bfloophole_2

Betfair Loophole

the ultimate Betfair system

Introduction ... 3

Getting to know the basics... 3

Understanding Odds and Percentages ... 3

Fractional Odds ... 4

Getting Value in your bets ... 4

Favourites... 5

Laying and Betting Exchanges ... 6

What is Laying? ... 7

Betting Exchanges ... 7

Guide to Betfair... 9

The Dishlicker System ... 13

Form ... 13

To Back or to Lay? ... 14

What races should I lay in? ... 14

Graded Racing ... 15

Where does the money come from? ... 16

Money Management... 16

Staking Plans... 18

The System ... 21

Which dog to lay ... 21

Which races to trade ... 21

Laying the Favourite ... 21

Trading the Favourite ... 22

What price do we lay? ... 26

Conclusion... 27

Alternative trading methods... 28

Favourites under £2.00 ... 28

Races outside our rules... 28

The reasons... 28

The reason we select certain races only. ... 29

7 Golden Rules of successful trading ... 31

Rule 1 – DISCIPLINE, DISCIPLINE, DISCIPLINE... 31

Rule 2 – MANAGE YOUR BANKROLL... 31

Rule 3 – COPING WITH SWINGS ... 32

Rule 4 - SPECIALISING ... 33

Rule 5 – RESEARCH YOUR INVESTMENTS... 33

Rule 6 – KEEP RECORDS ... 33

Rule 7 – DON’T GAMBLE AND DRINK ... 34

Copyright © 2008 Betfair Loophole

All rights reserved. It is illegal to copy, distribute, or create derivative works from this e-book in whole or in part. Please be aware that using information in this book is at your own discretion. The author is in no way liable for any debts that you may incur with your trading decisions. Please note that gambling and the use of information related to gambling is illegal in some countries. The author holds no responsibility for any reader using the information herein while it is against the local laws of the country they reside in.

Introduction

Congratulations on purchasing a copy of BF Loophole.

Here are some Betfair secrets the professionals don’t want you to know. You will be opening up the world of the Bookmaker and Market Trader and seeing how they operate and why they win. I have set this manual out as an easy to follow guide so no matter what experience you have you will be able to follow the instructions easily.

Of course everyone who reads this book will have different levels of skill and knowledge within the broad area of trading on Betfair. With this in mind I have included several sections at the beginning of the book aimed at the novice. This will help further your

understanding of Greyhound racing, trading and laying before you go onto the system.

This guide will include references to £ and $au. That is because it covers UK and Australian Greyhounds and Betfair gives you a choice of UK and Australian wallets to bet with. So we have covered both.

The system is based on laying and trading the favourites in certain Greyhound races. Once you get the hang of it, you will be amazed at how easy it is to make money trading and laying Greyhounds. Well that’s enough of an introduction. Let’s get on with it.

Getting to know the basics

Understanding Odds and Percentages

Odds are referred to as the ‘price’ for a dog in a race. The bookies set the prices, according to what they believe is, the dog’s chance of winning. The more likely they think a dog is to win, the ‘shorter’ the dog’s price will be. That is to say the smaller the return will be for a punter who backs the dog to win.

For example if a dog is priced at 4/1 then the bookie is saying that if that exact race was run 5 times that dog would win it once. Or to put it another way the dog has a 20% chance of winning.

Fractional Odds

The traditional British way is to describe the odds as a fraction e.g. 5/1 or ‘Five to One’. When the first figure is higher than the second it is called ‘odds against’. The amount won will be greater than the original stake. For example if the odds offered were 5/1 then for every £1 staked you would win £5.

When the first figure is smaller than the second it is called ‘odds on’ and the amount of winnings will be smaller than the stake. For example if the odds offered were 4/6 then for every £6 staked you would win £4.

On the Betfair website, they use Decimal odds. So 5/1 will be seen as 6.00 and 7/2 which is 3.5/1 will be shown as 4.5. This is

because in fractional odds, the bet and the return are shown

separately 5/1 = bet 1 win 5 and you will collect 6 from the bookie. In Betfair, the return is included. So if you placed a back bet for £10 @ 6.00 you will win £50 if the bet wins. 6.00 – your £10 = £50. Getting Value in your bets

The notion of value is widely underestimated in the world of betting by almost everyone bar the professionals. It is the very reason that bookmakers are able to profit on every dog in every race. Let me explain.

If a dog’s real chance of winning is 9/1 then it means that if that dog was allowed to run that exact same race ten times it would win once. The other nine times it would lose. If you put £1 on the dog for each of those ten races you would invest £10 in total.

