Winning on Betfair For Dummies

By Alex Gowar and Jack Houghton

Betfair is the world’s leading online betting exchange. Launched in 2000, its annual revenues reached £145m in 2006. In the last year, Betfair has more than doubled its number of registered users. Since the first edition of the book was published, the total number of Betfair websites has risen to 18, and an Australian exchange has launched. The services Betfair offer have also expanded, including a telephone betting operation and new games including poker, blackjack and baccarat.

This is the definitive insider’s guide to playing – and winning – on Betfair. Written by Betfair insiders it gives you the full picture of how Betfair works; it explains the terms and jargon, helps you get started on the site, introduces every type of play – including poker and the Betfair Casino - and offers tips and insider know-how that both newcomers seasoned Betfair punters can use to maximise returns.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: Feb 14, 2011
• ISBN: 9781119996613

Book preview

Introduction

N o one knows when the first bet was placed, except that it was a long time ago. Archaeologists and anthropologists have plenty to occupy their time and we’re guessing that this matter just hasn’t seemed important up to now. But when was the momentous point in human history where one cave dweller turned to another and uttered ‘I bet you that . . .?’

Whenever history’s first bet was made, it started off a chain of events that made betting and gambling a central part of many cultures and, by the start of the 21st century, a booming industry worth many billions of pounds.

Within the betting industry are all types of characters – from small independent operators to state-run betting outlets all the way to massive corporations quoted on stock exchanges. All of these operators service the betting and gambling needs of an insatiable public.

What’s interesting in this history is that betting soon turned from something that occurred between two individuals to something that occurred between an individual and a betting organisation. And for many years that was the accepted norm.

Then, in June 2000, Betfair was born, and the story turned full circle. Although still betting through an organisation, Betfair odds are set by other individuals. Pure, unadulterated, person-to-person betting.

About This Book

This book explains what Betfair is and how you can go about betting, and winning, on it.

We cover everything from the basics – how you open an account and place your first bet – to more advanced betting techniques and strategies that can help you in your quest for profit.

We’re clearly dyed-in-the-wool Betfair fans but we’ve tried to be objective in writing this book. Lots of winning strategies involve using other forms of betting and we include these too.

Conventions Used in This Book

For Dummies books are written to entertain and inform you. We use some conventions to help you navigate through the book.

Sidebars (text enclosed in a shaded grey box) are pieces of information that are interesting but not central to the story. You can skip them altogether, save them for later, or read them with the general text. Web and e-mail addresses are in monofont.

Foolish Assumptions

We had to make some assumptions about the kind of person who’d want to read this book. As a starting point, we pinned up the names of five people who we knew and tried to write a book that would be useful to them. We hope you feel that you’re coming at this book from a similar background to at least one of them:

bullet Jack’s dad loves gambling. In an effort to support the chosen career of his son, he uses Betfair. Unfortunately he doesn’t use computers and so instructs my mum about what bets he wants. She’s getting quite good at placing the bets now, but still occasionally calls up on a Saturday morning for advice. Don’t get me wrong, I love receiving calls from my mum, but I’m not a morning person and I hope this book will afford me a couple of extra hours’ sleep.

bullet A friend of ours lives abroad and bets a lot on horse racing with the state-run pool betting. He’s actually pretty good at picking winners, but, unfortunately, the profit margins built in to the pool he bets with means he’ll never make a profit with them in the long-run. He could be a winner if he started using Betfair and we hope this book persuades him to make the switch.

bullet Another friend is passionate about sport and uses online fixed-odds bookmakers to place the odd bet. He’s had a look at Betfair a few times but finds it a bit overwhelming and involved when all he wants to do is place the odd bet. But we know he’ll love it when he gets into it, and so we hope the book gives him the impetus to give Betfair a go.

bullet An ex-colleague has used Betfair and other bookmakers for a while, playing around with different strategies. She’s at the point where she wants to be more serious about it and so we hope this book helps her get her head around some of the more advanced approaches that she could be using.

bullet A distant relative I (Jack) keep bumping into always asks me what I do and looks slightly perplexed when I explain. Lots of people we meet don’t want to bet, but are interested in Betfair as a company. This book gives those people a good overview of what Betfair is all about.

How This Book Is Organised

To make getting around the book, and winning on Betfair, easier we’ve divided the book into four parts.

Part I: Starting Out

This is all about getting your head around what Betfair is and how the concept works. We cover how to open an account and manage it, and how to decide what kind of things you want to bet on.

Part II: Let’s Get Betting

This is where things start for real. In this section you place your first bet, get your head around the different types of bet you can choose, and get a grip on the mathematics behind betting. You also try out in-play betting (betting on something after the event has started) – one of the things that makes Betfair completely different from other betting options out there.

Part III: Getting Serious

If you intend on having more than the occasional bet and want to start thinking about making consistent profits on Betfair, this part is for you. We cover some of the low-risk betting strategies you can utilise to make money, explain how you can go about automating some of your betting, and talk about making a living (or at least a good second living) from betting. We also include a chapter on problem gambling for if you ever feel that betting is starting to play an unhealthy part in your life.

Part IV: The Part of Tens

This part of the book gives you loads of useful and interesting information concerning your quest for profit in concise and snappy chapters. We include advice on things to do and things to avoid and tell some stories from Betfair’s short and colourful history.

Icons Used in This Book

Some sections in each chapter are more important than other bits and we highlight these for you with icons.

