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Picture the scene: You’ve gone for a day out at the races with your mates and after poring over the form, the going, and draw biases, you’ve pinpointed a handful of horses at decent prices throughout the card. However, one of your mates blindly backs the favourite in every single race without so much as a glance at the form.

How to Place Bet on Favorites for a Living The best way to profit from place betting is to compound the returns from a betting system with a very high strike rate (around 90%). This place betting system is perfect for this and can be easily applied with just a basic form guide (no computer required). Historically, the betting choice, a.k.a. The favorite, has hit the Winner’s Circle at tracks all over the country at a fairly consistent 32% success rate. However, over the past decade or so I noticed that this rate of how horse racing favorites perform continued to creep up.

It turns out to be a profitable strategy as the first three favourites oblige, and by the time the fourth favourite wins, he’s become insufferable. And really it’s not that surprising. Broadly speaking, favourites win around a third of the time in the UK and a winning streak is easy to come across.

Different academic and recreational research from gamblers has found that backing favourites generally allows you to lose more slowly. Of course, this is a one-way ticket to the poor house as a long-term betting strategy, but as a starting point it at least shows that betting the favourite is rarely a terrible decision.

While you’ll encounter plenty of dubiously priced favourites, which is why some exchange users specialise in laying what’s dubbed “false favourites”, horses at the top of the market are usually much closer to their “true odds” than outsiders.

Go Figure

A famous study in 1949 first introduced the concept of the favourite longshot bias, whereby shorter priced horses are closer to true odds than longshots. And a recent study by a pair of American academics who scrutinised the results of over six million horse races in America discovered that backing favourites lost at a rate of 5.5% while backing at odds 3/1 to 15/1 lost at a rate of 18% on average.

In the UK, odds-on favourites win around 59% of the time on the flat according to www.flatstats.co.uk. However, this figure deviates depending on what type of race it is, dropping to 53% with handicap races and increasing slightly to 61% for maidens. Odds-on favourites priced at 1/4 or shorter apparently win 86% of their races. Take retired flat phenomenon Frankel as an example regarding that last statistic.

The Sir Henry Cecil-trained thoroughbred won 14 out of 14 races during his illustrious and unbeaten career, with 13 of those wins recorded as the odds-on favourite. Before retiring to stud in 2012 with £3m in prize money to his name, the starting prices for his last four victories were 2/11, 1/10, 1/20, and 1/10 (implied probabilities of 84.62%, 90.91%, 95.24%, and 90.91% respectively).

Level stakes bets of £1,000 on each occasion would have netted a profit of £431.82. OK, so you’re not going to get rich backing horses at those extremely short odds, but backers with deep pockets probably considered this a far superior tax-free investment to the paltry interest rates offered by most bank savings accounts.

But this game is about backing the right favourites at odds higher than their true odds. If blindly backing favourites was a “fool-proof” system then everyone would be doing it full-time and every office and factory would close. Frankel was a horse of a lifetime and a bit of an equine freak, and just one shock defeat in any of these races would have decimated backers’ betting bankrolls.

Frankel was unbeaten in his fourteen-race career and was the highest-rated racehorse in the world from May 2011

A Sure Thing

Backing favourites successfully, boils down to being selective and finding discrepancies between your informed opinion and projected odds and the price offered by the market. But an important takeaway is to not to automatically dismiss a favourite because it’s been priced up at odds-on.

Some racing bettors stubbornly refuse to back a horse if it isn’t odds against, but there can still be plenty of tasty value to be had if you’re willing to stake more than the potential return. If a well-heeled punter sticks £1,000 on a 1/2-shot with the aim of picking up £500 profit, you can understand the logic. Yet a £10 bet to win a measly £5 or £20 to collect £10 hardly seems worth the risk.

Betting is a long game and you should be aiming to simply bet on value selections that win you money over the long-term. A selection chalked up at 1/2 could still represent value if its true odds are more like 1/3. Opportunities like this are fairly rare and when they appear they should be jumped on.

This could be where you want to place a max bet, but only if you know what a max bet should be. Hint – it’s not all the money you own. And one vital aspect of favourite backing is using a smart bankroll and staking strategy to ensure you capture the most value out of every bet.

