Guide to Each Way Betting (with Q+A)

With Cheltenham coming up, I’ve decided to write this guide and the subsequent thread to hopefully stop other threads getting hijacked by E/W betting. So all questions in here please.
I’ve deliberately put this in the matched betting forum instead of the newbie forum because I don’t see it as a newbie skill. No offence to any newcomers, but there really is a knack to this. You have to be very confident with horse betting before you do this because if it goes wrong, it can go VERY wrong. You have been warned. Also, this needs quite a big float (1K+) so if you’re just starting out, look away now.

Each way betting is used for two main reasons, when there is an extra place race and when there is what bookies call a “bad each way race”
hopefully you have read Matts guide to extra places
https://matchedbettingblog.com/extra-place-offers/

but i’ll quickly go through the basics. First things first, When you place the bet you will notice that double the stake is taken. This is because when you bet each way you are actually placing two bets, one to win and one to place. Once you have placed your back bet, you now have to place TWO lay bets, one to cover the win part and one for the place part. Obviously, the value of each is half of your original back bet. You need to find the terms of the race and find out how many places they are paying, and at what fraction of odds. This is usually clearly stated.

To find the place odds (in decimal odds), you subtract 1, divide by the fraction of odds, then add the 1 back on.

Lets take Gubstar, who’s being offered at 16/1 with 1/4 place odds and 3 places.

16/1 = 17 decimal
17-1 = 16,
/4 = 4
+1 = 5
so the place odds for Gubstar is 5.

just to be redundant, here’s a harder one

say he’s going off at 11/4 and its only 1/5 odds

11/4 = 3.75 decimal
-1 = 2.75
/5 = 0.55
+1 = 1.55
so now his odds to place are 1.55

Now you know the place odds being offered you can easily compare them to the exchange and lay accordingly.

Doing an extra place race is pretty straight-forward, find a horse with close odds, back, lay, hope! Its usually much better to do several horses over several bookies for these offers to increase your chances of hitting the extra place. Don’t forget, most gubbed accounts can still do the extra place offers.

To take advantage of a bad each race (E/W arbing) you have to understand how it works. Basically a bookie will offer very short odds on the favourite, and unfairly long odds on the others. That is fine on the win market, maybe the other horses really don’t have a chance (especially Gubstar), but because the other horses have a very good chance of coming second or third, by offering a fraction of the odds for the win, the numbers just don’t work anymore. Therefore the odds offered by the exchange are a much truer reflection of the odds on a horse placing, and much shorter than the bookie offers by default because of the combined nature of the each way bet. I hope that makes sense.

The things to look for in a bad each way race is a very very short favourite (about 2.8 and below), a couple of hopefuls (around 4/1ish) and a few complete outsiders (100/1+)

There’s a couple of ways to play these, either back and lay straight away, or you can back early and lay much closer to the off. The price almost always comes in sharply around ten- five minutes before the race and it takes nerves of steel (again not for newbies). You can also choose to fully lay to guarantee profit, or underlay to win more if you place and break even if you don’t.

The problem with this approach is the danger of non-runners, which are two-fold.

First, the bookie will apply “rule 4” which is where they will cut the odds AFTER YOU HAVE BET to take account of the fact there is less competition. This is fine if you have backed and laid at the same time as the exchange will recalculate as well. But if you haven’t, you need to take account of the reduction and lay accordingly. (the bookie will usually list how much they have reduced by on the race page). You can imagine the havok this causes when it happens 3 minutes out and you haven’t laid. It can save a lot of trouble to just underlay when this happens and hope you place.

Second problem is when you have a race with the number of runners on the threshold of the place market rules. A race of more than 8 will pay out on 3 places but if one or more horses drops out and the number of runners drops below 8, the place odds will drop to 2 BUT THE EXCHANGE WILL STAY THE SAME. I assume this is because people have bet on where it will place, so its not the exact same market. Similarly for a race with 16 down to 15 or less.

Handy guide to places:

Handicaps of more than 15 runners 1/4 4
Handicaps of 12-15 runners 1/4 3
All other races of more than 8 runners 1/5 3
All races of 5-7 runners 1/4 2
All races of less than 5 runners – win only

When things go wrong.
Betfair have various markets for various places, and even an each way market, so you might find a lay that is not too much of a loss should things go wrong. You can also keep an eye on what the horses SP will be and hope for a favourable BOG (possibly). Some bookies offer cash out as well.

Further reading:
https://matchedbettingblog.com/topic/my-theory-beyond-matched-betting/
https://matchedbettingblog.com/topic/ew-arbing/
https://matchedbettingblog.com/topic/early-prices/
https://matchedbettingblog.com/topic/the-bookie-angel-twitter/

HTH guys, and please chip in if I’ve missed anything.

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deathstar
25

February 1, 2017 at 12:01 pm

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mannis05 0 February 1, 2017 at 11:13 pm

What a fab guide deathstar!
Not currently for me, as I still mostly got non-gubbed accounts, but this will be handy in the future (hello paddy!).
Anyhow – thanks for explaining how Rule 4 comes into play – never seen it being explained so easily before 🙂

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deathstar 25 February 2, 2017 at 6:12 am

@monkeytennis, I knew I hadn’t explained that very well. what I meant was when you back multiple horses in the same races, of course lay them all, but you only need enough in the exchange to cover the liabilities on the highest price. as when you lay the other horses the liabilities will combine because you are in effect trading the lays against each other.
On the place market you need to lay as many horses as they are paying places on for the combined liabilities it kick in. so 3 place lays on 3 place markets, 4 place lays on 4 place markets.
I hope that has made a bit more sense.

