TUESDAY TUTORIAL | HOW TO BET LIKE A PRO

Welcome to the weekly series of Winning Edge Investments tutorials - designed to improve your punting knowledge and maximise your returns by providing real, unbiased, practical information.

UNDERSTANDING MARKET PERCENTAGES

You most likely would have heard presenters on Sky Racing or Racing.com lamenting about a country meeting where the bookmakers have opened up the market at say 140%.

Often they say it to explain why the odds for each runner are so low, or why every runner is drifting in the market.

But what do these percentages really mean?

Let’s show you an example of a real previous race to explain market percentages.

This was Gold Coast R5 on Sat 22 Nov, a Class 5 1400m handicap. Early Bet365 & Sportsbet prices were taken at 5.30pm on Fri 22 Nov, the day before the race.

The market percentage applied to each runner is calculated by dividing 100 by their odds.

So with number 1 Sigmund, 100/$3=33.3%, and with number 9 Rosey Joan, 100/5=20.0%.

Now if you had proportionally backed each runner to win $100 with Bet365, due to the market percentage of 124.4%, you would have outlaid $124.40 to get back $100.

This is clearly a poor bet, and shows why the higher the market percentage is, the greater the bookmaker’s advantage is, and the more difficult it is to beat the bookmaker long term.

Incredibly, because the two bookmaker prices were so different, even in this early market by taking the highest possible price with each bookie, this gave you a market percentage of 97.7%. This actually means you could potentially have backed every runner in the race for a profit. This is called arbitrage.

As you can see, the total spend on the race would have been $97.70, for a $100 guaranteed profit.

Note that given this race was the day before the race, scratchings and deductions could have come into play, but for now understanding the concept of market percentages, and how they are calculated, is what’s important.

THE WEEK IN REVIEW

Huge week for Dean's Tips delivering 27.2u profit @ 210.9% POT driven by a big Saturday (Hush Writer $27 ($35 Betfair SP) & Winning Ways $25 ($41 with some bookies)).

Great week for Greyhound Genius members making 8.2u profit @ 41.0% POT. We sit at a massive 360 units profit over the past 9 months.

Small profit for NRL Tips members with the highlight Penrith beating Manly on Thursday night. 21.3% POT past 6 weeks since amending selection filtering methodology.

Minor loss this week for Blackbook Bets. No result across the weekend for Golf members.

Small losing weekend for AFL Tips but we sit at 20% POT in the past 4 weeks. Small loss for Trial Spy members. Despite the losing week we sit at a massive 136 units profit over the past 12 months.

Losing week for WA Tips & Ratings on what was a quiet week. This service has made 100 units profit at 24% POT in just over past 9 months. Also a loss this week for NSW Tips & Ratings, but we made 18 units profit for the month.

A loss this week for John's Analytics. We continue to lock in great prices with big firmers but the results just didn’t go our way this week. Despite the losing week Model 5 has delivered 17.5 units profit in under 15 weeks.

Losing week for Luke Murrell's Tips members. Despite this we sit at 55.2 units profit over the past 5 months.

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