For the one race that the dog won you would receive £10 back from the bookmakers (including £9 profit and the £1 stake returned). So as you can see in the long run you would break even. Now imagine that same dog, with its 9/1 chance of winning, was priced at 15/1 by a bookmaker.

Now for those ten races your investment would still be £10. But your return on that one winning race would now be £16 (including £15 profit and the £1 stake returned). So you have achieved a value bet.

This means you will have made £6 pure profit or more impressively a 60% return on investment. Of course the example above is very simplistic but the model works. Having value in your investments is the only way to reap long term profits. Now imagine how many times a bookmaker will make a mistake on one of its prices. Think of the resources available to William Hill for example. They have teams of experts studying the form of every dog in every race, not to mention the computer programs that can crunch years of data in seconds. And all of it is pitted against you – the punter.

Now do you see how hard it is to beat the bookmaker? This is exactly the reason why so few people can earn a living from

betting. Furthermore the majority of people like to bet on favourites because they believe this will give them a better strike rate, hence better profits. But guess what?

Favourites

The favourite offers the worst value out of every dog in the field. Let me explain. When pricing up dogs the bookmakers includes an over round on every dog so that each one represents value for them. To put it another way the bookmaker wants to be certain of making a profit in every race. It’s up to the punter to find a dog that the bookie has priced up incorrectly and which offers value. Very tough to do.

Bookmakers work in percentages. Now if the percentage of all the runners in any given race put together is below 100% then

theoretically we can back every dog in that race and be

guaranteed a profit. Of course this never happens. Most markets by bookmakers are set at an average 125%. So they make 25% profit per race. On average. It is often much higher.

Most people will back the favourite. The more money that gets put on a certain runner the bookmaker lowers the odds on that dog. Simple supply and demand. As the price gets shorter more and more people put money on it, because it looks such a ‘sure thing’,

the price just gets lower and lower. It’s a vicious circle that creates less value for the punters and more profits for the bookmakers. The bookies may even make a ‘false favourite’. They may pick a dog they think cannot win the race, install it as favourite, and then watch as all the punters lump on it and make it shorter and shorter and keep all the money when it runs last or thereabouts. It’s too easy for them.

The trick to winning on UK greyhounds is in the grading. The racing manager is paid to make the races as even as possible. In his ideal world, all six dogs would cross the line together, a six way dead heat and he would be happy as he has done his job. And it is here we make our money. Let’s assume that the racing manager is competent at his job. All six dogs in an A4 or A5 race will have the same ability. So they all, in theory anyway, have a real 5/1 chance of winning the race.

Do you ever see 5/1 the field (all runners) in the bookies? NO! You will see 2/1 and 3/1 and 4/1. So backing a dog at 2/1 in an evenly graded race in the long term is financial suicide. Don’t do it.

Since the advent of the betting exchange people have been able to copy the bookmakers and begin making bets with value already built in. In fact on the exchanges we have advantages over the bookmaker.

We do NOT have to lay every dog in every race of the day. You get to hand pick the dogs you lay which means we effectively just pick the cream of the bookmakers business to focus on.

The bookies have done the hard work for us. Then you and I simply watch the punters drive the prices down which in turn give us more and more value in our bets.

With this strategy we are guaranteed value in all our bets and as such are guaranteed long term profits. In the next section I will discuss the process of laying in more detail.

What is Laying?

Laying dogs is not as complicated as you might think. It certainly isn’t as complicated as many people will let you believe.

Laying a dog is like taking on the role of the bookie. It is simply betting that a dog won’t win.

So if you lay a dog and it loses the race you win. If you lay a dog and it wins the race you lose.

Rather than having one dog running with our money on it against five others, we now have our money on five dogs with only one running against us.

Let’s run through a quick example so you understand this fully. We lay a dog called Wombat Stew at odds of 3.00 (2/1 in fractional odds) for £10.

If Wombat Stew wins we have to pay out £20.

If Wombat Stew loses we win £10. (less 5% commission = £9.50) Next up we lay a dog called Chip Boy at odds of 4.00 (3/1 in

Fractional odds) for £10.

If Chip Boy wins we have to pay out £30.

If Chip Boy loses we win £10. (less 5% commission = £9.50) As you can see the lower the odds the less we have to pay out. This is why my system focuses on laying short priced favourites. It offers us much less of a risk and higher value. If backing a dog at 2/1 is bad value, laying it is GOOD value, long term.

Betting Exchanges

To lay a dog you have to use betting exchange.

Unlike traditional betting where there is a bookmaker who sets the odds and punters who either take the offered odds or walk away, a betting exchange is simply a website where visitors can bet against other visitors on a range of events.

All bets on the exchange have been placed there by users who either want to place a bet in the normal way (back), or offer odds to other punters (lay).

