says it all pedrobob.
The new age punter has to clue themselves up as to who could be at it because its only going to get worse
as prize money comes down. Personally on the flat i think its starting to creep into some of the better class
races were prize money has started to decline.
"It's also pitiful how the racing 'pundits' on tv don't draw more attention to these goings on."
Agree  Figgis . Surely they can imply that there was some wrong doing without saying it as a fact
so they won't get sued. Someone needs to stand up for the integrity of racing before the rot spreads.

tinkler Joined: 02 Sep 10
Replies: 977 05 Dec 11 18:18   
Surely they can imply that there was some wrong doing without saying it as a fact
so they won't get sued.

Of course they can tinkler, unless they are even more witless than some of them appear. Whenever they're questioned on the matter they hide behind this fear of libel twaddle, absolutely pathetic.

*libel/slander

To me it shows that they don't give a t0ss about punters getting ripped off.Even though its the punter who funds it.
Maybe they could do a close up of a horse that was obviously not running on its merits and say
"Interesting performance from Horse X their who drifted like a barge pre-race.We cann't say anything on here
but we'll let you the public decide from the video evidence"
Instead they say nothing which is offensive to the ordinary punter watching and to those who backed the horse
it' outrageous.

It also shows that they don't care about the long term future of racing, just as long as it remains around long enough for them to take their slice of the pie. Some of the markets on the day to day stuff are so obviously biased towards those "in the know". A sport that continues down the route of catering almost exclusively to insiders can only have poor long term prospects.

Big Price movement upwards near the race could be down to
(1) Horse not to be given a chance by the jockey eg.slow away,kept hemmed in,positioned to give no chance,
constant swithching,bang horses head on stalls, set off too fast, drop hands early and say horse didn't like
todays conditions(it didn't like the undulations or the ground) or ride horse very tenderley.
(2) Horse unwell/unfit. This could possibly be spotted by pre-race paddock inspection and at the post.
(3) Horse moves poorly to post possibly bolting.
(4) Conditions change eg. downpour of rain.
(5) Traders trying desperately to get out of a position.
(6) By chance virtually no on or off course money for the horse.
If the reason for the movement is (1) punters are basically having their money fraudulently taken off them. (2),(3),(4) punters have to try and anticipate. Imo (5) and (6), if interpretated correctly
and your nerve holds , are a significant opportunity to obtain value.

Interesting about early 'market moves'. A lot of people on the hr forum giving out about people nicking the price the night before and should wait until the price has been posted up by the big three the next morning. I've been monitoring a horse's last few runs recently and none of them have been very inspiring, the horse runs in the first at southwell tomorrow, 'TAKAJAN'.
Horse is 9's into 4's with 365 and 11-2 into 7-2 with v.c.
Horse basically has no chance on recent form and trainer's current form is terrible too.
On the plus side, the horse is a course specialist and de sousa is booked to ride.
The horse runs on the same calendar date as a c+d win 12 months ago albeit ridden by a jock claiming 5.
How would you assess a market move like this ?
Personally, it's always going to be the interesting horse in the field due to course form and winter form.
There is a jockey booked who wins on ones that can be hard to fancy.
To me the market move is purely speculative, what kind of owners go for a touch when they should be having their dinner and their horse runs at lunchtime the following day ?
If you weren't connected but just had an educated hunch that this would run like a drain tomorrow, given both the horse's and trainer's recent form, how much value would be created on another runner(s) by this 'market move'(a silly one to my eyes anyway).
Another point, people think that a 'market move' like this is 'marking the card' of the big 3 bookmakers who don't employ 'compilers' to compile anymore.
I reckon they'll all be rubbing their hands together an trying to go half a tick above each other in the morning and patting each other on the back tomorrow afternoon.

Horse now into 7-2 with 3.65
Ironically, they originally had a horse called 'wellmarked' installed as favourite originally.
Ironically as per a few posts above, there seems to be a 'spring' of musson's also which appears to be drawn in cloud nine as far as this c+d goes.

*'springer' dc i am

Possible reasons Rowley
1. Leaked information from a stable employee
2. People just fancy it ,off its C/D form and with De sousa booked
3. Connections just couldn't help themselves
4. Someone tipping it and everyone following it.
5. The Bookies could have taken less than £100 for it and because its an abnormal betting pattern run for cover.
6. Something else.

Comments from  last 4 runs
"in rear","dwelt","slow into stride" and "dwelt"
They remind of comments I used see at the local dog track SA(slow away) 26.90(time)
                                                           SA            27.10
                                                           SA            26.95
Then suddenly the dog is backed off the boards in the same grade and its FA(fast away) 25.60

Are the big three saying thanks for marking our cards ?
Surely they'll know the accounts that should be backing it tomorrow or the shop's it'll be backed in if it's fancied !
I personally don't know what's worse, the people backing it on here now or the people who can get on with the two firms who have it priced up who are backing it.

Good 'debate' on this on the racing forum specifically about takajan, should make for interesting reading

where have all the layers gone is so true i do most of my betting antepost. its getting impossible to  get matched. 2 yrs ago my bets were getting matched no problem at all. betfair should do something to entice layers antepost.

I still can't get matched on a horse for the Gold Cup that's just finished last of four in a Graduation Chase, beaten 27 lengths, with no obvious excuses.

Pathetic stuff on here now, virtual waste of time.

So that is something you want to back to Win right HM ? But no one will accomodate ..

Aye.  Their reluctance is probably saving me a few quid but no doubt four years ago the horse would be 1000 and drifting.