If you are laying a horse to lose and don't know anything about the horse apart from it's price then the shorter the price of that horse the more difficult it will be to get a value lay. Shorter priced horses win at a much closer percentage rate to their expected rate of winning and this is the reason.



The next paragraph explins how the shorter priced animals have a more efficient winning rate than the bigger priced horses.

The odds efficiency of an Evens bet is 96%. This means they are expected to win 50% of the time but actually only win 48.2% of the time. The odds efficiency of a 5/1 bet -s 89%. They are expected to win 16.7% of the time and only win 14.8% of the time. The odds efficiency of a 10/1 shot is 77%. The are expected to win 9.1% of the time and actually only win 7% of the time. The longer the odds the more inefficient the horse

Laying all favourites is the reason why most punters fail at laying. They may think their bank will not erode too quickly because they do not have to put up so much risk. But laying favourites purely based on price is as futile as backing outsiders based purely on price.

The single exception to this is laying odds on favourites. In another article I will show how you can actually make a profit by laying odds on favourites and show how in one particular type of race these profits are pretty amazing.

Finding profitable favourites to lay.

The best way to profit from laying favourites is to find false or overbet favourites.

Over hyped horses that are continually talked about by media pundits, and by punters in message boards, are profitable for laying. But over hyped horses do not appear regularly. Only now and again do the really hyped horses such as Sixperfections appear on the scene.

Overbet favourites happen all the time and there are penty to choose from. These are horses that may be from a good in form yard and have a 'significant' jockey booking. They attract all the money because all the tipsters tip them up and then the price is forced below the true value which reflects the horses true chances of winning the race. Consistent profits can be made by finding and laying to lose these animals.

A structured approach to finding these false favourites is the only way to go about this and make consistent profits. What you need to do is find some facts or combination of facts about this horse in this race that most punters and pundits out there have not realised and which will affect the horses chance of winning this race.

If you find a race where the favourite seems to have a weakness or two then finding one or two other horses in the race who have ability and a fair chance can strengthen the opinion that the horse is worth laying.

Thousands of punters every weekend back horses based on their last three form figures. Lots also bet based on their particular favourite pundit in the newspaper. Many others simply follow tipsters tips and these are all largely form based as well.

The job in hand then is to find the races where the favourite has been over hyped for any reason and likely to be 'overbet' The you have to find the reasons why this horse might not win this race and then find other horses that CAN win the race and you probably have a horse that you can lay to lose on Betfair.