Bets are matched between people with opposing views. Just as eBay matches up buyers and sellers via the internet, betting exchanges match up customers who want to strike a wager.

You never know who you are betting against, your privacy and the confidentiality of your bets is maintained by a secure site.

To become a member you simply have to register and place some funds into your account. Once you have done this you can start to use the account straight away.

There are a number of betting exchanges available on the internet. Below I have listed a number of exchanges and their URL’s.

Betfair is by far the biggest betting exchange in the marketplace. It is the one I use for all my trading activities as it almost always has the most liquidity available.

For betfair users: A free bet is available when you sign up if you do the following.

FREE £20

JGNDWNRRF – in the ‘Refer and Earn’ box. Your account will then be credited with £20.

Some other exchanges are as follows but they have much less liquidity at this stage. Liquidity is volume of money to trade. You may find a dog race on Betfair matches £15,000. The other

exchanges will be lucky to match £500. But here are some others.

www.betdaq.com

www.betsson.com

www.backandlay.com

www.wbx.com

Guide to Betfair

Betfair is the exchange you are most likely to use. If you haven’t registered you will need to click on the ‘Open an Account’ button in the top right hand corner of the screen and fill out a registration form. Don’t worry this will only take a minute or so. It is free. If you have registered already, simply fill in your username and password and click ‘Login’.

Next click on the ‘Sports’ tab to open up all the available markets.

The front page will now change and will look confusing at first but don’t worry we aren’t going to take much notice of most of it.

The bit we are interested in is located on the left hand side of the screen.

The left hand side of the front page will have a list of all the different sports covered.

The list of sporting options will change to show a list of dog races for the day, both in the UK and Australia, sorted by time.

Simply scroll down and from the list of races click on the race you are laying in. Select the race by Time and Course.

Below we have the name of the dog in bold. The first three columns of numbers after the dogs’ name show the odds for

backing the dog to win, with the best odds in the blue squares. You have a choice of having 3 price columns or 1 by ticking the market depth button in the top left corner of the page. You can also just have the lay column should you wish.

The decimal figures above in blue are the odds and the figures in pounds are the amount available to bet with. Basically this means

someone else has offered to lay the dog at this price with the amount of money shown below the price. They are waiting for someone to accept their offer.

Ignore these for now as we are not backing the dogs.

The second set of three columns show the odds for the dogs losing (i.e. lay bets). Again the best odds are highlighted in the pink

squares. As before, the decimal figures are the odds and the figures in pounds are the amount available to bet with.

Basically this means someone else is requesting an opportunity to bet a certain amount at their preferred odds and is waiting for an offer to back the dog at that price. Click on the lowest odds (in the

pink square) for the dog you have selected to lay. This will usually be the favourite.

The right hand side of the website will now change, showing the dog’s name, the odds selected and asking for the backers stake as follows:

You can change the odds to whatever price you are comfortable offering. If someone is asking for 2.9 and you only want to offer 2.50 like the picture above, just change the amount in the

“Backers odds” box and then type in the amount you want to lay the dog for in the ‘Backer’s Stake’ box and Betfair will automatically work out your liability (i.e. The amount you stand to lose if the dog wins).

For advice on what odds to set and the amount to stake please see the chapters ‘Laying at the Right Price’ and ‘Using a Betting Bank’ later in this manual.

Once you have done that click on submit in the bottom right hand corner of the page. You will then be asked to confirm your bet. Click on yes if you are happy with it. Once you are confident we can switch this feature off to submit our lay bets faster.

The screen will now change to show whether or not your bet has been matched. If the bet has been matched, then the bet is placed and you only have to wait for the results. If the bet is unmatched you have several options:

• You may wait to see if someone else comes along who is prepared to accept the odds you have specified.

• You can change the odds in order to match a backer who is offering different odds.

• Or you can cancel the bet.

It is also possible for your bet to be part-matched. This is where some of your stake has been matched with a backer, but some has not. Using Betfair is relatively easy once you get used to it. If you are still unsure of anything then Betfair offers comprehensive online help.

For an easy to follow user guide simply go to the Betfair website, click on the help menu and then on the ‘view our demo’ button. There are also several programs designed to make your trading much easier and faster and I highly recommend you get one. They offer one click betting rather than the ten or so clicks it takes to submit a bet on the Betfair and are generally much quicker at

getting your trades into the market, a vital tool in obtaining the best price and really optimising your profits.

Below is the one I use and recommend. BetTrader Pro from Racingtraders.

The Dishlicker System

Unlike most systems you have come across we are not interested in looking at the form of a dog whatsoever. There are literally a hundred factors that affect the outcome of a dog race. Some people spend hours and hours studying as many of these as possible and still don't get results.

