Help me understand Betfair SP please

Generally speaking BSP is much better.  If a horse is bet on you may get a higher price from bookies offering BOG.  In general anything under 5/1 will be the same or there abouts as bookies.  Anything 5-15/1 will probably be a couple of points better then the bookies.  Where it comes into its own is outsiders, a 25/1 can often by 40 or more on BSP.  The irish National winner was 100/1 SP but 240/1 on BSP.

So it is probaly better to tasker BSP if selection is over 5/1 and take the occasional hit on getting lower odds than  BOG.

If you look at the - Market LADDERS - to the right of the Graphs .... presuming that you know how to do that ...

Then the Betfair SP Market is shown SEPARATELY.

Not too easy to read - as some people put Price Limit Restrictions - High and Low on their Pre-race requests.

- and - it does not end there, either as ...

The Betfair Cross-Matcher BOT - takes any UNmatched Money from the PE-Race Market and Transfers it into the Betfair SP Market (at the OFF0 thus boosting the Betfair SP Market and ensuring that there is unlikely to be any shortfall in the SP Markey - and thgat the Betfair SP will be pretty much as predicted PRE-Race.

Brilliant - and all done in milli-seconds
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NOTHING untoward, though - and the Betfair SP is the best innovation that they have come up with.

You can Ask for, say 10 in the morning in a Pre-race Market - But if you are not Matched by the time you want to go to watch your local Football team ... having selected the - 'Take SP' Option  (when you struck the bet) - then you can go to the Footy safely knowing that you 'are On'. ... wheras - before Betfair SP - you would have had to take the 8.2 on Offer when you were leaving home - But, Now - you may very well still get matched at your 10.0 before the Off.
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- And - What on Earth are you doing backing at SP with Bookmakers? ......

They must Love You.

Except if you have a large bet at BSP which itself could skew the market.

Yes - Brian - and the odd occasion when there is a late shot-priced Withdrawal - and some smart arses try to 'skew the market'

But those events are far few and far between - and do not affect the vast, vast, majority of Markets - otherwise the whole thing would have collapsed ages ago by now.

- and such events will not affect you unless you are betting in 'Monkeys' or such - and you may even get lucky back a 4/1 winner at 14.0 as a consequence

If you have Backed a Loser - then it does not matter if the Betfair SP was 9/4 or 99.0.

So, is it no longer the case that one can convert unmatched bets to BSP when the market is turned in play?

From the figures on the right of the graph - it looks as if the BSP is based on a market of only £5,000 or so.

Incorrect - biscuits ... Where are you getting that idea from?

I have explained it all concisely, thoroughly.
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When you Place a PRE-race Bet - Then - at the SAME time (although you CAN do an Amend/Change later) - You SELECT the - 'Take SP' Option.

Note: - You SUBMIT your Bet PRE-Race  and the Bet will show as UNmatched in your BETSLIP ...


THEN - You Click ON - 'TAKE SP'  and Activate the Blue Button ..


You MUST THEN Pres 'UPDATE'- to RE-Submit the BET ... otherwise - the 'Take SP' Option will just LAPSE at the 'Off'.

The above is for when you are Trying to be Matched at, say, 10.0 - and only 8.2 or so, is on Offer

If - You just want to take Betfair SP - WHATEVER the Current Prices are ... THEN -

There is a little BOX - at the Head of the Market - saying 'Betfair SP  - (on the same line as -'In-Play 'Cash-Out' 'Rules' 'Pin' etc.

Click on that 'Betfair SP' BOX  (on that line ... and it will OPEN  2 Boxes saying 'SP@ - in-between the BLUE and PINK Prices Boxes on the Market .

You can then just Click on that 'SP' Box - and it will Open an SP Bet Option  (NO PRICES SHOWN) on your Betslip -

'You simply Insert your STAKE  > SUBMIT - and you are ON.

When you Place a PRE-race Bet - Then - at the SAME time (although you CAN do an Amend/Change later) - You SELECT the - 'Take SP' Option.

Note: - You SUBMIT your Bet PRE-Race  and the Bet will show as UNmatched in your BETSLIP ...

Feel your advice must be right but..


Have just placed 2@9 on Ron O 17:30.

Unmatched but no option to take BSP.


What am I missing? (sorry if something obvious)

Have you got Bfsp ticked in your 'settings'?

Yes, TT

Bet just lapsed

I shall have another look tomorrow.
Sure I must be missing something obvious.

That makes NO difference whatsoever - Tiger

Well - biscuits - That is NOT in order - and NOT the standard DISPLAY of things - If there is No OPTION to 'Take SP' showing ... although we can only take your word for it.

We can, now only move into the realms of ... Which BROWSER are you using etc - How 'Clean' is your computer' etc.

Although - I am NOT suggesting that is a 'Soft Option' - as in my 18 years on here - Your issue has never been mentioned/highlighted before.
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Fellow- Poster longbridge will be fascinated by this Thread ... when he reads it.

Onlooker - it does make a difference on my screen. If Bfsp is not selected in settings, then it doesn't appear on the screen at all.

Think you may well be confused - well, I am fairly sure that you are - Tiger - read again - as I explained above.

