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The Beauty of "Dobbing"

paulb164

paulb164

Colt
Another interesting internet/email angle I recently came across - this time from an email post from a guy called Clive Keeling who runs the 'What Really Wins Money' website. I think this will be of particular interest to anyone with BetAngel ( retriever retriever ?) as this is perfect for it... this would be a particularly easy automation to set up and quick to manage (as he suggests in the last sentence as his method of testing the theory out). If he's right, then 540pts over 10 years without any form-checking, etc is pretty good going;

I thought I would look at profiting from pre-race backing and in-play laying today.
For the uninitiated, dobbing, or double or bust, is a technique to profit from the price movement of a horse between its pre-race price and price in the in-play market, once the race is under way. In an ideal world, dobbers look to profit from a 50% or bigger drop in the odds.
Inspired by a WRWM reader’s queries, I thought I would look at the performance of favourites in all horse races in the UK and Ireland over the last 10 years, when the favourite’s odds hit 1.25 decimal in-play.
Laying favourites in UK and Irish horse races when their odds hit 1.25 in running has turned a 540 points profit to level stakes. There are, as you can imagine, an awful lot of 2nd placed favourites.

Let’s dig a little deeper.
2 mile races. 6 and 7 furlong races and 2 mile and 4 furlong races are the best performers in terms of laying favourites when their odds hit 1.25 in running.
Kempton, Wolverhampton and Lingfield lead the charge in terms of profit (perfect timing with the Winter All-weather program seeing the light of day once September greets us).
Handicap and Hurdle races are clearly the biggest profit makers for layers, contrasting with the focus on all-weather above.
6-8 runner fields are best for profits.

I’m going to experiment on this on your behalf using automated and conditional betting software to see if the stats are accurate.

I will also try this out to see what the results are - I'll set up a basic automation with just the initial restriction of races with 6-8 runners, and will hone it over a period of time to see if I can improve profitability (presuming it is profitable of course !). Will of course keep this thread posted with results. I'll also put up any further posts on this from Clive if/when he sends them out.
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I have no knowledge of the method but i do know someone who paid a chunk to go on a three day course, and ended up doing a lot of money when attempting to put the theory into practice. !
 
I have done some dobbing via BA in the past - have the automation set up etc - was having some success but found some bets were not matching due to gappy in play prices and indeed setting BA to correctly take SP sometimes leads to issues - this could so easily have been my fault in the set up though! = had some success at it but you need to be careful when selecting to keep a good eye on the weather etc as you will be caught out not amending probables in that event - I have Proform and other dobbing selection tools.

That said I do expend any energy on it now - its great when going well but losing runs destroy the bank if not careful - looking at smaller fields only is not something I thought of paulb164 paulb164 so best of luck with it
 
It's like anything within betting, you can apply any tools or methods/strategies to a particular event, but you still have to 'know what you are doing' and realise the limitations of such tools or yourself.
Nothing will ever substitute for hard work when gaining that edge.
 
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After doing a chunk of analysis on betfair data I've played around with similar to this and I found matching theory with practice isn't easy.

When doing stuff in play everyone having the same connection latency with the befair servers is an issue, especially if someone can gain an 'advantage'.
 
good to see lots of feedback and shared experience on this...

While setting up my bot, I have had to consider a few things;
* should I follow the comments exactly as per Clive Keeling's write-up, or change some variables at the start (I guess I was going to see opinion on this in this thread before setting up the bot)
* do I want to take a straight lay at 1.25 and so do an exact 'DOB', or green up at 1.25 and make a across-the-board profit (assuming of course the favourite gets down to 1.25 !) ?
* should I limit myself to 6-8 runners ? I'm now thinking of picking all races with under 9 runners ?
 
paulb164 said:
good to see lots of feedback and shared experience on this...
Click to expand...

Like a lot of things you need an edge - the herd dob at 50% - why not get slightly ahead of them?
If you do that - what does it do to your P&L and expectancy.
Deciding on filed size/type of race/conditions I am afraid is down to your own research and backtesting
 
The biggest problem with Back to Lay is that almost everyone is on the same runner....the edge disappeared into cyberspace a long time ago....i would suggest pretty much what Graeme Graeme mentions only don't sit just above the "Herd" sit way above them and try to take a very small profit (Not Double Or Bust)....good luck though if you try it.
 
