When it concerns laying horses, bettors falter thinking laying favourites offers value. They assume that because of the low odds, and only win about 32 percent of the time, that they will be in the money 68 percent of the time and do not need to risk much of their bank roll.
But laying all favourites 'willy nilly' is dangerous. Just like backing all favourites, laying all favourites is too generic. Some are genuine favourites, some are false, some are overpriced, some are underpriced. Overall you can not profit from them.
Backing all favourites in every race makes a loss of about 6.7%. So doing the opposite, and laying them, should realise a 6.7% profit right?
No. Laying all favourites in every race makes a loss of 0.3%
Why is that? If bookies are profiting to the tune of 6.7% from favourite backers why don't we when we lay the same favourites?
It's because of commission and over pricing. If you can keep your commission low, and offer a price as close to SP as possible then you can profit from laying all favourites. But realistically you are going to have to pay the exchanges commission when you win, and you have to offer backers a price slightly higher than the SP.
