Starting a new year, I wanted to try and uncover some methods which could be used as part of a “bet and go” strategy where we need no monitoring of the live market.

It has been live market-based systems, generally, which have proven to be the most effective as far as nabbing big prices is concerned. And so it follows, therefore, that in order to operate a “bet and go” strategy, we need to lower our sights as far as betting prices are concerned.

My contention is that the price is all. For this reason I believe that correct interpretation of the live betting market can enable us to follow potential stable gambles or, if laying, avoid certain horses.

All is not lost though, and within this article I hope to show you that focusing on “those most likely” can make us those all important long-term profits. If you are ahead of me, then you will realise that “those most likely” to win will be priced accordingly.

And it’s also not the most exciting betting in the world, but when you see that I have made 8 points profit since November 2008 (with a relatively simple selection strategy and betting market which ensures a high strike rate) then I’m sure you’d happily trade excitement for moolah.

And when you see some of the hideously short prices, I’m sure you would be heartened to see that we can make Ronnie Corbet sized odds work for us.

There are two specific strategies, one for football and one for horse racing. These offer us plenty of selections where losing would be a shock result!

Horse racing

So, we need two main components for this type of betting:

1) Short priced selections (whose price accurately reflects their chances)

2) A high strike rate

Well, you know the running theme of the latter part of last year and my horse racing blog don’t you? Yes, place, only betting! But again, this market offers both of the components that I need, and thanks to Fasttrackplans I can show you the profit progression since 1 November. (See top of next column.)

Key factors

Strike rate – the strike rate here is 93.8%. How can I maintain such a strike rate over 65 bets?

Simple. By selecting my NAP OF THE DAY, or in other words, the ONE BET which, to me, has the greatest chance of returning my stake and a profit to boot. AND SELECTING THAT ONE BET TO PLACE AND NOT WIN!

Remember, this is ONE SELECTION out of the many, many horses running on any typical day.

This selectivity and focus is extremely powerful as you can see to date.

From a level stakes perspective, using nominal £100 stakes for ease of calculation, returns would be £898 (give or take, we need to account for 5% commission if using Betfair). NOTE: Place-only betting is available at Blue Square and Paddy Power as well as traditionally via the Tote).

The graph represents a relatively smooth flow of profit over nearly three months.

There have only been four losing bets throughout this period, and the profit is made more remarkable when we learn that the average winning odds are 1.21. YES, you would have to stake £100 to win £21. In other words, these really are Vern Troyer odds – BUT THEY ARE MAKING A PROFIT.

Potential pitfalls?

Of course, if in the above case, average winning odds are only 1.21 and we are staking £100 to win £21, so it follows that a losing bet has a HUGE IMPACT on profits. Using this 1.21 average, we would need five successful bets to compensate for one losing bet.

Which is where I refer back to those two main components, short prices and a high strike rate.

Please inspect entries at www.back-lay-tradehorses- football.blogspot.com for a history of selections, and the methodology used to come to my selections. You can easily replicate this with practice. The blog contains all of the strategies I employ.

This could really work if adopting this NAP OF THE DAY philosophy. In ALL of the betting opportunities in any given day, surely there is ONE that can offer an outstanding chance of success? (Do note there are some days I did not bet. Why? There were simply no outstanding opportunities in my mind on those days.)

There are other markets in which we can adopt this NAP OF THE DAY philosophy and make short prices pay dividends.

Football

Called the beautiful game (after Kelly Brook once played it) I have found specific teams priced at specific odds playing at home who can provide us with our two main components for level stakes success with short prices.

Followers of football will know that generally, there are teams in each of the country’s premier league equivalents who tend to dominate their leagues year in and year out.

I bet you could reel off a few now:

Celtic and Rangers in Scotland

The Big 4 in England

Olympiacos and Panathinaikos in Greece

Fenerbahcae and Galatasaray in Turkey

Lyon in France

Bayern Munich in Germany

Barcelona in Spain

And so it goes on…

Of these dominant teams, there are certain teams who, when priced at 2/5 or shorter AND playing at home, tend to win and win well AND win often (the high strike rate we require).

Where can you check performance?

www.soccerstats.com is but one of many sites which can show you a team’s performance over a season.

Let’s look at the HOME FIXTURE tables for England: (see pages 18 & 19).

As you can see, the teams heading the HOME WINS tables at www.soccerstats.com are winning the majority of their matches. I would suspect that  the matches they didn’t win were not specifically priced at 2/5 or lower.

An immediate and recognisable example closer to home would be the Old Firm Derby in Scotland. Similarly, Barcelona are not always 2/5 or shorter at home, especially when Real Madrid are in town. Of the teams dominant at home, my shortlist would include Manchester United, Celtic. Olympiacos, Ajax, Barcelona and AC Milan.

This should provide us with plenty of home fixtures, plenty of short prices (ideally less than 1 / 2 or 4/9 at home) and a high strike rate of wins at home. This is a ready alternative to horse racing and the strike rate can be improved even further if we utilise the power of trading. BACK the team as per usual (in an in running football match on Betfair) and look to trade out after the team score the first goal (which is usually the case).

The odds for that short-priced home team will come down dramatically, allowing us to lay the team at a greatly reduced price, so recovering our stakes and creating a risk-free bet.

Bottom line

Ronnie Corbet and Vern Troyer sized odds need not put us off profiting. Indeed, they can offer us a degree of comfort that the bookmaker has effectively done our jobs for us. With a little research (to ensure that we concur that the price reflects the likely outcome) we can actually make these prices profit for us.

High strike rates are ideally achieved utilising a NAP OF THE DAY mentality and really focusing on that ONE BET which, in any given day, is likeliest to return a profit.

Football, too, can offer some hope, especially if we focus on specific teams, playing specifically at home and at specific odds (usually below 4/9) – which belie the fact that the team should win.

I will keep track of the horse racing side as I do this naturally. You can keep track of dominant teams’ performance by going to www.soccerstats.com.