A Guide To Laying

Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts

We examined a scenario where you were able to maximise your return based on expected market fluctuation married to strong opinion on an outcome. Let's look at that set up again but alter the reliability of the information you are working with. You expect Three Legged Wonder to lose although you suspect it will trade at an artificially short price when the market opens enabling you to maximise your value in the market.

Imagine however, that after the horse opens at 9/2 on course that the expected drift fails to materialise and the price goes 9/2 – 4/1 – 7/2 etc closing at 9/4. How would you react to this situation? Your intelligence tells you that the horse is an unlikely winner and any early support from the “mugs” will dry up as the heavy hitters look to oppose the poor value. You would initially be delighted to be able to lay 6.4 or shorter, but how do you feel when someone immediately offers to back at 5.2? Is this your birthday and Christmas rolled into one ~ a licence to print money? Whatever glee you felt in laying your maximum at such a short price evaporates quickly when the lay price moves from 5.2 to 3.9 and shorter.? Suddenly you realise that the rumours of poor gallops might not be as cast iron as you’d thought and the dawning realisation that you’ve laid a genuine 9/4 shot at more than double those odds. Ouch!

We’ve all been caught in this scenario and it’s hard to recommend a single piece of advice which is correct in all situations. Sometimes it’s best just to leave well enough alone and hope that the result goes your way; sometimes you will be right to swallow your pride and back the horse back at the shorter price to minimise your loss; in certain circumstances you will be correct to judge that your opinion is genuinely correct and continue to lay at shorter and shorter prices, but while pride makes that a tempting solution it has two major problems. Should you continue to lay what you believe are under the odds you will exceed (and in some cases massively exceed) your accepted loss limit and that is a recipe for disaster in the long run. The second problem is that old adage that if it looks too good to be true, then it invariably is ~ sustained support at short prices is sometimes misguided but in the long run opposing strongly bet selections at anything other than bottom price will be financially crippling. Let discretion be the better part of valour and consider it a lesson learned.