• Place Betting Methods Meaning
• Place Betting Methods Examples
• Place Betting Methods Against
• Place Betting Methods Definition

Place betting is a popular way of securing long-term profitability in horse racing.

I have been using this staking plan for my place betting. You start with 1 unit if it loses you move to 2 units if it loses you move to 3 units. If the place bet won is equal or greater than $1.60 you move back one unit. If I was on 3 units per bet I would move back to 2 units for the next bet. Cheeky PunterThe ultimate guide to betting deposit options. Find out what methods are available and which are the best bookmaker to use with each. The idea of place betting seems appealing and many punters may look towards that strategy because they can’t quite get across the line to profit on the win betting side of things.It’s easy to identify days where you lost on your win bets and calculate that if you had of backed those horses to place, that you would have made money. This Strategy is designed to play a sequence of bets until an overall profit is achieved, each time we encounter a losing bet the next stake in the staking plan is placed on the next Lay bet, continue increasing the stakes for each bet until the overall win in the sequence is achieved. Staking Plan is shown on the results page for this strategy.

Online betting begins with making a deposit and ends with getting paid. Here we talk about the best ways to fund your account and receive your winnings.

The odds are far less but the chances of finishing in the first three are greater.

With the right planning, the punter can make significant profits over a long period of time.

Place betting is not only for the ladies

Betting for a place once had a stigma attached.

The place punter was that little old lady who invests 50 cents each time on the “odds-on” favourite, for a place!

The thrill of winning, even for a small profit, is enough for her to enjoy a day on the punt.

Nowadays, astute punters turn to the place bet for increased certainty around profiting on each investment.

In a race with 8 or more runners, the horse needs only to finish in the first to 3 to collect a dividend.

This is called “hitting the board” because the horse’s number is put up amongst the first three finishers on the results board.

When betting on horses for the place, the odds are considerably smaller, often less than a quarter of the win dividend.

But don’t forget, even if the horse is beaten into second or third placing, you will still make a profit on your investment.

There is also plenty of opportunity to make serious money.

Only last weekend for example, the Villagebet lucky longshot selection, Red Alto, started at the long odds of $81 for the win.

It finished third, paying $17.70 in pari-mutuel betting.

Imagine the excitement if you’d backed a winner at odds of $17.70.

Even though it was a place bet, the enjoyment standing in the payout queue is equally as great!

If you see value, there’s nothing stopping you from giving it a go.

Remember, interest rates on cash deposits in the bank are only around 4%.

How are the place odds calculated?

In the old days before the advent of digital odds, the punter would walk up to the bookmaker in the ring and get 25% odds for the place.

The same calculation was made for the place component of each-way betting.

If the horse is showing odds of 8-1, the bookie would offer place odds of 2-1.

Later, it was even cut to 1/5 the win bet odds.

Although a considerable cut in potential winnings, it still wasn’t a bad offer for an 8-1 shot to “hit the board”.

This was the original “Fixed Odds” bet.

With Fixed Odds, the odds that you get when placing the bet are your odds until the race is over.

It doesn’t change, even if there are later fluctuations in betting.

Nowadays, most of the bets are done electronically.

Pari-mutuel betting (tote betting) on the place, does not consider the win bet odds.

The tote betting system combines all the bets for the place into a place pool that is separate from the win bets.

In tote betting, the place dividend is calculated as such.

Divide the total investment (minus the rake for that bet type) by the amount of money invested on the selection (after rounding down).

More simply, it’s sharing the pool among all winning bets.

Fixed Odds place betting

With most corporate bookmakers, you can also take a Fixed Odds bet for the place.

In fixed odds, the bookmaker calculates the odds for each horse at any given moment, based on the probabilities of it winning.

The net outcome of the total book for the race is always in their favour.

That is, the sum of the probabilities quoted for all possible outcomes is in excess of 100%.

Fixed Odds is a way to secure the odds if there is value at the time.