Form

The majority of the punters base everything on form. Anything from 80-90% of a price is going to be based on recent form.

This is no coincidence.

The bookmakers know that most of the money bet by punters is based on form in some way. Further to this, TV and newspaper tipsters are obsessed with form.

I strongly recommend you download the BetTrader 4.0 program from

www.racingtraders.com . It is free to

download and free to use or for a very small fee, you get the amazing ladder interface which makes your trading extremely efficient and streamlined. It connects directly with betfair and the refresh rate is far superior. You can place stop losses which is vital to trading and the website has dozens of easy to follow videos on how to use the system. Once you have it, you will wonder how you ever did without it.

It is a major part of my success and puts me right at the front of the queue every time when laying dogs which is crucial to

You'll often hear a so-called expert race caller going on about a dog that has great form. Punters hear this and it sways their betting opinion. Due to this most punters will put their money on the favourite. And lose! Remember favourites lose 70% of the time. To Back or to Lay?

Yes, you read that correctly, favourites win less than a third of races. Backing the favourite in every race makes a loss of just less than 7%.

So laying the favourite in every race should mean a 7% profit, right? No. Laying every favourite in every race makes a loss of about 0.3%.

This can be attributed to two things:

1. Commission - On the exchanges you have to pay a 5%

commission on all winning bets. This figure can fall depending on how much you bet on the exchanges. In time it is possible to have a commission of just 2%.

2. Overpricing – The odds you have to offer on the greyhounds with an exchange are on average around 20% higher than the bookmakers offer.

In theory if you can keep your commission low and offer a price as close to Starting Price (SP) as possible then you can profit from laying all favourites.

However the profits wouldn't be high enough to justify it as a

system. So we need to add more criteria to make laying favourites more profitable.

Statistically, there are certain types of races where laying the favourites is very profitable. It is these races that we will be focusing on.

This system doesn't require numerous steps of spending hours reading form. Simply lay the favourites in the races I identify and you will be profitable.

Greyhound races are usually categorised by the ability of the dog. Graded Racing

The vast majority of dog races run at greyhound tracks worldwide are known as 'graded races' and for the benefit of our system they are divided into three race grade categories:-

• U.K. - Top Grade - (A1 - A3) equivalent to American grades (A, AA, B) and Australian greyhound racing grades (1, 2). Many of these top grade dogs will also compete in major race events. • U.K. - Middle Grade - (A4 - A6) equivalent to American

greyhound grades (C, D) and Australian dog grades (3, 3/4, 4). Many of these so called average middle-graded dogs, that regularly run at some of the very best greyhound tracks may often be the equal of 'A1' graded dogs running at perhaps lesser not so good tracks.

• U.K. - Low Grade - (A7 - A11) equivalent to American dog grades (E, F, and Maidens) and Australian grades (4/5, 5 and Maidens). Most dogs begin or finish their racing career's in these the lower race grades.

There are other types of racing grades that may take place during a race meeting and these dog grade statistics are always

represented in the race formlines by a standard greyhound racing prefix:

• (KC) = Kennel Championships, • (KS) = Kennel Sweepstakes, • (TC) = Trainer's Championships, • (IT) = Intertrack Racing,

• (Hcp) = Handicap Racing and the very occasional

• (QS) = Quickstakes (2 or 3 semi-finals take place with the race final being held at the same dog meeting.)

• (S) races for stayers over 6 bends or more.

Knowing the grade of a greyhound race is extremely important to our laying system as it estimates the expected level of racing performance and therefore implies the general race standard.

I personally think, successfully predicting 'graded races' (GRs) will invariably be more challenging than predicting 'open class races' (ORs) as generally the Racing Manager grades the GR races very closely, according to each dog's individual racing ability with only very small differences in racetimes to choose between the runners. So we quite simply leave the high quality dogs alone. The good ones will win and win often with high strike rates. Bad for our business.

Our system deals with A4 to A12 races only. If you really want to trade on every dog race then we will deal with that strategy later. Where does the money come from?

So, if there’s good money to be made laying favourites, why does anyone back them in the first place?

All 'dog punters' when studying graded race form, will constantly be asking themselves the same age old question: whether to back

a good dog 'lowered in class' running badly; or to back a not so good dog 'raised in class' running well? "If only I had a crystal ball" I hear them say!!

This is just one of many decisions that face all greyhound punters around the world, when trying to predict the future outcomes of tightly graded dog races. It is a losing battle!

