Actually my favourite technique though I don’t claim to be a professional. In my opinion it is a safe and boring enough way to bring you small yet steady income.
The basic concept is very easy: back at higher price and lay at lower price on the same selection. If you adjust your bet amounts correctly you will end up with green figures near each selection in the market though you bet only on one of them.
The difference between the first price and second one is called “off-set”. It is measured in price ticks as compared to the initial price, taking into account tick size. For instance difference between 2.24 and 2.28 is 2 ticks. For 3.95 and 4.2 it makes 3 ticks.
The size of your profit will strongly depend not only on the amount of your bet, but also on the “tick offset” of the price you’re making the second bet. The greater is the difference between back & lay prices the bigger is your profit.
Let’s consider a simple example:
You’re backing 100 GBP at 3.35. How much you must lay at 3.3 to generate profit no matter if the selection wins? The formula is very simple: multiply back price & amount, then divide it by the lay price. In our case 100*3.35/3.3 = 101.52. So if you back 100 @ 3.35, then lay 101.52 @ 3.3 you will end up with the following winnings: 1.53 if the runner wins and 1.52 if the runner loses.
Nice, isn’t it?
In the above example the price off-set is 1 tick and the lay amount was “proportional” to the back amount because we calculated it using back price & amount.
Now, how do we know that our second bet will be matched? Strictly speaking there is never a 100% guarantee that both of your stakes will be matched because the market may go into the opposite direction: i.e. you were planning to back at higher then lay at lower price and the moment you backed the prices started growing up.
This is surely bad luck, but sometimes we can have some hope that price movements will be bi-directional. For instance, if a market is popular among bettors and the event is going to start soon. The best example is a horse race when it’s left less than 30 minutes to the beginning. Prices are changing very fast, but in most cases they go up and down. That gives us a chance to speculate on these movements.
So probably the best moment to bet is when the price has just dropped or leaped at lest for one tick. If it has dropped we may lay at the low price having in mind that it will soon go higher and we could close our position by backing. And on the contrary once the price has grown up one or more ticks it’s a good opportunity to back then lay a couple of ticks lower.
I’m now getting very close to the point when we are ready to construct our first offset.
In MarketFeeder Pro the term “Offset” means one pair of back & lay bets that need to be matched. If you add several offsets, you actually add several pairs of back & lay bets. Inside an offset both bets are posted on the same selection.
Here are the options you can set for each offset in MarketFeeder Pro:
Market where you want to play – from the drop down list
Selection you want to bet on, including all runners of this market from the drop-down list. But options like “Winner, Second Winner, Loser” are also available. I personally always play on winner because the liquidity is the highest there, but it’s your own choice.
Action, or it is better to say “Actions”. It defines the order in which you want to bet: for instance “back then lay” or “lay then back”. It matters if the runner you’re betting on is a favourite. The lower its price is the safer it is to back first and then lay.
Price you want to start from. You can either set a specific price you want to start from (like in our example – it would be 3.35) or you can choose from the drop down list :”best, 1 tick better than best – up to 3 ticks better than best”. The latter options match you if you with to trade on the current offers.
Off-Set Ticks – defines how much you want to risk. If your off-set ticks are high you will earn more profit, but your second stake can stay unmatched if the prices drift in the wrong direction. My usual practice is 2-3 ticks, but it’s a matter of intuition.
Back & Lay amount. You can set both amounts specifically, for instance back 100 and lay 101.52. But if you don’t know the price you’ll start from it is reasonable to let the software decide for you how much it should bet based on your first stake parameters. So you can put it only back amount and set lay amount as “proportional”. Then it will be calculated according to the current price, off-set tick and back amount.
Condition. This option allows you to choose what the condition of placing the second bet is. It can be either specific time passed after the first bet (for instance 1 second after the first bet). Or it can wait until the first bet is matched – highly important if prices are shifting up and down so unpredictably that even your first bet may stay unmatched.
Wait for price – If you put in a specific initial price you can select “yes” to make the software wait until the selection reaches it. Also, if you put in a price value in this column it will wait for this very price value and then bet at the price you specified in the third column. For example: wait for price 1.5 and then back at 1.3 – this way you’ll make sure that BetFair automatically adjusts this stake to the best offer if there is better offer than 1.3
Wait for leap – the most tactical option. If set to a positive figure waits until the price makes a leap up for a specified number of ticks. As you already know this is the best moment to back. And vice versa if set to a negative number of ticks waits until the price drops down to that extent. So, this is practically your “eyes kept on the price chart”, only you are not the one who does the watching:)
Active – activates the offset. Should be either “once each selection” or “always”.
Let meshow you a very simple example of my every-day trading with offsets. Below you can see a screenshot of how I added my first offset. I specified market, set selection to “win”, chose “lay then back” because the price were around 3.0 so I considered it safer to lay first – in case my second back bet leaves unmatched. I then set the back amount to 100 and lay amount to “proportional”. Since I selected “best” price I don’t need to “wait for it”. But I enjoy using “wait for leap” field. In my example the offset will be triggered once the price of the selection drops down for 1 tick.
Here we go. I set “Active” to “once each selection” – but as I have just one selection it actually means “once” and pressed “Save Changes”. Now I can sit back and watch what will be happening. As soon as MarketFeeder Pro spots a price drop (in my case – from 3.35 to 3.3) it immediately placed its initial lay bet:
The offset row flashes pink. This way you’ll know what kind of bet was just placed. Later when it notices that my first bet was matched (I have set the condition to “initial bet matched”) it will flash blue indicating a complimentary back stake.
Several seconds passed and as expected the price returned to its initial level of 3.35 and my second bet was therefore matched. 100 @ 3.35 and 101.52 @ 3.3. Voila!
From the screenshot of the market sheet you can see that each of selections now shows positive profit/loss – the winner 1.53, the other ones 1.52. In the “Matched” column I can see my matched back and lay amount. MarketFeeder Pro calculated lay amount according to my back input – that made 101.52. We can easily check that: 100*3.35 / 3.3 = 101.51(51)
This is a very basic and simple example. With MarketFeeder Pro options you can enhance it. For instance, you can first back, then check how much was matched, cancel unmatched portion and place the second bet accordingly to how much was matched in the first step. You can bet on several selections in the same market using one offset. You can add up to 1000 offsets in multiple markets.
As one of our customers said, the possibilities are endless!