Otherwise, any pre-race fluctuations will affect the starting odds.

Place betting for profit

Place betting is a sensible way to bet if you don’t mind the small dividends.

Often it’s better to bet on a horse for the place, then to bet on a more favoured runner for win only.

It also allows the punter to gamble on a horse at much longer odds.

There may not be sufficient confidence in the horse winning.

However, there is evidence that the horse will put up a good showing and sneak into a place.

Betting on a 40-1 horse for a place is better than backing the favourite to win at $2.

It’s a matter of awareness.

Place Betting Methods Meaning

To be mindful that there are many more ways to skin a cat when playing the horses for profit.

Remember, your selections in place betting can also be used to bet the trifecta. You can make them standout selections or roving bankers. Trifecta betting is a way to take place betting to the next level.

Bookmaker bonuses are like place betting

Recent bonuses offered by bookmakers are, in some ways, like place betting.

For example, the online betting company Unibet often has the following betting bonus.

If your horse is beaten into 2nd or 3rd place, you still receive up to $50 in bonus bets.

The amount of the bonus bet depends on the initial investment.

This is a great way to mimic place betting because you get a return on investment even if the horse runs a place.

Place Betting Methods Examples

It’s like having insurance on your win bets.

As they say, thinking about the different ways you can bet to make a profit is a great way to “raise your game“.

Aim for small and consistent profits

We should aim to make consistent profits over the long term instead of focusing on large windfalls.

I recommend to try one or two days of focusing on betting for the place and not the win.

Don’t use real money in this experiment, just spread your bets throughout the day and track your success.

If you can see the potential for real profits over the long term, then dip your toes in the water and invest.

Let us know how you go on our punter’s forum and any pitfalls you encountered.

All the best and good punting!

Category: Punting Advice

As you know I am always looking for new system ideas when using the speed ratings that I can share with subscribers and another simple, yet so far effective idea came to me during the racing last Saturday afternoon, which has proved a profitable place betting system using the speed ratings.

I started playing around with the rules of System 4, one of a number of systems that subscribers receive and one of the most popular going on the feedback and I began looking to find a high strike rate of horses that would place only.

As with a lot of my ideas, the rules are not mechanical in any way and they also evolve during use, based on the results that I get, but overall and from a small sample over a few days of betting the results have been positive.

Place Betting – Starting Rules

Simple enough to follow and from the filters that I have added, I am looking at Handicap races with 12 or less runners and from these I look at the Lto (Last Time Out Column), giving the latest rating for each runner.

Taking all of the those highlighted as top 3 horses in the Lto column, I am looking for the horse who finished in the worst position last time that is also below 3.00 in the Betfair place market close to the off.

If the horse with the worst finishing position is 3.0 or bigger then look for the next worst placed horse from those highlighted in the Lto column down to those who finished second. I am not a fan of backing horses who won last time out so I stop at any that finished second – you may decide to go down to last time out winners if you wish.

I have added two screenshots below of my Betfair fun account that I use to test ideas, showing all of the bets that I placed. As you will see I only had a few bets on Saturday and Sunday afternoon but a good number of bets on Monday (yesterday).

I started betting using £20 stakes, increasing this to £30 from the last race at Salisbury into the evening racing at Chelmsford and you can see that the profit made is fairly healthy.

(Please click any images to enlarge them.)

I did initially think that it would be wise to ignore horses that had had a long lay off but there have been some successful bets on horses that have been rested for a while so I am not too concerned about this at present.

Notes on the above results.

The successful bet in the 6.00 at Chepstow was a National Hunt Flat Race not a Hanidicap and whilst the horse Poetic Rhythm actually won at 8/1, I think keeping to handicaps would be more sensible as there is more reliable form to go by.

(Incidentally, I didn’t back qualifier Pearl Acclaim in the 7.55 Chelmsford on Monday evening and this came second at a similar place price to Poetic Rhtyhm so the profit and loss shown would be about the same.)