It is these people who will accept your lay bets. They are guessing and will usually follow the crowd and back the favourite. This is exactly what we want them to do as we want to lay the favourite. Money Management

All systems and all professionals will have losing trades. They are as inevitable as the sun

coming up tomorrow. It is how we handle these losses both financially and emotionally that separates the professionals from the empty-pocketed common punter.

holders are in profit and if you are reading this, you are possibly not one of them. But you soon could be.

Most weeks you will face a few losing bets. But as the odds for our winners will be very low, 2.00 to 4.00 they will not hurt our profits too much over all. All this might seem confusing at first but after a while you will be able to breeze through the day’s racing and put on your bets in no time at all. You can expect an 80% strike rate with this system or 8 winning bets out of 10.

We will lose the other two but the damage will not be too bad. Remember laying dogs takes discipline so don't be tempted into giving up if you experience a bad day. Bad days will happen but with this system you are guaranteed many more good days than bad.

This system has statistically proven profitable over the past year and has shown great profits in the last 6 months of 2007 alone. Used with the correct money management techniques and staking plans it will keep your trading account ticking along nicely.

You may not become a millionaire doing this but it will certainly save you from having to top up your account and therefore all your other bets will be virtually free.

Win £100 per day and then stick it on England to win the World Cup. Perhaps the Rugby World Cup would be your best bet there! £700 per week is a great income for a few hours effort per day. Or just make £500 and have 2 days off. Some days you will make your money in less than an hour and the rest of the day is yours. I strongly suggest you record every single trade for every day in a spreadsheet with a graph showing your progress. Here is a real graph starting with $100 and laying favourites in dog races.

This was the result of 7 days work.

The red figures were the inevitable losses and you can see on the graph winning and losing runs. This is an average of $3.76 per race and if you do just 15 races a day (about 2 to 3 hours) we made $478 in a week. So if you started with a bank of just $500 you would have made $2390. Do you earn that now for 3 hours work a day?

Staking Plans

There are several to suggest but I won’t go into detail here as you can just do an internet search on staking plans and get 100’s. I only use and suggest one method. The most powerful word in the professional traders’ vocabulary: Compounding!

Compounding plans come in a few varieties. The most popular is the percent of running bank type plan. With this plan you will stake each bet to lose a fixed percentage of your bank.

That number is 5%. So if you have a losing run and your bank decreases below it’s starting size, then your stakes will decrease with it. And if you have a winning run and your bank increases above it’s initial size, then your stakes will increase.

The more you win, the higher your stakes but your RISK stays the same at ALL times. Awesome!

For example: if your bank is £100 and you are risking 5% of the bank on each selection, then your first bet will be risking £5. If that bet wins then your bank will increase. If it was an even-money lay bet you will win £4.75 (after 5% commission) and your bank will be £104.75. Your next lay will risk £5.23.

Believe it or not, but if you make just 3% of your bank per day it will double in 24 days. FACT. So if you start with £100 and make just 3% per day for 24 days you will have £200. Next 24 days at 3% = £400.

After 12 periods of 24 days making just 3% per day of your bank you can have the following bank:

1 = £200 2 = £400 3 = £800 4 = £1,600 5 = £3,200 6 = £6,400 7 = £12,800 8 = £25,600 9 = £51,200 10 = £102,400 11 = £204,800 12 = £409,600

Now you won’t make that solely on Greyhounds as the liquidity (volume of money) in the market is not great enough, but it shows you just how powerful compounding is. USE IT. Everyday!

Here is the current situation for January. As of January 15th 2008 we are attempting to convert $471.77 into $1100 using our system. After a small loss on day one, we are well on target to reach our goal. The wins are small but after 14 days we have moved to $768.10. It is all relevant to scale, you may want to start with a bigger bank than this. Or a smaller one, £50 will do. It is a great way to save up and have fun doing it. Need a present for the wife? Cost £1,000? Only have £400. Well make just 3% per day for 30 days and you have the money!

The System

The system itself is very simple. When used with the proper money management it soon becomes quite impressive and profitable. In a nutshell, we lay the favourite, within certain parameters.

Which dog to lay

We only lay favourites between 2.00 and 4.5. Research and testing has shown that laying under 2.00 does show great returns when the dog loses the race, but the fact we lose 5% of our bank when one wins is too much to justify the risk. And the ones under 2.00 seem to win well above 30% of the time.

Which races to trade

We trade any race from A4 to A11 at any track. These races are very tightly graded and any dog can win and quite often the rough outsider of the field gets up. The favourites have a very low

winning ratio in these races so it is these we will target. There are two ways to attack them. Laying and trading. We will start with the laying.

Laying the Favourite

After selecting the race you wish to lay a dog, it is best to wait until about 2 minutes before the race and see what the prices are doing. The closer you get to the race start time, the more accurate the prices will be so leave it as long as possible.

