Lay Systems

Professional Lay Betting System

Stephen Evans from laysystems.com has kindly sent me a copy of his “Professional Lay Betting System” for review. Stephen describes himself as a Chartered Accountant, Company Director and A-Level Statistician, he also says a professional gambler.

He does not offer his system as a downloadable ebook or pdf file. You are required to send a cheque to his work address and in return he sends you a 30 page printed manual. This may see an old fashioned way to do things, but I feel it makes it stand out from the run of the mill lay bet systems you see advertised.

The manual is made up of 5 main parts. The first 2 take up 8 pages and provide an introduction to lay betting and Betfair, so anyone already familiar to lay betting can easily skip those sections.

The system itself concentrates on laying “false favourites” it concentrates on the type of race, rather than laying a particular horse based upon form study. The manual explains how to identify the right races and gives printed examples of what to look for.

All the required information is available from the Racing Post web site, without the need to register for the members area.

On his site, Stephen says you should put aside around half an hour to look for qualifiers. If you just stick to the basic system filters that would be more than enough time. It takes around 5 minutes to draw up a list of races where there's a potential bet, you then head over to Betfair, or any of the other exchanges, check the odds and lay your bets.

You can spend more time going through, the additional filters, which are designed to improve the strike rate of the system, but for the purpose of this review I've just stuck to the basic filters.

I've got into a habit of doing an initial check of the odds around 9:00am and then check back again around mid-day to see if any more horses qualify. If you have access to your PC just before the race you'll get even more qualifying bets.

When I first read the system rules I thought it was likely everyone using the system would come up with the same selections to lay, but having used it for over a week I see it's unlikely any two people will come up with exactly the same bets each day.

Over the past week Stephen has sent me details from his Betfair account, showing the horses he has laid. There have been several differences from the bets I laid. That isn't to say either of us is using the system wrong, it just depends on what time of day you access Betfair and the odds available at that time.

For instance on 14th November I laid Con Artist in the 1.00pm at Lingfield. At the time I placed the bet it was the favourite at odds of 3.5 (5/2). The horse drifted in the market and won the race at 7/1. That was a losing bet for me, but anyone having placed their bets later in the morning would have likely laid Whistleinthewind, who went off the evens favourite and only finished 3rd (just goes to show the market doesn't always get it right).

During the trial I'll only be laying selections from Monday through to Saturday. The system can be adapted slightly to work on a Sunday, but I prefer to have a break from betting.

The system is one thing, but Stephen also gives great importance to his staking plan. Part 4 of the manual explains the plan, which involves increasing stakes to recover losses from losing bets. I have to admit I'm not a fan of stake recovery methods, as bet sizes can mount up very quickly. With his statistical background, Stephen is well aware of this aspect and advises measures to keep you within your betting bank limits.

During the trial I've been laying the selections to level stakes, but I've also worked out what the profit would've been if the staking plan had been adopted. So far it has performed well, but there's not been enough bets for me to see the true implications of using the plan. I'll be continuing to trial the system until the end of the year and will report back along the way how things get on.

The system manual indicates you can expect the strike rate to be consistently above 70%. So far I've achieved 38 successful lays from 46 bets, which is 82.6%. A lower strike rate would affect the level stakes profit, but not that achieved using the staking plan.

The final part of the manual is titled "Future considerations" and covers areas where you might like to experiment tweaking the system or increasing the odds cut-off points. However for the trial I'll just stick to the main filters and advised odds range.

I'll be updating results, during the trial, via the Racing Index Blog.

For more details about the system, see Professional Lay Betting System.

Results Up to 21st November:

