Never Mind The Bollocks, It's Worth A Try!

Whilst recently contemplating jacking everything in and becoming a full-time Betfair trader, I was reminded of a story that appeared a couple of years back, in that bastion of investigative journalism and insightful social commentary, the News of the World.  The "story", and it was utter bollocks, was that a 22 year-old city dropout named Elliott Short, had made himself a multi-millionaire in a year by simply laying the favourite and one other horse in races, the theory being that these two lose or can be backed in-running to guarantee a profit..

A punter's dream, I hear you cry.. I cried the same joyous tears.. if some tea-boy from a bank can do it, it'll be even easier for me! This piece from the Guardian shatters the illusion pretty succinctly

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2009/jun/30/greg-wood-betfair-notw-story

Still, I was encouraged when googling terms like "laying the field" or "lay all", that I came across Scott Ferguson's excellent blog, "Sport is Made for Betting", where he references the strategy as an enjoyable and often fruitful method of making cash out of the backers:

http://www.sportismadeforbetting.com/2009/04/lay-field-my-favourite-racing-strategy.html

I am going to give it a try, and have started this afternoon with small £2 - £5 lay stakes, with liabilities per race limited to £30 - £60. 

It wasn't quite a "Eureka!" moment, but certainly a modern dimmer-switch effect in a contemporary flat. The light bulb was partially illuminated above my shaven-head / receding hairline after successfully opposing two odds-on Ballydoyle colts this afternoon (Seville and Await the Dawn) and opting to strengthen my position on the rest of the field by backing Namibian and Midday, who sadly both failed to claim victory in the successive York stakes.   An in-play lay of Midday, however, who looked in great nick but ultimately came in behind her Warren Place stablemate Twice Over, led to greater profit as I managed to have £40 snapped up by a greedy backer at just 1.3. 

Analysing the race afterwards, I thought that I would spend the rest of the early evening looking at races on channel 415 from Folkestone, Hereford and Bellewstown, laying favourites and monitoring in-play, placing bets that were unmatched from the off, but taken as the race unfolded.  I netted a further £33 profit from aforementioned small, toe-in-the-water stakes.  Took me back to my previous entry (see How involved in the markets are you? http://palphabet.blogspot.com/2011_07_01_archive.html)

Please click image to enlarge and enjoy!

I'm sure many Betfair aficionados reading will think my naivety is sweet and that it will all come crashing down, but I'm gonna give it a bash.. at least I can't follow the exposed idiot Elliott Short into the NOTW..

Looking!