Introduction
In article one, I introduced you to the Betting Exchange concept and explained the basics of LAY Betting (Lay to Lose). Now in this article, I’m going to introduce you to another unique and powerful feature of the betting exchanges, the Place Markets.
What Are Betting Exchange Place Markets?
Place markets are as the name suggests, markets which allow you to bet on a selection to be ‘placed’. Eg. a horse to finish 1st, 2nd or 3rd in a 8 runner or larger field.
Now, the first and most important thing to highlight here is that these place markets are completely different to the well known Each Way (EW) betting markets offered by traditional bookmakers. The Each Way bet is in fact 2 bets of equal stakes.
The 1st stake is on the selection to win and the 2nd is on it to be placed. So a £10 EW bet will cost you £20 in total.
A £10 place bet on a Betting Exchange is a single bet and therefore will only cost you £10. If your selection finishes in a place, you collect your winnings and smile.
Think about it for a minute. How many times have you been certain that a horse will be placed, but you have not been confident that it will win…
Traditional Each Way Betting
Take the following example. A horse named ‘Im gonna be placed’ that is available to back with traditional bookmakers at 4/1 (5.0). Your very confident that it will finish in the top 3 in a 10 runner field.
With a traditional bookmaker, your options are:
1) Take a chance on it winning and place a win single on it. E.g. £10 at 4/1
2) Place an EW bet on it. E.g. £10 EW at 4/1 (5.0). Total stakes £20. The bookies will pay you 1/5 odds on the place element of this E/W bet based on their standard EW rules. On our horse which is available to back at 5.0 this equates to 1.8
Now, the only time the above race will be profitable for you is if the horse actually wins. In both cases you would make a very nice profit if it did. For option 1 you would win £40 profit and for option 2, £48 profit.
BUT, if as you suspected the horse only finishes placed in 2nd or 3rd, you actually lose money in both cases. With option 1 you obviously lose all your stake money so are down £10. With option 2, you win £8 on the Place side of the EW bet but still lose £2 overall as the win part of the bet was a losing one.
Enter The Betting Exchange Place Markets
Using the above example and depending upon the prices of the other horses in the race, you would probably see the Betting Exchanges offering odds of around 1.60 – 2.00 (evens) on this horse being placed. You can therefore put your £10 PLACE bet on at say 1.8 and collect £8 profit (minus commission) as long as the horse finishes 1st, 2nd or 3rd. Only if the horse finishes outside of the top 3 do you lose your £10 stake.
I’m sure this has got you thinking and you can probably see the power in this straight away!
When combined with a good staking plan and a sensible selection process, it can be common to have very long winning streaks when backing horses to be placed on the betting exchanges. These longer winning streaks more than make up for the relatively short prices that are offered on selections to be placed.
Place Market Important Notes
A few important things to note about place markets:
1) Unlike the betting exchange win markets, Place markets DO NOT go “In-Running” when the race starts but this is true of the traditional E/W bets offered by bookies as well.
2) If a race is planned as a 8 runner or more event but a number of horses become non-runners leaving less than 8 runners, the betting exchanges still offer odds on 3 places. This is different to bookmakers who in such cases adjust their odds on the place payment from 1/5 to 1/4 of the win odds BUT they only pay out on 2 places. If a 5,6 or 7 runner field is shortened to less than 5 runners, the betting exchanges will still offer place markets and payout if the horse finishes 1st or 2nd.
3) You can make up the equivalent of an E/W bet on the betting exchanges by placing a bet on the win market and a separate bet on the place market. Depending upon the type of race and the form of the market, you will often find that this offers more value in terms of odds than an E/W bet with a bookmaker.
Backing Or Laying On The Place Markets
As explained in article 1, the ability to Lay a selection is perhaps the most important feature of the betting exchanges. You now have the ability to Lay selections to be placed. In other words, if you have a valid reason to believe that a selection will not even finish in a place, Lay it to Lose on a betting exchange. The real beauty of laying on the place markets, is that the odds are always much lower than the outright win odds so your lay liabilities are much lower.
Trading On The Place Markets
As the place market prices are much lower than the outright win market prices, they also offer a great place to learn the skill of TRADING without much risk to your balance! Betting Exchange trading is simply the process of betting on price movements for guaranteed profits. E.g. Back a horse at 4.0 and then Lay it later at 3.0 for a no risk bet or guaranteed profit regardless of the outcome!
Betting exchange trading will be covered in detail in a future betting article.
Summary
Place markets should be used as part of your betting armory. They offer you the chance to make money frequently with long winning streaks being very common. This helps to build your confidence as well as your betting bank!
Bookie Each Way bets are not always poor bets but in the vast majority of races, the odds are stacked firmly in the favour of the bookmakers. They simply love punters taking EW bets on these races as they know its their bread and butter. A small proportion of races where the market is formed in a certain way do offer the punter very good E/W value but that’s for a different day…
Well that’s it for part 2 of my betting exchange articles. In part 3, I will be explaining the Betting Exchange In-Running markets.