| By :
David Duffield
I have long been a serious sceptic when it comes to place betting and here are just a few reasons why -
(1) The TAB take-out is hefty and then you have the killer round-down which means you're betting into a 118-120% market. A punter needs quite a profitable betting edge to overcome this 20% head-start. Speaking in the old betting language, do you want to take 10's on about a horse that should be almost 4's on? To demonstrate this I'll use the following example for a horse whose place dividend would be $1.23 in a 100% or fair market.
After the TAB commission this horse goes from $1.23 to $1.19.
After the TAB's rounding down policy the horse's place odds become a very skinny $1.10 Any serious punter would know that this makes a huge percentage difference and that anyone who takes $1.10 about a $1.23 chance would be at unbackable odds to lose long-term. (2) It's much more difficult to shop around for best odds since the place betting market is far smaller and less price competitive. When you're betting for the win it's quite straightforward to shop around for the best odds, but the options are for more limited when it comes to place betting. (3) If you have an approach that can actually make a profit betting the place, then with just a little fine tuning I am almost certain you will be better off betting these selections for the win. (4) Place betting requires a high strike-rate and it's a long way back from the inevitable losing run. (5) 8-10 runners is about the optimum field size for place betting yet many people use it in large fields when the odds are against you. While I am not a fan of place or each-way betting, Betchoice form analyst Mark Morrissey says some smart punters do make money this way. "When we first moved to the Northern Territory we offered fix price place betting and we actually got hammered. There were a few guys who specifically bet the place and bet very big at it. Place betting and framing markets for the place is a real art because it's not as simple as just offering a quarter of the win odds. For starters there is the obvious mathematics of it, with the wider the spread of the market from the favourite the shorter the place price". "Some punters just work statistically and look at consistent horses, but the punters who were most successful, and this goes against popular belief, were the guys punting on backmarkers for the place". "Most people betting the place want to be on the on-pacers, thinking that they can be up there near the lead, stay out of trouble and the punter gets a good run for his money. But that's not the way the pro's do it. The pro's look for faster run races and back the backmarkers because even off a slow pace these horses can bludge out the back and run on into second or third. If you're only betting on-pacers there is often no in-between; if there's no pace on your horse wins, if there is lots of pace your horse is tailed off. What I mean is backing on-pacers you have less 'mediocre' runs, so for place betting you're actually safer with backmarkers". While I wouldn't go as far as to say that place betting is for losers, unless you are doing specific analysis to identify good place betting opportunities I think there are much better options for your punting dollar.
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