Research Corner – Place Betting Profits?
Hi All
For this month’s Research Corner piece, we are going to see if we can use the Inform Racing Systems Builder to develop a strategy for backing horses that have a decent chance of at least placing in their respective races.
For those of you that may not be familiar with this excellent resource you can find out all about it here.
We will use the data from the start of 2019 to the present which at the time of writing is mid October.
Those of you that have experience of utilising the place markets on the exchanges, Betfair in particular, will be aware that these operate independent of the outright win market in contrast to the traditional bookmaker’s fixed fractional calculations.
Having observed the exchange place markets for some time I am of the opinion that these can often provide some value in handicap races especially as you move away from those at the head of the market.
With that in mind we will be focussing our endeavours for this research piece on handicap races and to aid our task in search of potential placers it makes sense to concentrate of races that have a minimum of 8 runners, so we have at least 3 places to aim for.
The above image provides an explanation of the main details of the information that the Inform Ratings show for every race that they cover, which is GB flat, AW and national hunt throughout the year.
In the column headed M+A the figure displayed is a total of the Master rating which is the best figure that the horse has achieved in the most recent 12 months, and the average rating from its last 3 runs.
By using this rating as a starting point it will hopefully home in on a solid combination of best speed figure overall (last 12 months) coupled with a horse that has been running well in its recent races.
If we consider how the top ranked runner in handicaps with 8 or more runners since the start of 2019 we find the following: –
Clearly not profitable on its own merit with the losses at around 3-4% but it looks a reasonable place to start.
Returning to the Inform Ratings racecards adjacent to the M+A column is the one headed Crs which details the best speed rating that each of the runners has achieved when running at the same racetrack as today.
There are of course many factors that can affect how an individual horse runs and one of them is recent form at the track. So, what happens to the original data if we add the top ranked from the Crs column into the mix: –
Top ranked M+A & Crs
Both the win and place strike rates have improved and in the case of the place bets the ROI has moved from -3.50% to -2.61% which is encouraging.
One more column across in the Inform Ratings racecards is the one headed Dis which details the best speed rating that each of the runners has achieved when running at the same distance as today.
Top ranked M+A, Crs & Dis
In this instance it is the winning ROI that has shown the most improvement over the base figures but at least the place strike rate has stayed at a decent level.
Regular readers of the OCP magazine may recall that we covered the topic of the “Flying Dutchman” in last month’s edition. Well, the Inform Ratings racecard incorporate their version of the Van Der Wheil ability figure so we are going to add that category into the mix.
Top ranked M+A, Crs, Dis & Ability
By combining the 4 categories it appears to have transformed the output into positive territory so let’s take a closer look at the results starting by breaking them down by the individual years.
If we focus on the original premise of looking for a place backing angle we find that 3 of the last 4 years so far have proven to be profitable by simply homing in on the runners that are top ranked in the four Inform Racing categories that we detailed earlier.
Revised Place Backing Method
The above research has given me the confidence to try and expand on the data in search of a practical method that could be used to find daily selections to place bets on the Betfair Place markets.
Each of the Inform Ratings categories that we have considered hold some merit but rather than be stringent by requiring a potential selection to be top ranked in all four, what if we eased off that slightly and went with 3 or more top ranked.
To try and avoid potential banana skins such as having a runner with top ranking course and distance form from the last 12 months but either way out of its depth on the Ability or the M+A ratings, we added the additional factor that it must have the best overall profile.
To achieve this, we turned to another very useful facet in the Inform Ratings site, that of the Betting Tissue Builder.
This tool allows you to select from an array of parameters and use them to compile either ranking, ratings or go a step further and produce your own betting forecast or “tissue”.
Our use of the Betting Tissue tool was able to quickly find the rankings in handicap races with 8 or more runners declared. Here is a recent example:
If we scan down the far right column headed “Rank Total” we find that horse number 7 Blazing Hot has the highest total, 47.0. There are 13 runners declared for this race and in 3 of the 4 categories that we identified earlier the David Brown trained 5yo is the highest ranking (including joint).
The result was a win for Blazing Hot who returned an SP of 9/2 having been 10/3 in the morning markets. As there were 13 runners in this handicap the bookmakers’ standard terms would have paid out at 1/4 odds for the place which equates to a price of 2.13.
If we consider the Betfair SP result we find: –
The Place BFSP paid 2.64 from which you have to deduct a commission of 2 or 5% depending on which rewards package you are set up with on the exchange. Even at the higher rate the payout would have been 2.56 which is approximately 38% better than the standard bookmakers’ terms.
Yes the bookmakers now offer place only bets, but they generally reflect the odds prevailing in the win or each-way markets and equally these do not offer best odds guarantees and the places paid can be altered if there are significant non-runners. Betfair apply a reduction factor on live prices matched but payout the number of places stated when the market was created. The returned Betfair SP already takes into account any non-runners.
I have already been applying the Place Backing method and placing small stakes bets to see how it pans out.
The early results are encouraging with 6 placers out of 8 bets (two were winners) on 6th October, 3 out of 3 (another 2 winners) the following day, 2 unplaced on Sat 8th Oct, 3 placers out of 4 on Mon 10th (another 2 winners) and an unplaced one on Tues 12th.
A very short timeline on which to judge but an encouraging start non the less with 12 placers (6 winners) from 18 so far. If they continue to show promise I plan to compile a summary and organise a live trial in the OCP Platinum Members area from next month.
Until next time
Featured Image: (CC BY 4.0) – Horse Racing Chester | Paul | Flickr