Date	Time	Course	Horse	Pos	SP	LP	Stake	p/l	Profit
13/11/09	13:25	Newcastle	Smuglin	1	2/ 1	3.70	£10	-£27.00	-£27.00
13/11/09	13:50	Cheltenham	Some Present	2	13/ 8	2.72	£10	£9.50	-£17.50
13/11/09	15:55	Lingfield	Resplendent Ace	3	11/ 4	3.95	£10	£9.50	-£8.00
13/11/09	16:05	Cheltenham	Ashkazar	4	5/ 2	3.70	£10	£9.50	£1.50
13/11/09	19:20	Wolverhampton	Desert Poppy	2	2/ 1	3.85	£10	£9.50	£11.00
13/11/09	20:50	Wolverhampton	Fanunalter	3	7/ 4	3.95	£10	£9.50	£20.50
14/11/09	12:40	Wetherby	Leulahleulahlay	PU	3/ 1	2.94	£10	£9.50	£30.00
14/11/09	13:00	Lingfield	Con Artist	1	7/ 1	3.50	£10	-£25.00	£5.00
14/11/09	15:05	Lingfield	Global City	1	3/ 2	3.20	£10	-£22.00	-£17.00
14/11/09	15:35	Lingfield	Ektimaal	5	2/ 1	3.95	£10	£9.50	-£7.50
14/11/09	15:50	Uttoxeter	Future Vision	5	2/ 1	3.20	£10	£9.50	£2.00
14/11/09	18:20	Wolverhampton	Bertie Southstreet	4	2/ 1	3.60	£10	£9.50	£11.50
14/11/09	19:50	Wolverhampton	Willing Foe	6	1/ 1	2.40	£10	£9.50	£21.00
14/11/09	20:50	Wolverhampton	Samaaha	5	6/ 5	3.10	£10	£9.50	£30.50
16/11/09	14:00	Wolverhampton	Sabatini	1	9/ 2	4.00	£10	-£30.00	£0.50
16/11/09	14:30	Wolverhampton	Zegna	2	3/ 1	3.70	£10	£9.50	£10.00
16/11/09	15:30	Wolverhampton	Force Group	3	17/ 8	3.60	£10	£9.50	£19.50
16/11/09	16:00	Wolverhampton	Fantasy Explorer	3	15/ 8	4.00	£10	£9.50	£29.00
17/11/09	13:40	Folkestone	Vodka Brook	2	2/ 1	3.90	£10	£9.50	£38.50
17/11/09	14:10	Folkestone	Itea Du Fau	PU	9/ 4	3.20	£10	£9.50	£48.00
17/11/09	15:40	Folkestone	Maraksh	4	11/ 4	2.96	£10	£9.50	£57.50
18/11/09	13:00	Lingfield	Royal Box	5	5/ 2	3.80	£10	£9.50	£67.00
18/11/09	18:20	Kempton	Farncombe	5	11/ 4	2.88	£10	£9.50	£76.50
18/11/09	18:50	Kempton	Commander Wish	6	2/ 1	4.00	£10	£9.50	£86.00
18/11/09	19:50	Kempton	Staff Sergeant	7	7/ 4	1.75	£10	£9.50	£95.50
18/11/09	20:20	Kempton	Libertino	4	3/ 1	2.94	£10	£9.50	£105.00
19/11/09	13:10	Huntingdon	Wizard Of Odds	2	10/ 3	2.99	£10	£9.50	£114.50
19/11/09	14:50	Hereford	Go West	2	5/ 2	3.60	£10	£9.50	£124.00
19/11/09	17:30	Kempton	Excellent Thought	3	9/ 4	3.50	£10	£9.50	£133.50
19/11/09	18:00	Kempton	Fantasy Explorer	2	9/ 4	4.00	£10	£9.50	£143.00
20/11/09	14:15	Exeter	Glisland	PU	5/ 2	3.85	£10	£9.50	£152.50
20/11/09	14:50	Exeter	Green Belt Elite	2	7/ 2	4.00	£10	£9.50	£162.00
20/11/09	17:50	Wolverhampton	Light Sleeper	3	8/11	2.37	£10	£9.50	£171.50
20/11/09	19:20	Wolverhampton	North South Divide	11	7/ 2	3.21	£10	£9.50	£181.00
20/11/09	20:50	Wolverhampton	Merchant Of Dubai	1	11/ 4	3.50	£10	-£25.00	£156.00
21/11/09	12:00	Lingfield	Bubbly Braveheart	4	5/ 2	3.81	£10	£9.50	£165.50
21/11/09	12:20	Ascot	Grangeclare Gold	5	4/ 1	3.10	£10	£9.50	£175.00
21/11/09	12:25	Lingfield	Punching	3	11/ 4	3.90	£10	£9.50	£184.50
21/11/09	12:50	Lingfield	Forest Dane	3	5/ 2	3.64	£10	£9.50	£194.00
21/11/09	12:55	Ascot	Noakarad De Verzee	4	5/ 1	3.10	£10	£9.50	£203.50
21/11/09	13:25	Lingfield	Sakile	1	3/ 1	2.90	£10	-£19.00	£184.50
21/11/09	13:55	Lingfield	Everymanforhimself	3	4/ 1	4.00	£10	£9.50	£194.00
21/11/09	14:35	Ascot	Zaynar	1	9/ 4	2.90	£10	-£19.00	£175.00
21/11/09	15:10	Ascot	Voy Por Ustedes	3	7/ 2	3.55	£10	£9.50	£184.50
21/11/09	20:15	Wolverhampton	Mass Rally	1	11/10	2.86	£10	-£18.60	£165.90
21/11/09	21:15	Wolverhampton	Bel Cantor	2	6/ 1	4.00	£10	£9.50	£175.40

LP = Laid Price

Using the advised staking plan the profit would be £423.30