About 1 minute before the race we will usually know which dog is the clear favourite. You then lay this dog, remembering the money management rules. We lay it for 5% of our bank. So if we have a starting bank of £500, we are only prepared to lose £25. If the dog is paying 3.00 (2/1) we can lay it for £12.50.

If the dog loses, we will win £11.89 after tax and our next risk will be 5% of £511.89 or £25.59.

If the dog wins, we will lose £25.00

Divide the RISK figure by the price of the dog and that gives you your lay amount. So if the next dog were also 3.00 we would lay for £12.80.

So to make it clear.

Take 5% of your bank. This is your RISK.

Divide the price of the dog by the RISK. This is your BET.

Betfair will do the second part for you when you enter the bet but it is faster if you already know the amount.

Make sure you have selected the liability button and not the payout button to get the correct figure. The button is highlighted in blue in the screenshot below.

It shows you the liability so just adjust the bet to match the risk and away you go.

They say nothing in life is free. That was before Betfair came along. Now it is often possible to get a free bet and eliminate our risk. Let me show you how.

Quite often the price of a dog will move out as the race gets closer and more people try to lay it. It will quite often move out a full point or two. So if we LAYED the dog at 3.00 and the price has drifted out to 4.00 we can now BACK the dog at 4.00 and create a free bet. Simply back the dog for £12.50 and the following screenshot shows what happens.

We now have a situation that should this dog win the race, we have to pay out £25.00. But if it also means we collect £37.50 from our back bet, meaning we make £12.50 profit.

We can also create a situation where we make a profit no matter which dog wins the race. Taking the same dog in the same race,

Here we see the movement of the price during a live event. Once you get the ability to trade, these are enormous opportunities to make money. Looks like the stock market right? But you don’t wait months or years for the price to move. These swings happen in the space of 90 minutes for Football, 6 hours for a days cricket, or can be minutes apart in a tennis match. In this example if you had backed the runner at 4.00 for £ 100 and then layed it at 2.00 for $100 even though it went much lower, you would have made a £200 free bet.

we have layed him at 3.00 for £12.50. We would now back him for £9.37 and create the following situation.

When we lay a favourite before the race, it may not stay the

favourite for very long. The price may drift and another dog is now the favourite. You can now do one of three things.

• Leave the original lay bet on.

• Trade out of it and take the free bet or green up. • Trade out of it and then lay the new favourite

I never do the first one if the dog layed is no longer the favourite. I always green up and if I have time, lay the new favourite.

Sometimes they drift in the last few seconds and there is only time to back the dog, green up and they jump. I am happy with this as I make a profit no matter what dog wins. Here are some

screenshots of dog races I traded for a “can’t lose” situation.

We make $10.26 no matter who wins.

Here we have an after tax, risk free, guaranteed win, no matter which dishlicker wins the race. Before tax this would be £3.13. This is called “greening up”. We have an all green book. Perfect! It may not seem much but you do that five times a day for seven days and you have doubled your £100 bank without risking a penny.

An easy $5.80. It all adds up. What price do we lay?

We only lay favourites between 2.00 and 4.5. Research and testing has shown that laying under 2.00 does show great returns when the dog loses the race, but the fact we lose 5% of our bank when one wins is too much to justify the risk. The risk versus reward ratio is against us. A lot of dogs that start the race under 2.00 win the race. So we leave them alone. The same goes for dogs over 4.50. The amount we win for risking our 5% is not worth us taking it on. Just let the race go and wait for the next one. Remember the golden rule. This is not about winning money. This is about preservation of capital. If we lose that, we can't make money. In the long run you are much better off trading and winning lots of risk free sure bets that are smaller than winning larger amounts and then losing some and then winning again. The commission eats away at profits. Let me give you an example.

Lets look at 10 races. About 1 days trading for me.

Race Profit Commission Profit/loss Commission

1 £5.00 £0.25 £20.00 £1.00 2 £5.00 £0.25 -£10.00 £0.00 3 £5.00 £0.25 £20.00 £1.00 4 £5.00 £0.25 -£10.00 £0.00 5 £5.00 £0.25 £20.00 £1.00 6 £5.00 £0.25 -£10.00 £0.00 7 £5.00 £0.25 £20.00 £1.00 8 £5.00 £0.25 -£10.00 £0.00

9 £5.00 £0.25 £20.00 £1.00

10 £5.00 £0.25 -£10.00 £0.00

Totals £50.00 £2.50 £50.00 £5.00

Net Profit £47.50 £45.00

If you look at the table above you see that Trader X who trades for a living makes 10 small profits of £5.00. He pays 5% commission on all winning trades totalling £2.50 for his 10 races. Layer X only lays for his living. He does the same 10 races and when he wins makes 4 times the profit of the Trader.

