Lto + Betting Market – A Subscribers Way Of Using The Ratings

I had an email from subscriber Russell last week, a member for over three months now, telling me he has nearly doubled his Betfair account in the last six weeks using a method he found concerning the last time out ratings.

He says he hasn’t looked into filtering the races or the bets as of yet so thinks there is probably a way to improve this idea with less bets but he likes to have lots of interest and bet through the day.

It is a simple enough method which I tried out on Saturday and using minimal stakes won over £50 on the day.

Not a bad start and whilst you don’t have to be betting in every race, it is possible to find a bet in the majority, so if you are someone who likes to follow all of the racing and have lots of interest, then you will probably like this system.

How it works.

Go to the Inform Racing race card and find the highest rated horse last time out (Lto).

In the example below for the 2.50 York, you can see that Delizia has the highest Lto rating of 82.

From here you now want to see if Delizia is one of the first three in the betting, (close to the off) and if so, place an 80/20 bet on this selection.

If the horse isn’t one of the first three in the betting, go to the second best rated last time out, (Donjuan Triumphant) and if this isn’t one of the first three in the betting then go to the third best last time out, (Gracious John).

For the top three, you take all of the top three horses as sometimes there are more and if you get two qualifiers on the same last time out rating both in the first three of the betting, back the one at the shorter price.

Russell says that he uses the Betfair market for the first three, not the actual betting market as he places his bets here and says it is more accurate this way.

If you look at the Betfair results for this race, it shows the prices so you can see who was first, second and third at the time the race began.

The first three in the betting here were Donjuan Triumphant 3.61, Gracious John 4.3 and King Robert 8.4.

So going back to the ratings, Delizia wasn’t one of the first three in the betting, so you move on to Donjuan Triumphant who was so you have the 80/20 bet on this one and as you can see, the horse won.

80/20 betting.

An 80/20 bet, is where you place 80% of your stake on the place market and 20% on the win. I was using just £5 stakes when I tested this out, so I put £4 on the place and £1 on the win.

Variations would be 70/30 and 60/40 but Russell says stick to 80/20 as it is safer all round as more horses place, so more stake is used on this part of the bet.

Back to the rules.

Russell says that you should always try to use the extra place market on Betfair to get more places in the race, although this will mean taking a shorter price.

Betfair now have a market for the extra place, so an eight runner race which normally pays out on three places, has a market paying out on four. A twenty runner handicap that normally pays out on four places, has a market that pays out on five.

Russell says that for the most part, the place bet is just covering the win stake plus a little so the difference in place money for four to three places, or five to four is not worth worrying about and that he has had many horses that have finished fourth or fifth that he wouldn’t normally get paid out on, meaning he would lose the whole stake.

There are some occasions when you don’t bet and that is when the first horse in the Lto column is LESS than 1.5 in both the normal place market and the extra place market.

Normally this will be when a horse is say 6/4 in a seven runner field or something and here you don’t then go to the second best Lto, you just move on to the next race.

If the extra place market is below 1.5, then you try the normal place market and if still below 1.5 move on to the second best Lto rating and so on.

Russell suggests that to have more bets if all of the top three last time out are not in the first three of the betting, you can go back to the top rated last time out and back it as long as the place price is 5.0 or bigger.

On Saturday, Nameitwhatyoulike was such a bet that came third at 20/1 paying 5.45 in the place market for five places.

Finally, if there are 12 runners or less, Russell doubles his stake.

Summing Up

I think here you are using two factors we know do produce a lot of winners, the top three rated last time out and the first three in the betting. By betting in the place market you should therefore have lots of bets that either win or at least place.

From the 23 races I bet in during the day, there were 9 that were unplaced, 10 that were placed where you win a little bit and 4 that won, winning the win and place money.

I think this is a slow burner that will give lots of races to bet in and that will steadily increase the betting bank over time like Russell has done with his.

I would suggest starting £5 stakes on the 80/20 method which is £4 place, £1 win and doubling to £10 stakes for the 12 or less runners rule, so £8 place and £2 win.

The Rules

1. All races. (Use your own filters here if you want less bets.)

2. Take the highest top three rated Lto horse that is in the first three of the betting.

3. If this is not in the first three of the betting, work down just the top three highlighted Lto horses until one of them is. If none are go to Rule 7.

4. The selection must be 1.5 or bigger in the extra place market, if not in the normal place market and if shorter than this in both, then no bet.

5. Bet the selection using the 80/20 method.

6. One stake if 13 or more runners, double stakes if 12 or less.

7. If no top three highlighted horse is in the first three of the betting, bet the top rated last time out in the extra or normal place market if price is 5.0 or bigger and to just one stake whatever the field size.

Thanks to Russel for sharing this idea

Filters

To cut down on bets you could look at if the horse with the Lto rating is also one of the top three overall in the Master column, look at the number of days since the Lto was achieved, filter by race type, class or field size.

Depending on when you place your bet, not everyone will get the same prices but try to place the bet as near to the off as possible.

If you have any methods or systems that you use with the ratings that could help other members then please feel free to either post them in the comments below or email me with the rules and I will write a post about it.