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When it pays to bet against the Crowd....

I know I’m singing the same old tune again but I’m a firm believer in the efficiency of the Betfair exchange markets in predicting the true chance of a particular event occurring.

In fact I’m such a believer that analysis of those markets is the foundation stone on which I base all my betting activities.

But there are occasions when the markets get it badly wrong.

At the extreme ends of the markets – and particularly in running – markets  lose their efficiency and can become horribly skewed.

Prices at the high end of a market can be forced too high by people prepared to lay almost any price about an outcome they perceive to be impossible and the same can happen at the low end when prices are forced too low by people who perceive a particular outcome to be a certainty.

These are areas in which the astute punter can take little risk and earn huge rewards.

A perfect example of this was provided in the Open golf last week and we should always be on the lookout for such opportunities.

Adam Scott went in to the last four holes of the final round leading by four shots and he clearly looked a certainty to some observers. More than £1 million was traded on him at 1.05 on Betfair and another £25,000 at 1.02.

Now, I have to agree that anybody going into the last 4 holes of a golf tournament leading by 4 shots has a high chance of winning that tournament but, on Sunday, I certainly don’t think that at any point I would have priced that chance at 1/50!

Particularly when you take into account the fact that Adam Scott has never won a major before and is about to play the most pressurised 4 holes of his golfing life.

I guess it’s very easy to say this in hindsight and I was out at the time and unable to take advantage of events as they unfolded but I find it hard to believe that anybody could have taken a dispassionate look at the facts and come to the conclusion that Scott was a 1/50 chance under those circumstances. Clearly a lot of people didn’t take a dispassionate look at the circumstances – they merely saw what they thought was an opportunity to buy money (or retrieve losses on earlier bets) and were prepared to pay a very high price!

Before those last 4 holes you could have laid Scott for £10,000 with a maximum liability of just £200.

You know that price cannot go much lower yet even the tiniest wobble in those last 4 holes (the most pressure filled holes of his golfing life remember) was likely to cause his price to rocket upwards and allow you to trade out for massive profits – or, even better in this case, let your bet run to a conclusion.

Even trading out at 2.0 would have locked in a profit in excess of £4,000 no matter the outcome – and your worst liability at any point was £200!

We should always look to take a contrarian position in circumstances where the crowd has fooled itself into believing a particular outcome to be a certainty. There is inherent value in those positions. Nothing is a certainty until it actually occurs!

Most of the time we will lose but those losses are small and when we win, we win very big indeed.

 

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Lastly today, I wanted to give you a quick heads up about the Cleeve Racing Glorious Goodwood package that goes on sale today.

Glorious Goodwood Special

Cleeve Racing are one of the top tipster services in the country (as verified by Racing-Index) and they are particularly astute at making profits during the big festivals. I advised readers to check them out during Royal Ascot and anybody who signed up finished the meeting 62 points ahead to Betfair SP.

That’s on top of their performances at:

Cheltenham +37 points

Aintree + 4 points

Punchestown + 57 points

They are only making 200 spaces available on their Glorious Goodwood special and I would expect them to sell out fairly quickly, so if you’re interested

I’d head over there now!

 

Have a great day

Kieran

PS If you've not been checking out The Major in the Tipping Trial section of the site, you're missing out. He's added an extra  23 points profit from just half a dozen bets since I flagged him up last week.

 

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