Tip

Certain things you discover on Betfair make your betting life easier. The target highlights something that you might find particularly useful in your betting.

Remember

This icon highlights particular snippets to bear in mind.

Warning(bomb)

The Warning icon draws your attention to behaviour that could have a seriously negative effect on your bank balance!

TechnicalStuff

You can skip these bits, but they do assist you in understanding some of the more complex points and give you additional information.

Where to Go from Here

You can read this book from beginning to end or jump from topic to topic. Use the index and contents pages to help you find particular topics you’re interested in. You’ll also need to log on to Betfair at www.betfair.com and get going – it’s as simple as that!

Part I

Starting Out

In this part . . .

Here we cover all the basics: what Betfair is, why it’s a good thing, what you need to get started, how to open and manage an account, and how to decide what it is you want to bet on.

Chapter 1

Introducing Betfair

In This Chapter

bullet Understanding the Betfair idea

bullet Realising the benefits of Betfair

B etfair is one of the world’s fastest-growing betting companies, but is probably most famous for its online betting exchange, www.betfair.com. A betting exchange allows people with different opinions on the likely outcome of an event to bet against each other, thanks to the invention of some clever technology by a boffin called Andrew ‘Bert’ Black in the late 1990s.

But that’s all you need to know about the technical side. This chapter covers what Betfair is, how it works, and why it’s so popular.

Getting Your Head Around Betfair

Yours truly (Alex and Jack) have sat through countless demonstrations at Betfair headquarters where people try to explain what Betfair is to slightly perplexed audiences. The demonstrator usually starts by showing everyone the Betfair homepage (www.betfair.com), selecting a sporting event to bet on, and then beginning an explanation of what the mass of moving numbers mean.

This is probably not the best way to start learning about a betting exchange. The Sports homepage can seem exhaustively complex at first when all you want to do is have a bet, but when you get used to it, it’s actually quite straightforward. We’ll look at the homepage in more detail in Chapter 4.

The best way to understand Betfair is to forget about the website for the time being. You don’t actually need it to understand what Betfair is all about.

Think of this example instead. Although we work together, we rarely agree on sport and so we like to bet against each other. The other week we were in a bar watching a soccer match on TV. AC Milan was playing Juventus.

Jack reckoned that Juventus would win. Alex disagreed. So Alex offered Jack odds of 2.0 (even money) on Juventus winning (meaning Alex paid Jack £1 for every £1 staked should Juventus win).

Despite being friends, we don’t altogether trust each other to hold the money, so we agreed that the barman would hold the money until the match was over.

That’s all Betfair is really – a barman in a global betting bar, although Betfair isn’t licensed to serve alcohol!

(It’s not important, but Juventus didn’t win and Alex won Jack’s £20.)

In our example, we were face to face with each other to have the bet. With Betfair, you’re matched up anonymously against people with different views from all over the world. If Margaret in South Africa thinks AC Milan will win, and Mike in Canada thinks they won’t, Betfair holds the money until the result is known.

Revolutionising Betting

Opportunities for you to bet vary from country to country. Apparently, in some countries, betting is illegal. This is disturbing to us, so we’ve chosen to assume that this is some terrible urban myth.

Before Betfair, the two main outlets for you to bet on sports were pool betting operators and fixed-odds bookmakers.

Pool betting operators

In countries where betting is legal, government-run pool betting is often the main way of betting.

Remember

Pool betting works in much the same way as a sweepstake. A number of people bet on an event, creating a pool of money. The operator of the pool takes a cut (usually upwards of 20 per cent) and then gives out the rest of the money to the customers who chose the winning selection.

Pool betting has a couple of major disadvantages:

bullet The odds are completely reliant on how many other people choose the same outcome, and so you have no idea what odds you’re going to get on the selection you’re choosing.

bullet You can’t change the transaction and the pool closes when the contest starts, which means that you must place your bet before the event and await your fate.

bullet Because the pool operator takes a large cut before giving out winnings, the odds you eventually get can be disappointing, especially on popular selections.

Fixed-odds bookmakers

In some countries, bookmakers are allowed to operate on a fixed-odds basis. Bookmakers work out and offer their own odds on a range of sporting contests. They also offer odds (or make a book) on various events within the contest.

For example, in a football match you can bet on the result, but also on who will score, what the score will be, and even on things like how many corners there will be. In most cases, you can take a price, meaning that you know what odds your bet will be settled at if it wins.

Where pool-betting operators take a cut of all the money, bookmakers make money by building in a margin. So all the odds on offer have a margin built into the price on the side of the bookmaker. (See Chapter 6 for more on how bookmakers build in a profit margin.)

Revenge of the nerd

Andrew ‘Bert’ Black’s background doesn’t immediately suggest that he’d become arguably one of the most successful Internet entrepreneurs.

Bert was the grandson of an inveterate anti-gambling campaigner. After being thrown out of university at the end of his first year, Bert had many jobs: a professional gambler; a professional bridge player; a derivatives trader; a golf caddie; and a software engineer. While in his last job at GCHQ (the top-secret UK Government Communications Headquarters), Bert began to work on the idea of the betting exchange.

Enter Betfair

For many years, betting with pool operators and bookmakers were your only two options. Then, in the late 1990s, Andrew Black, or Bert as he’s known, came up with the idea of using the stock exchange model to operate betting markets. This model means that you can buy and sell, or back and lay, the outcomes of sporting events