Guide to Each Way Betting (with Q+A)
-
With Cheltenham coming up, I’ve decided to write this guide and the subsequent thread to hopefully stop other threads getting hijacked by E/W betting. So all questions in here please.
I’ve deliberately put this in the matched betting forum instead of the newbie forum because I don’t see it as a newbie skill. No offence to any newcomers, but there really is a knack to this. You have to be very confident with horse betting before you do this because if it goes wrong, it can go VERY wrong. You have been warned. Also, this needs quite a big float (1K+) so if you’re just starting out, look away now.Each way betting is used for two main reasons, when there is an extra place race and when there is what bookies call a “bad each way race”
hopefully you have read Matts guide to extra places
https://matchedbettingblog.com/extra-place-offers/but i’ll quickly go through the basics. First things first, When you place the bet you will notice that double the stake is taken. This is because when you bet each way you are actually placing two bets, one to win and one to place. Once you have placed your back bet, you now have to place TWO lay bets, one to cover the win part and one for the place part. Obviously, the value of each is half of your original back bet. You need to find the terms of the race and find out how many places they are paying, and at what fraction of odds. This is usually clearly stated.
To find the place odds (in decimal odds), you subtract 1, divide by the fraction of odds, then add the 1 back on.
Lets take Gubstar, who’s being offered at 16/1 with 1/4 place odds and 3 places.
16/1 = 17 decimal
17-1 = 16,
/4 = 4
+1 = 5
so the place odds for Gubstar is 5.just to be redundant, here’s a harder one
say he’s going off at 11/4 and its only 1/5 odds
11/4 = 3.75 decimal
-1 = 2.75
/5 = 0.55
+1 = 1.55
so now his odds to place are 1.55Now you know the place odds being offered you can easily compare them to the exchange and lay accordingly.
Doing an extra place race is pretty straight-forward, find a horse with close odds, back, lay, hope! Its usually much better to do several horses over several bookies for these offers to increase your chances of hitting the extra place. Don’t forget, most gubbed accounts can still do the extra place offers.
To take advantage of a bad each race (E/W arbing) you have to understand how it works. Basically a bookie will offer very short odds on the favourite, and unfairly long odds on the others. That is fine on the win market, maybe the other horses really don’t have a chance (especially Gubstar), but because the other horses have a very good chance of coming second or third, by offering a fraction of the odds for the win, the numbers just don’t work anymore. Therefore the odds offered by the exchange are a much truer reflection of the odds on a horse placing, and much shorter than the bookie offers by default because of the combined nature of the each way bet. I hope that makes sense.
The things to look for in a bad each way race is a very very short favourite (about 2.8 and below), a couple of hopefuls (around 4/1ish) and a few complete outsiders (100/1+)
There’s a couple of ways to play these, either back and lay straight away, or you can back early and lay much closer to the off. The price almost always comes in sharply around ten- five minutes before the race and it takes nerves of steel (again not for newbies). You can also choose to fully lay to guarantee profit, or underlay to win more if you place and break even if you don’t.
The problem with this approach is the danger of non-runners, which are two-fold.
First, the bookie will apply “rule 4” which is where they will cut the odds AFTER YOU HAVE BET to take account of the fact there is less competition. This is fine if you have backed and laid at the same time as the exchange will recalculate as well. But if you haven’t, you need to take account of the reduction and lay accordingly. (the bookie will usually list how much they have reduced by on the race page). You can imagine the havok this causes when it happens 3 minutes out and you haven’t laid. It can save a lot of trouble to just underlay when this happens and hope you place.
Second problem is when you have a race with the number of runners on the threshold of the place market rules. A race of more than 8 will pay out on 3 places but if one or more horses drops out and the number of runners drops below 8, the place odds will drop to 2 BUT THE EXCHANGE WILL STAY THE SAME. I assume this is because people have bet on where it will place, so its not the exact same market. Similarly for a race with 16 down to 15 or less.
Handy guide to places:
Handicaps of more than 15 runners 1/4 4
Handicaps of 12-15 runners 1/4 3
All other races of more than 8 runners 1/5 3
All races of 5-7 runners 1/4 2
All races of less than 5 runners – win onlyWhen things go wrong.
Betfair have various markets for various places, and even an each way market, so you might find a lay that is not too much of a loss should things go wrong. You can also keep an eye on what the horses SP will be and hope for a favourable BOG (possibly). Some bookies offer cash out as well.Further reading:
https://matchedbettingblog.com/topic/my-theory-beyond-matched-betting/
https://matchedbettingblog.com/topic/ew-arbing/
https://matchedbettingblog.com/topic/early-prices/
https://matchedbettingblog.com/topic/the-bookie-angel-twitter/HTH guys, and please chip in if I’ve missed anything.