But of course his commission is 4 times higher as well. And when he loses, he pays no commission. So over the 10 races, they both made £50.00 but after commission, the Trader pays 100% less commission than the Layer. Let’s take that to the next level. Professional traders can make £50,000 per year. So can

professional layers and bookmakers. The trader makes £1000 per week for 50 weeks with 2 weeks holiday. His 5% commission for a year = £2,500.

The Layer also makes £50,000 in the same ratio of wins and losses as above. He pays £5,000 in commission to Betfair for the same races.

So this proves that lots of small wins is better than big wins and big losses even though the profit appears to be the same. If you get an opportunity to trade out of a race, I suggest you take it.

Even if you take a less serious approach and make just £5,000 doing this in a year, you will be £250 better off at least and that will come in handy at car rego time!

Conclusion

So that is the Dishlicker laying and trading system. If you stick to the rules you will make small consistent profits that will keep your bank ticking over for those other larger speculative bets we all like to make from time to time or just keep growing the bank and

Use the 5% rule and compounding on all your bets and trades and you will see a massive improvement in your profits.

Good Luck and happy laying. Below are some diversions from the system for those that wish to trade every dog race on the planet and some Golden Rules to being a successful professional. They may look familiar because they are universal rules to making, keeping and not losing your “hard earned”. Use them and you can succeed. Dismiss them at your peril.

If you have any questions at all about the system, please drop me a line at [email protected] and I will be happy to help. Alternative trading methods.

Favourites under £2.00

As the system does not allow us to lay dogs under £2.00 what can we do? We simply remove that dog from the race. I would lay the next lowest priced dog in the race provided it is still under our 4.50 cap. Some of these may still win but it will be rare and not as often as the odds on shot. So if we are going to lose our 5% on this race it may as well be 10% of the time rather than the 60% of the time we lose it when the odds on shot wins.

Races outside our rules.

A1 – A3 races and Stayers races are all avoided by our system but if you want to trade them, I would suggest the following.

• In A1 to A3 lay the second favourite.

• In S class races lay the second or third favourite only. Do not lay above 6.00 for any dogs.

I do trade HC races but only ever lay the 1 and 2 dog.

The reasons

Below is my profit and loss from October 14th 2007 to 16th

November 2007. $2251.58 for one months work over 6 different sports. That is almost $30,000.00 per year, not bad for a couple of hours a day. If I went full time (I still have a regular job) the

possibilities are endless. You will notice two races in the shot below not in our “race range”. You will notice I traded out of these races for tiny amounts and did not lay the favourite. This is

allowed. In the S2 races we traded the first one for $4.25 and layed the third favourite in the race we won $62.12. In the two HC races we layed the 1 dog.

The reason we select certain races only.

Below are the results from two days trading in November 2007. They give a perfect example of why we have the rules in place. The Blue and Red boxes are races the system does NOT trade and you will see why.

If we look at the 8 races that qualify for our system we made £272.54 for an average win of £34.06 per race with no losses. For the 12 races that don’t qualify for our system we still made money but only made £57.28 for an average of £4.77 per race. This includes our two losses of £53 and £69. This is still a profit but a significant difference.

Combined for the 20 races we traded, the average win drops from £34.06 to £16.49 per race. So we are 100% better off NOT trading or laying Open Races or Grades A1 to A3. The proof is there to see.

7 Golden Rules of successful trading

Rule 1 – DISCIPLINE, DISCIPLINE, DISCIPLINE

It does not matter what type of trading activity you get involved in it may be Poker, Roulette, Horse Racing, Soccer, Craps or Pigeon Racing. If you are entering into your trading transactions without DISCIPLINE then you are sure to come out on the losing side.

Discipline in trading takes many forms, perhaps the most obvious discipline factor is that of avoiding chasing losses. But there is so much more to using discipline in your trading that will help you.

I want you to take a hard look at your trading activity. If you have never traded before do you have the discipline to stick to hard and fast rules whatever the circumstances?

There is a living to be made trading no matter who you are. So if you feel you have discipline read on and learn how you can make some real money. If you have no discipline and no intention of learning any then I must advise you to only bet what you can afford to lose because there is a 98% chance you will do just that.

Rule 2 – MANAGE YOUR BANKROLL

Managing your bankroll is a key attribute to being a successful trader. Your bankroll is a sum of money you set aside purely for trading purposes.

It should not be money you cannot afford to lose and it definitely should not be borrowed money from friends, family or even worse the rent or mortgage money. One thing is certain if you are a trader you will lose a certain amount of your transactions. It is impossible to win 100% of the time just as it is impossible for a doctor to save 100% of lives – losses are inevitable.