We are talking about ... 'TAKE Sp' - ON THE BETSLIP  .... NOT "bsp notappearing on your screen" - BUT - Between the Pink and Blue Boxes

His Issue is NOT trying to place a Bet via the 'SP' Boxes NEXT to the PINK and BLUE Price Boxes  which are activated by clicking the 'Betfair SP' AT THE TOP of the Market.

He Put a PRICE in - On his Betslip (UNmatched) - which you Cannot do via the JUST 'SP' Option.


After your post - I went into the 'Settings' (Hidden until selected) - to double-check

Tried several Bets - with 'Betfair SP'  BOTH Checked and UNchecked .... and it made NO difference ....

THAT Option - ONLY controls - 'Projected Odds'-'Near Far'-'Neither' - and Nothing else.


The 'Keep' AND 'Take SP' Boxes ALWAYS appeared on the BETSLIP - after SUBMITTING the bets - whatever way or Option was Ticked or UNticked in the (Hidden) Settings.

Would it make a difference and perhaps show differently on a phone as opposed to a laptop?

Doh..apologies, I see it now after submitting unmatched bets.

Thank you for your patience.


Ok, so, I agree with onlooker that BSP is usually a better alternative to betting on the "show" with bookmakers.

Over time, my approach has been to bet multiples with bookmakers (and normally BOG). It looks like the industry is negating any value in following that strategy. I have noticed that prices across oddschecker have become much more uniform and not all of us have the luxury of a 365 account. But I also bet singles, and am happy not to touch bookie prices near the off.

Any thoughts on this then. A few weeks back I placed a bet at bsp with with min odds of 21.00 set for a stake of £10. The bsp was returned at 21.00 exactly but my £10 never got matched. The horse did lose but I was surprised I never got matched though my selected min odds did return.

BW, might have settled at 20.918457 or similar - it gets rounded up to 1 or 2 decimal places on the race page for neatness. I have the exact numbers if you remember the horse and date.

For anyone still in the dark:

There are two boxes to the right of the screen - Place Bets and Open bets.

When you clice on the price it opens the Place Bets box where you enter your stake and asking price.

Simply click the box next to it called Open Bets. And there is the option to take BSP.

Update on that.

''When you clice on the price it opens the Place Bets box where you enter your stake and asking price.''

Click the yellow box Place bets

Then click on the Open Bets box or View open bets.

After selecting SP click Update

"Fellow- Poster longbridge will be fascinated by this Thread ... when he reads it"

Thanks for thinking of me onlooker - of course I am.

These pages may be of interest to some on this thread:

https://promo.betfair.com/betfairsp/FAQs_theBasics.html

https://promo.betfair.com/betfairsp/FAQs_detailedWorkings.html

from the OP's questions:

"I imagine most of the money comes from "take BSP if unmatched" pre-race bets. Which is good because of the transparency of the market."

I don't think so - but it would not be hard to check (take a look at the ladder on the graphs just before and just after the start of the race and see how much more is matched at SP then was shown as SP bets before the race, that would be the sum of "take BSP" money and, as onlooker has pointed out, any unmatched money in the main market that can be used).

"I can see a couple of angles where the BSP could be unfairly skewed. Does this happen a lot?"

If you put up a big enough bet at a price that would not match and ticked "Take SP" you could crash that horse's BSP down to a much lower figure than it ought to be, but I cannot see any obvious way of using that as a profitable exploit.

I do agree the way industry SP is calculated is dubious. Virtually every winner I have seems to have a shorter SP than its last show. Comparing BFSP to industry SP is not the whole story as I easily beat industry SP with BOG offers especially Bet365 ITV pre race prices.

With Betfair as an alternative to ticking the SP box if I have the computer with me to monitor the market whilst watching the racing on TV, after submitting the bet I often tick the keep button in the open bets tab. Providing I am close to the market price at the off I mostly get matched at a slightly better price than SP. Very occasionally I don't and then it can be a bit manic getting on a front runner but overall it pays off.

BFSP with non runner deductions can be horrible.

"BFSP with non runner deductions can be horrible."

Under what circumstances does that occur?  I can only think of NRs that are left in at the 'off' and removed later?

Probably comparing Rule 4 deductions with betfair reduction factor.

It's very hard to crash (or knock out) a Betfair SP with large bets. If you tried it, bots would just swoop to accommodate you. In fact, when Betfair SP was first introduced I remember a Betfair comment that they hoped it would encourage more bots to monitor the market looking for just such an edge.

I suppose you could skew the market against yourself by placing a huge SP bet right bang on the off, but then again, why would you?

@screaming

"It's very hard to crash (or knock out) a Betfair SP with large bets. If you tried it, bots would just swoop to accommodate you. "

Not quite.  If you put in a big bet at SP, yes you immediately see money coming in at SP on the other side (back or lay).


But if you put in a big back bet at odds of 1000 but tick "take SP if unmatched", no-one has any visibility that it will be included in the SP calculation until it happens.  Which has the same effect as "placing a huge SP bet right bang on the off"

Fair enough. I hadn't thought of that.

Though the answer remains "why would you?"

@screaming

"Though the answer remains "why would you?""

I cannot see any reason to do it with the intention of crashing the SP.

I can imagine it being done naively by someone who did not understand how the SP process worked (if rather than 1000 they simply had an over-optimistic price that was never matched).