Not all bets are created equally and you want to maximise your rewards while minimising your risk. Check out our articles on bankroll management and staking to find out more. If you can combine this with a refined favourite backing system you are well on you way to becoming a profitable bettor.

“You can’t make money backing favourites”

…Or so goes the famous phrase favoured by many in the betting world on the notion that it’s only mugs who bet at short prices.

Yet the reality is that betting (like most things in life) is not quite so black and white and you can make money backing favourites…as long as you back the right ones…

The right favourites – such as those put forward by the ‘myth-busting’ racing tipster featured in SBC Magazine (Issue 104) who has made a fine profit backing short horses.

Our review of this tipster found that over the course of 1676 bets advised over 2 and a bit years, he had made a baseline profit of 5% Return on Investment (ROI).

For those who prefer to concentrate on Return on Capital (ROC) this equated to a figure of 140% over the same period.

To put that into easy to understand financial figures…

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• A £1000 starting betting bank would have grown to £2,400.
• A £5000 starting betting bank would have grown to £12,000.
• A £10000 starting betting bank would have grown to £24,000.

And best of all – solely from backing favourites.

Although it’s fair to point out that it’s not always the favourite he tips up, but sometimes also the second favourite – in general it’s selections 5/2 and below at the front of the market

Ultimately – the saying “You can’t make money backing favourites” should really read “You can’t make money backing bad value favourites” as therein lies the difference between making a profit or loss betting.

If you are taking 9/4 on a bet that should be 6/4, long-term you will make a profit. Just as you might taking 20/1 about a bet that should be 10/1.

So, the next time someone tells you that backing favourites is a mugs game…you know what to say!

Betting On Favourites Strategy

Major Benefits Of Backing Favourites

There are also some very important additional benefits from backing favourites to be aware of – here are 4 of the most relevant:

1. It’s easy to improve profits with Best Odds Guaranteed offers

I used the word ‘baseline profits’ when discussing the tipster above as the reality is that you can easily improve the profit figures if you have access to the Best Odds Guarantee concession in your bookmaker account.

We equated the potential to improve your ROI by as much as 5.4% simply by using Best Odds Guarantee offers.

As many as 40% of all bets drifted after being advised by this tipster and were therefore subject to a better price if taking Best Odds Guaranteed.

2. Hit a high strike-rate – easier on you mentally

If you are one of those punters who struggle when facing a losing run, then a short priced tipster might be the right answer for you. After all – not everyone is cut out to handle low strike-rates, nor have the patience to wait for the winners to hit home.

This favourite-backing tipster has a high strike-rate of 43.1% from the 1676 bets with 723 winners and 953 losers during this period.

Ensuring in general, short losing runs and a regular supply of winners to put your mind at rest!

3. You can get on with the bookies – even if you win

Perhaps best of all, favourites are very easy to bet with the bookies as they know most punters backing them will be long-term losers.

Your betting account might show a fair profit but when they see its from backing horses at 5/2 and under – they will often assume that in time you will lose and you have been lucky thus far. Even if you are chucking £100, £200 (or more) on these tips to win.

Making backing short priced tips such as those advised by this tipster ideal for those of you worried about betting restrictions. It’s just a fact that if you are backing 2/1 winners instead of 20/1 winners, your betting account is much more likely to go un-restricted.

4. A genuine betting-exchange option

Even if you can no longer bet with bookmakers, this favourite tipster is very easy to follow on the betting exchanges.

Our analysis found that you can actually IMPROVE your profits by as much as 1.1% ROI by simply taking better odds available 15 minutes after the tips are advised.

At the time these tips are put forward (10am) there is also considerable money available to trade on all betting exchanges and we found no issues getting our bets matched on these favourites.

So, if you are limited to betting with exchanges like Betfair, Smarkets, Betdaq or Matchbook, it’s a very valid option for you.

Read All About It In SBC 104

If you want to know more about this tipster and the profits he has made backing favourites you can read the detailed SBC review in SBC magazine – Issue 104.

Inside the review you can also find details on how you can save 25% on the cost of joining this tipster as an SBC member.

See you on the inside.

Betting On Favourites Reddit

Best Regards,

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Peter Ling
Smart Betting Club Editor
pete@smartbettingclub.com