Most people think that the way to great riches is winning money, this is incorrect. The big secret is to protect your capital at all

costs. You will never go broke taking a profit, but you will go broke taking capital losses. Never risk more than 5% of your capital on any trade and you will give yourself the best chance of being a success.

Managing your capital correctly means that these losing

transactions get swallowed up in the whole big picture but you do not notice them in the long run. No single transaction should take more than 5% of your starting bank. Failure to manage your bank correctly leads to one thing and one thing only – Losing it.

Most punters have no structure to their betting activity. They place their bets without thought to how much they may lose, just how much they are trying to win. You need to have a goal for every transaction and just like real life that goal needs to be realistic and achievable.

Once you hit your goal you can re-evaluate up your limits if necessary and set a new goal.

Rule 3 – COPING WITH SWINGS

As stated in rule 2, it is inevitable to have losses and losing days if you are going to trade. Most traders who do it for recreation will have these every day, whereas people like me, who trade to make a living keep these instances down to a minimum. How you cope with losses will play a huge part in how successful you will be as a trader.

If you have a staking plan in place you must stick to it.

Never think after a run of losses you are “due” and then risk more of your bankroll. You will end up going broke. And fast.

Chasing losses is the surest way to go broke and casinos, sports books, bookmakers and poker players love these sorts of gamblers in their establishment or at their table. They are counting the

currency as soon as this type of gambler walked in the room. As well as coping with losses, walking away winning is equally important. It is too easy to have one more bet and think you will never lose. So many good profits get blown apart just chasing a few more pounds.

Having the discipline to stick to your plan and cope with the swing being up or down is a major factor in gambling with success. No one likes to lose but you have to learn to walk away, one thing is always certain, another day will soon appear

Traders can fixate that every session must be a winning one. This is impossible to achieve, so deal with it.

Rule 4 - SPECIALISING

I take my trading very seriously – it is after all my source of income. One thing allowed me to move my trading onto a professional level. I specialise.

Just like a surgeon will specialise in which body part he operates on, I only have one area in which I trade and that enables me to make a decent living.

I have seen punters over the years ago bet on everything that came on the screens, Horse racing, Dog racing, Golf, Football, Virtual Racing you name it, they seem to be writing a slip out every two minutes and never seemed to be collecting.

By specialising, I understand a lot more about what I am doing I can have a lot fewer, more focused trades or investments as I refer to them. Once again look at your trading patterns, what you trade on, why do you trade on it and in which area could you specialise. Rule 5 – RESEARCH YOUR INVESTMENTS

Once you decide in which area you wish to specialise, it is time to research your market and where you will make your investments. You can then trade in a more focused manner.

The power of computers and the Internet have made obtaining information so easy that in a matter of minutes you can find out as much information as you require about your chosen market.

This is an absolute necessity if you wish to take your trading to the next level. Again it is all about how disciplined you are to research your area so that you can place your money with the greatest chance of success.

Rule 6 – KEEP RECORDS

It is absolutely vital that if you wish to take your trading onto the next level you keep accurate records of all your activity. We have

all heard the stories of the gamblers who only tell you of their winners and we all know that they are the losers.

It is essential that you reconcile your accounts and trading activity daily. If you are following this advice you will already have reduced your number of trades because you are betting in a specialised market.

I recommend opening a separate bank account for your trading activity so that you can reconcile easily without the weekly shopping appearing halfway down the statement. Once you get into this habit it soon becomes very easy and second nature. The other main area that you can use your record keeping for is to look at your good spells and bad spells (using graphs is one way of doing this) and make adjustments to your betting activity.

You may notice a certain bet fails time and time again where another one is successful so you can adjust your bets accordingly or narrow your bets down to even more specialised fields. When I started out I found this task extremely useful for setting my criteria when to place my investments.

Horse racing sports books love betting slips with 3, 4, 5, 6

sometimes even 7 or 8 horses on them. It is hard enough to pick one winner, let alone that number. These bets come off once in a blue moon so no matter how tempting the accumulative odds, once you have researched your market, stick to single bets.

These are the bets that truly make the bookmakers rich and are the source of so many hard luck stories, “if only that 4th horse had won, I would have had thousands”. The odds compilers know the true odds of such bets and trust me they are not what you will get paid out.

Rule 7 – DON’T GAMBLE AND DRINK Never ever! That’s it.

Well I hope you found the above knowledgeable and that it adds to your trading experience. As a professional trader I believe a lot of

the above to be common sense but I am aware that when money is involved, common sense can go out of the window.

Lastly I just want to say that anything is possible if you put your mind to it. Except drinking and gambling!