Diamond Charlie 3.1 11:59:44 AM

Diamond Charlie 2.5 12:24:08 PM


=(J36-$J58)*100/$J58

-19.35%

This has been around since 1992 when it's done with every price update in the field, the controversial, "smart money" system.

The problem became, when progressively everyone cottoned onto it, by 2000 it became so obvious with late plunges and threw the game way off track.

"smart money" systems became as useful as fools gold.

To get around it, less bets and refine the "when" factor.

Then betfair came along, changed the plot yet again.

It's now more or less a guide rather than the rule.

Good question TO. I looked at a weeks Gallops, 3170 races and 1293 closed lower than Open, 40% near enough....or is that 140%?... who knows lol :)

Are you talking about the favourite in each race or the whole field?

Out of all horses in the race, 40% close lower than Open.

Are you taking into account the bookmaker percentages for the open and the close? If you aren't then your data is next to useless as more often than not the price change is a reflection on the change in bookmaker percentage from say 140% at open to 115% at close as an example.

Technically you are correct mattio, and I used to agonise over such things ONCE!

I remember being sent a lot of historical data by a Master punter. He built his methods and systems around 'AS FOUND" (mistakes, misrepresentations, come what may data) not corrected data. If they made a profit based on that, then so be it.

I fought the logic for some time until I realised that his logic had merit, coz I knew he was doing OK, so I threw of the shackles of logical wisdom and adopted the logic of, "don't change anything if ain't broken wisdom.

Like the bit of fun I've been having with, is it 40% or 140%, who cares, as long as it makes money, use either figure... lol

The trouble with "shorteners" is that one never knows whether its Mug Money
or Informed Money so using that as a basis for making money is worst than useless.

In the month of Oct 2014 1216 races and 11666 horses. 375 races won by horses that shortened as SP-OP. Overall 2072 horses shortened, 2180 stayed the same. 2123 horses ranked better and 7297 horses stayed the same rank.

But the true equation, as Mattio has raised, is whether the horses probability increased(shortened) or decreased (drifted) in a 100% market. 9175 decreased, and 28 stayed the same.

The real question is how many really shortened ie a significant change of probability.

The other issue with this too is the on track "opening" price is not the true opening price, the true opening price is what the corporates and TAB open their fixed odds betting at. The on track opening prices are usually a consensus of what the market has done since the bookmakers opened.

A prime example here is a bet I had on Sunday at Ararat, in R5 the 2nd placed horse Alternative Choice opened on track at $4.60 and the SP was $4.00, I took $13 win and $3.75 place on this horse the day before when prices first came up thanks to a massive error from one of the corporates. The average opening price of the 3 corporates that put up the early prices was about $9 which is a long way from $4.60 on track opening price.