Almost since the dawn of the betting exchanges back at the turn of the century there’s been a boast that you and I can get 20% bigger odds using a betting exchange than using a traditional bookmaker. In which case a 100/1 SP horse at the bookies would be 120/1 (or thereabouts) on the betting exchanges. In reality of course this “20%” figure is an average across the entire range of odds and hides the fact that you can most often get odds of 300/1 or more on the exchanges for a horse “valued” at 100/1 by the mainstream bookmakers such as William Hill, Ladbrokes etc…

Before the exchange model of betting came into existence the taditional bookmakers were absolutely skimming the cream from the top of the milk as far as long shots were concerned. If you look at the statistics (see screenshot) you’ll notice how little volume of runners actually returned an Sp of 66/1 or more in the years prior to the birth of betting exchanges. This means that the vast majority of runners that return an Sp of 66/1 or more in today’s betting markets were actually being priced at 50/1 or less by the bookmakers previously.

The betting exchanges have literally forced the bookies to increase the average Sp of all runners in the past few years and this is why the long shot bettor has gained an edge by using betting exchanges and big priced “outside” runners to grab profits from other punters prepared to offer such long odds for long shots on sites such as betfair.

Sounds simple doesn’t it?

Well in a way it is, but for anyone contemplating betting on long shots the story is far from simple. Take an example from 2010. Take every runner between January 1st and May 15th which returned an SP of 66/1 or more and calculate the profit and loss to Betfair Sp (Exchange Sp)?

Here’s the answer:

There were 2527 qualifying horses and of those there were just 9 winners. If you had bet £1 on each you would be in the red to the tune of £148.05 if betting on the exchanges whereas with the traditional books you would have been reeling from a loss of over £1,700.00 !!! Even so, either betting on the exchanges or at the bookmakers, it works out to be a complete loss.

Even with the odds offered for long shots massively in our favour on the betting exchanges it’s still very difficult to choose which horses will make a profit over a long term period. Welcome to system selections long-shots. I use various methods to identify runners most likely to produce a profit. Without explaining my methods I will just say that I don’t look for winners, I look for profit. When my selections win I make a profit big enough to take care of the losing bets.

Don’t take my word for it because every selection I make I “proof” with an independant monitor. In this case I send my daily selections to Racing Index Proofing.