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RogerMoore 0 February 2, 2017 at 7:09 am

Thanks for this guide deathstar- it’s really useful for an amateur like me. I’ve had a quick look at races before work and these stand out for me:

13:20 Clonmel
13:45 Southwell
14:35 Wincanton

(Similarly to Mr M above).

Can anyone give their expert opinion on whether these races look suitable? It may still be too early to tell i’m not sure (?) Thanks guys.

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orlandosteve 2 February 2, 2017 at 7:36 am

Death Star, you have explained everything perfectly.

Monkeytennis when you place multiple lay bets in a race your liability will be the bet which gives you the biggest loss should it lose.

As an example, you place 3 lay bets on the win market as follows

Horse 1. Lay £20@5.0=£80 liability
Horse 2. Lay £30@6.0=£150 liability
Horse 3. Lay 15@8=£105 liability

Therefore your liability in this race is £150, this is because if your horse 2 bet loses (it wins the race) by default your horse 1 and 3 bets win, as only 1 horse can win the race.

The exception exchange to this (not that anyone uses them) is matchbook, who will take your total bets as your liability.

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MonkeyTennis 1 February 2, 2017 at 7:51 am

Cheers deathstar, I assumed that was what you meant but didn’t want people to think you didn’t need to lay every horse you back.

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bobster 1 February 2, 2017 at 8:46 am

Forgive me for playing devils advocate here, but as somebody else said earlier, if you KNOW the prices are going to drop, then why even bother with the headaches of bookies or e/w bets? Just back the win on the exchange early, lay the win later on for a profit.

If this was the case, we’d all be millionaires by now 😉

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deathstar 25 February 2, 2017 at 9:39 am

Thanks @orlandosteve, I knew there was a better way to explain.

a quick note, be careful with Irish racing, sometimes they list all the horses including reserves which may not run, so compare how many are listed on the exchange. also liquidity can be horrible.

there doesn’t seem to be much about trading, I was under the impression that its the bookies that are giving the value here, as its the discrepancy between the odds of winning and placing on the each way component with the bookie that is being exploited, but in theory it should work. Probably something to look at when you have all day to watch the prices. I’m not sure how the commission works as well, would you pay or not because presumably the same horse wins and loses at the same time.

https://matchedbettingblog.com/topic/matched-betting-vs-trading/

or a google search…

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deathstar 25 February 2, 2017 at 9:56 am

PS, perfect example of a problem:
14:35 Wincanton is now down to 7 runners. this has now reverted to paying 2 places at the bookies whereas the exchanges are still 3 places. if your horse comes 3rd you will lose both bets.
If you are unlucky enough to have bet already, you can find the 2 place market on betfair, or not lay and hope it places, or lay and hope it doesn’t come 3rd. That’s all assuming you have already placed your win lay, that will not be affected. if you have already laid the place as well, you can back out of the lay then do any of the above. Remembering all the time that you will have to calculate rule 4 as well. (it should go without saying that rule 4 is applied to the place as well as the win)
As I say, not for newbies!

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Chris 18 February 2, 2017 at 10:59 am

The 1.35 Towcester is also good today but it has 8 runners at present so high risk as it will only pay 2 places if theres a non runner.

I am keeping my eye on it and Ardmayle in particular who I fancy for a top 3 place.

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Chris 18 February 2, 2017 at 11:18 am

Just taken First Du Charmil £50 ew at Marathon bet as they were offering a monster 10.0 odds on it. Prepared to let that one run should there be a non runner.

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sleepless 8 February 2, 2017 at 12:14 pm

As M said re. liquidity, there is usually next to nothing early on for outsiders. If you try and lay the win it doesn’t get matched and the lay odds go way out. Place doesn’t matter too much as you lay just before and there’s enough liquidity.

First Charmel is there at 9.5/2.7 lay 12/1.96.
Underlay the place to cover the win QL.
If wins, should make £12 risk free ( if 8 run) on £50ew by my maths

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FoG_BLoG 47 February 2, 2017 at 12:24 pm

This idea that because the lay price comes down close to the race – why don’t you trade it makes no sense. You can’t back the lay price.

In the morning the back price to place on the exchange will be something like 3.45 and the lay price will be something like 3.65. The money only comes in on the place market closer to the off so the odds tighten up to maybe 3.5 to back and 3.51 to lay. Its not like you can back at 3.65 and lay when it drops.

There is little value in laying at 3.65 when you can see there is clearly a big gap between the back and lay and that the true price will probably meet somewhere in between. You can see the overall value/fairness in the market by checking the overround, in a 3 place race this should be 300%, if its much lower than this on the lay side then there is little value to be had in laying in the exchange and better waiting for the market to tighten. The risk is that the horse might drift, but you’re not really gambling on the horse shortening – if he remains about the same price or even just drifts not too much then when the exchange market on the place betting tightens up the lay should still come down.

Also because the way we match the odds we will often get on a steamer and the lay odds might come in a bit more.

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bbobb 21 February 2, 2017 at 12:48 pm

First Du Charmil can be laid on the EW market at Betfair for 8.4 (available in varios places at 9).

Does this also not negate the problems of a non-runner taking the places down to 2?

Am I missing somethign obvious?

Combine with a bookie with faller insurance and this could be a goldmine.

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bbobb 21 February 2, 2017 at 12:50 pm

Forget that post…. non runners dont change place terms.

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Chris 18 February 2, 2017 at 12:58 pm

sleepless – thats poor advice telling people to lay the win now on First Du Charmil when the lay odds are crap. Yes they could drift out but they’ve actually come in a bit. No way in hell should anyone be taking a £12 loss on the win part with an hour to go before the race.

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