I had a cheeky £2 win and place bet on a big outsider in the 4.20 Goodwood on Saturday which lost and this is shown on the results above.

I did back Richie McCaw in an 18 runner handicap on Saturday and despite this success, now believe that restricting it to races of just 12 or less will ensure a better strike rate and with the horse placing at 2.06 would mean a smaller profit made on that shown of about £20.

I could have a few more place betting bets but the odds on the selections place prices were too short for me.

Possible Filter

From the results so far, two horses that lost had SP’s of 10/1 and 9/1 and were also both 5th favourite in the betting. My initial thought was for horses to be in the first three of the betting but backed these as the place prices were under 3.0.

The majority of horses have been at 6/1 or less but three other successful horses had SP’s of 7/1, 7/1 and 8/1. Two of these were 4th favourite in the betting, one at 7/1 was 5th, so it is really down to you how you play this regarding the odds and how fancied a horse actually is.

I think if you were being strict you could say it must be one of the first three in the betting and with a maximum of 12 runners you would expect the place price to be under 3.0.

Lots of us like to relax the rules a little however and have a few more bets, all I can say is that from this small sample, ignoring the position of the horse in the betting would not have made much difference.

Sometimes you get a gut feeling about a horse and backing it when you think you shouldn’t will result in a loss the majority of the time!

My Final Rules to Follow – Place Betting Only

Handicap races only.

12 runners maximum. A race can have more runners declared but at the off it must only have 12 at the most.

Races where Betfair are paying 3 places for a place, so no races where only 7 or less were declared.

Take the horse with the worst finishing position last time out from all those highlighted as top rated in the Lto column.

Selections must be less than 3.0 in the Betfair place market close to the off .

If it is over 3.0 then ignore this horse and look at the horse with the next worst finishing position from all those highlighted as top rated in the Lto column.

A minimum price? Personally I think you should try and get at least 1.7 otherwise you will be risking too much for too little reward. From all my results there has only been one I backed at under 1.7, it was 1.63 and it came 5th.

An example from yesterday

This a handicap race for 10 runners and looking at the Lto column you can see that there are four horses highlighted (in purple and in Bold type) as top or joint top rated. Cacia (84), Unsuspected Girl (79), East Coast Lady (79) and All The Rage (75).

You do not look at the highest rated first, you look at all of the horses and hover over the Lto rating to get the finishing position for that run. From these four horses, Cacia finished 1st, Unsuspected Girl and East Coast Lady both finished 3rd and All The Rage finished 2nd.

With two horses showing the same worst position of 3rd, you look at the betting and see that East Coast Lady was over 3.0 for a place, in fact it went off at 4.0 whilst Unsuspected Girl went of at 2.9, the price I got just before the off.

Below is how it looks when you hover over each rating, giving you the finishing position plus much more detail about any particular rating and run. Here it shows the details for Unsuspected Girl last time out at Kempton where the rating was 79 and finishing position was 3rd.

Place Betting, Back to Win or Each Way?

Place Betting Methods Against

Not counting the horse in the NHFlat race or the one in the 18 runner handicap race, there were 21 selections in all, with 16 of them winning or placed.

This gives an excellent 76% strike rate for coming 1st, 2nd or 3rd and an average place price of 2.3 and as you can see from my Betfair account I made over £300 profit to mainly £20, then £30 stakes, so a good return and success – thus far.

From the 21 selections there were actually 6 winners giving a 29% strike rate and a profit to BSP before commission of 23.14 pts, over £460 to £20 stakes.

Place Betting Methods Definition

You may wish to back these selections to win or each way but I was looking for a place betting idea and with the high strike rate so far would be happy enough sticking to this plan for now.

Results Update 19/04/2017

From the 1st March to today’s date, there has been a profit made of +25.91 points and if you just place the win part of the bet, this increases to +40.86 points.

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