Hi Bloggers
Well, we start with a new laying system from tomorrow, 1 July. This system, Planet Horseracing Lays (from Martin and Steve in Australia), suggests 4 different staking plans, but we will stick with the level stakes method, as that seems to be the most popular and the easiest to make comparisons with. They suggest a starting bank of £2,000 with one point being £40. If we deduct the Betfair commission of 5% this effectively means that a one point winning lay would be worth £38 profit.
Their website is very clear and the staking plans are very well explained. They even offer you a range of Excel spreadsheets to track all of your bets, which is very helpful. My only small gripe is that the spreadsheets do not use any formulae to calculate the maths for you, so I have amended my copy to do just that, as it can save a lot of time in the long run and prevents me from making silly mistakes with the results! (but probably not a huge issue with only one selection per day).
They do not recommend any particular betting odds limits, suggesting that you pick your own level of risk, which suits me fine. With each selection they do suggest a maximum odds limit, which applies to that selection only, but recommend that you decide whether to bet or not, whatever the price, as they think that it will lose anyway! For the purposes of the review I will take whatever the published Betfair SP is. Obviously it will be likely that you can get better or worse odds during the day, but I will stick with the published Betfair SP for consistent and transparent results, as that is how they record their results.
There seems to be one selection per day, and they explain their reasons for picking that selection in great detail, both on the website and by a separate daily email, which is also very helpful. Their selections are all Racing Post Forecast Favourites and they suggest that the price is more likely to drift than to come in during the day, so they recommend that you should get your bets on early in the day if possible – which all makes sense to me. Martin has subsequently asked me to point out that they average around 3 Lays every 4 days, so there will be some ‘No Selections’ days. There have been a couple of times where they have only had 1 or 2 Selections in a 6 or 7 day period.
The website has a comprehensive results to date section and a Blog from Martin, one of the authors, where he records a weekly round up of the events of the past 7 days as well as sharing any important and (hopefully) useful pieces of information. He also lists some useful web addresses that he uses himself.
All in all, it looks very professional and comprehensive.
There is another section on the site that gives a very detailed explanation of what Trading on the exchanges is all about and gives some very good examples – but I won’t be doing any of that for this review. Finally, there is the Subscribe section. At the moment they are offering an “Early Bird” price of £47 per month, but I cannot see that they tell you what the ‘normal’ price will be after this offer ends?
It all looks good and Martin says that he has been working on the system for nearly a year and proofing his results to an Independent Exchange Site.
Kick off is tomorrow, although they have given me access to today’s selection. I won’t include it in the results, but will let you know how it gets on when I do my first report tomorrow.
Until tomorrow…..
Kind regards
Tony
