Ebor Festival Trading Tips: How to profit on the ultra competitive Ebor Handicap

• Use Bet Angel tool to profit without backing a winner

• Competitive races with no obvious favourite are ideal for Betfair trading

• Bet Angel's Peter Webb explains all

It's easy to understand why people are interested in Betfair trading. On Saturday, we have the impenetrable betting heat that is the Ebor Handicap.

It's almost impossible to pick a winner when betting on the Ebor given the competitive nature of the race. But these sorts of races are straightforward to profit from when Betfair trading.

For those enthusiastic about trading on Betfair, there's no tool more powerful than Bet Angel. If you are starting out on this journey, then also make sure you use practice mode to get to grips with the concept of trading and using software like Bet Angel.

The Essence of Successful Trading: Simplicity

Every trader, new or seasoned, seeks methods that simplify the decision-making process and increase the likelihood of profits. At its core, Betfair trading is the process of getting two bets matched at different prices and netting the profit between the two.

You will profit if you place two bets into the market and lay at a lower price than you back at, or vice versa. But how do you do that?

The 'Make Market' method is one such solution. It's really easy to use on Bet Angel. All you need to do is set a stake you wish to use and then click on the make market button; that's it. Doing this will place two orders into the betting market at the 'reverse touch' price.

If both positions find a match, voila, you're in profit. The beauty of this method is that it requires zero predictions about the market direction, making it a sound strategy, especially for beginners.

Diverse Markets, Diverse Outcomes

A crucial aspect of Betfair trading is understanding that not all markets are equal. The outcomes from the 'Make Market' method, or any trading strategy for that matter, will vary across markets. For instance, a competitive handicap market, characterised by horses priced similarly, is particularly suited to the strategy.

The reason competitive handicaps work for this strategy is that we are just trying to match two orders. We don't want the odds to shoot off in one direction or another; we want a market that can't identify a clear favourite and has no predominant trend in the odds.

As an ultra-competitive handicap, the Ebor is perfect for this strategy.

Offering versus Taking

One critical trading decision you can make is offering bets to the market rather than taking them from the available prices. That means that even if the price doesn't move, backers or layers in the market will take your prices, your orders will be matched, and you will profit.

Offering can drastically enhance your chances of profitable trades. Therefore, by configuring the odds display in Bet Angel to reverse or using the 'make market' feature, you can offer bets rather than take them, a subtle yet effective way to improve your chance of a profitable trade.

The ball is in your court when you offer a bet to the market. Unlike "taking" a price, which demands the need to swing in your favour, offering allows you to profit or break even, even if the initial trade direction isn't favourable.

Effective trading

You can also do more than one trade in a market. Once my first trade has been matched, I will do another. I'll repeat that process until we are close to the start of the race, and then I'll hedge my position.

The benefit of doing so is that you can use a fixed stake, which limits your risk. But your potential profit comes down to how much money is matched in the market and how many trades you can do.

Look at a trading result from last year's Ebor meeting. You can see that I have made a profit of £101 regardless of who wins the race and before the race has even started.

My stake is limited to £100, but you can see that I have traded a total of £1000 in the market. This is because I have put the trade through the market ten times. I have made £100 on £100 stakes from a trading perspective.

My final process is to hedge my bet to win, whatever the result, before the race has started.

That's the major appeal of Betfair trading.

Summary

Betfair trading, while daunting for some, can be simplified with the right tools and strategies.

Embrace simplicity, understand the market's nuances, get used to offering bets rather than taking them, and you'll be well on your way to mastering Betfair trading.