Sponsored by Betfair.com

How to lay a horse not to win:

First open an account with Betfair.com.

If you have never "layed" a bet before don't worry it is very simple. First of all you need to open an account with one of the betting exchanges. You can do this by clicking on the link above to go straight to Bet fair.com.

Laying Horses To Lose

• Atips.co.uk - Free Saturday info of horses to avoid
• Lay The Bet - Daily information, on horses they think will lose
• Lay To Win - Make money by backing horses to lose
• Whambam - Each day they lay a number of short priced favourites to lose

Losers into Winners

Since the launch of betting exchange sites such as Betfair.com , the subject of laying horses to lose has become increasingly popular.

Not surprising really as for years many people have believed that betting is a mugs game and the only people to make money from it are the bookmakers. Now is their chance to become the bookmaker and take bets on horses to lose a race.

One such person to do exactly that is Raj Patel and in the eBook Losers into Winners he explains the methods he uses to work out what races to analyse and which horses to lay. The publisher of this eBook has kindly sent a copy to Racing-Index to review.

In the past I have had a dabble at laying horses to lose, but never really had much luck. So I thought it would be interesting to see how someone was making a full time living at the game.

Personally I don't like reading masses of information from the screen, as I prefer to preserve my eyesight. The book doesn't have the option to print all the content in one go, but it only takes a few minutes to step through the sections and print them one by one. The book also contains links to race data examples, so it is well worth printing them off too.

Raj assumes no prior knowledge of either racing or using the betting exchanges and explains things in an easy to understand way and includes plenty of screen shots to help with his explanations. He uses Betfair.com for his examples, which is understandable as they are the biggest of the betting exchanges.

I have seen other services advising to lay horses at odds of 5/1 and 6/1. These show long runs of horses failing to win, but when a horse does win, it can set your betting bank right back. Raj on the other hand concentrates on short priced favorites.

He explains exactly which races you should be looking at and what to look for in deciding whether the horse is a worthy favorite or worth laying. He gives examples for both flat and national hunt races and talks you through the factors of the race and the conclusions arrived at.

In fact the basic form analysis that he passes on is not only useful for people wanting to lay horses to lose, it will also be useful in stopping you from backing favorites to win at odds shorter than they should be.

Raj also explains the advantages of laying more than one horse in a race and when to lay the horse not to be placed (finish 1, 2 or 3rd) and what odds to set.

In addition to the eBook you also get access to a members forum where you can post questions to Raj or find out how others that have purchased the eBook are getting on with their laying.

OK it's all very well in theory, but does it work and can you get people to take up your bets in order to make a profit. Well as they say the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so having read through all the information and examples I had ago at analyzing the days racing using Raj's techniques.

He uses the paper version of the Racing Post for his examples, but I used the online version, which is just as good. I scanned through the race cards and highlighted 4 races for analysis. Of these 2 of the favorites looked worth opposing.

The 1st was in the 3.20 at Plumpton. Garruth was forecast priced favorite at 5/4. Despite it's short price I considered it well worth laying from what I had learned. Over £16,000 was matched on Betfair at odds of 2.1 (11/10). Garruth was well supported in the market and went off at 11/10, but could only managed 3rd place.

The 2nd was in the 3.30 at Hereford. The favorite was Tombazaan. It's forecast price was 7/4, which is bigger than Raj recommends, but it stood out as too good an opportunity to miss. Checking on Betfair I could have laid it at odds of 2.9 (19/10). In the live betting market it drifted from 7/4 out to 3/1 2nd favorite and finished only 4th.

So two out of two. By no means conclusive proof, but an excellent start. The two other favorites I looked at and decided not to lay, both won.

I'll continue to paper trade for a few days then if all goes well I'll be dusting off my Betfair.com account and putting my new found knowledge into action.

Reviewed by Steve Perkins of Racing-Index