There appears to be a cross between two methods here.....Laying in running at 1.25 (not sure how that came about - I suspect it was just research on the part of Clive) or Dobbing in which the horse can be any price at the off and it laying to 50% of that price (or whatever percentage you choose). So the horse could be 3/1 and it's laid in running at 6/4.

So to say there is no edge would probably be right if you intend to just run this over all the racing wholesale, but if you do the research on a horses running style and then I would think the edge would still be there. You don't necessarily have to DOB 1st or 2nd Fav - could be any runner.

nicksar nicksar If punters who use such a service, such as this, still have 'unrestricted' bookie accounts, then they probably won't for too much longer.
Anyone who consistently takes the highest prices will get their account flagged.
 
With trading I'm more inclined to back early then lay at bsp on the basis that my stats show my strong picks tend to shorten up before the off.
I've always found in play a bit of a minefield.
 
retriever said:
There appears to be a cross between two methods here.....Laying in running at 1.25 (not sure how that came about - I suspect it was just research on the part of Clive) or Dobbing in which the horse can be any price at the off and it laying to 50% of that price (or whatever percentage you choose). So the horse could be 3/1 and it's laid in running at 6/4.

So to say there is no edge would probably be right if you intend to just run this over all the racing wholesale, but if you do the research on a horses running style and then I would think the edge would still be there. You don't necessarily have to DOB 1st or 2nd Fav - could be any runner.

nicksar nicksar If punters who use such a service, such as this, still have 'unrestricted' bookie accounts, then they probably won't for too much longer.
Anyone who consistently takes the highest prices will get their account flagged.
Click to expand...
I have no intention of trying it Retriever...i am only able to use Betting Exchanges these days.
 
retriever said:
There appears to be a cross between two methods here.....Laying in running at 1.25 (not sure how that came about - I suspect it was just research on the part of Clive) or Dobbing in which the horse can be any price at the off and it laying to 50% of that price (or whatever percentage you choose). So the horse could be 3/1 and it's laid in running at 6/4.

So to say there is no edge would probably be right if you intend to just run this over all the racing wholesale, but if you do the research on a horses running style and then I would think the edge would still be there. You don't necessarily have to DOB 1st or 2nd Fav - could be any runner.

nicksar nicksar If punters who use such a service, such as this, still have 'unrestricted' bookie accounts, then they probably won't for too much longer.
Anyone who consistently takes the highest prices will get their account flagged.
Click to expand...
yes - I guess the author has mislead the readers somewhat with the 'Dobbing' misnomer, though clearly his plan has it's roots in that system.

Personally I was drawn to the idea of a possibly lucrative plan that was simple to set up and use, required minimal effort to maintain and might make me some money in an area I am not as experienced in as my beloved football (I know - I can hear the alarm bells ringing already !). And a Brucie-bonus of if it did prove to be a worthwhile endeavour, then my fellow forumites can also jump on the bandwagon :romance-grouphug:.

While I appreciate that something that simple is probably being done to death and any profitability will be hard to come by, I intend to start off with a broad remit (and the idea/premise of 540 pts in 10 years), and hone it down over time (a short time hopefully) to something that is worth the effort. I already have 2 systems for horses that make me money using the same method ( retriever retriever's lays being one of them - thanks retriever retriever :D ), and neither require me to look at any form.
 
So... the first foray into this trial. I meant to get this going yesterday, but was having a little trouble getting the automation right and working properly, which I managed to do this morning.

I decided to take Nicksar's advice (above) and went for 40% rather than the full 50% just to be slightly head of the rest of the world when it came to the lay bet kicking in... I'll revisit it maybe later on if it looks like it needs to be 50% to be more effective. At the mo, I am just betting on all races that are under 9 runners, with no other selection process deciding the bets to place.

So, todays' results are as follows;
76197

As you can see, so far a small profit. Time will tell if the daily profit/loss goes up or down initially.
 
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In the dim and distant past I did run a very profitable thread using proform in-running stats and after something like 5,000 real time selections discovered that 80% price reduction in running was the sweet spot. Unfortunately I also discovered that the lowest in running price recorded by proform was based on £2 being matched which meant that in the real world a large number of the wins recorded would not have enough cash available to match against. Time form results provided the lowest in running price to £100 being matched which was a more useful point than what Proform provided.
 
ArkRoyal ArkRoyal You see the occasional in-running winning 'surprise' horse being matched at 1000 in Timeform - does this mean they have been matched to at least £100? :eek:
 
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