False markets
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Book percentages
In an outright market than can only be one winner. That is why, if you add up all the odds and percentages, the market will settle on a book value of 100%. If you can lay above 100% then effectively your payout is only 100% but your profit will be anything above that.
If you look at the Shergar cup markets at Ascot today each one is over 100%. Perhaps an excuse to get tucked in and make a small fortune by laying the field. It’s obvious that people are actually doing this. You would normally expect about £10-30k in a market about an hour out but at Ascot in the first race today we are headed for around £120k.
The problem
The problem is that all the Ascot markets today contain reserve runners that WILL be removed before the ‘true’ market is formed. So anybody betting or trading before these races is doing so into a false market. Thanks to Patrick Haw this morning on twitter for point me at the exact rules.
Now of course, you can exploit this apathy but doing the opposite. But the fact is that this is an age old problem. People blunder into markets without reading the rules or understanding the true structure of the market.
One of the best ever examples came from the money saving export forums. Read about the incredible fiasco on the forum. People lost enough money to surely merit a name change to the offending site. It turned into a ‘money losing expert’ site for that horrific period before people realised they had made a terrible mistake. Greed can be a horrible master.
I hope by posting this blog you will understand false markets a bit better and avoid them in future. Have a look at the Ascot markets today to see a false market in full effect.
Category: Trading strategies
