Early Prices Vs BFSP

When placing bets in the mid to top end of the horse racing markets I can only ever recommend that punters take an early price with one of the major books, except Sporting Bet who like to offer the best prices on almost every race, but that's another story.

Yesterday was one of the weirdest examples of why it's never wise to rule out the betting exchanges altogether for these type of bets. I'm referring to the curious case of Ransom Note the winner of the 4:25 at Ascot yesterday (17th Jun 2010). The price to go for was 9/1 in the early markets and it was hovering around that mark on Betfair that morning too.

At around 5 minutes before the off the betfair price for Ransom Note had lengthened to 13's whilst the 2nd and 3rd favourites began to come in to 7's and 8's. The market was wavering around these amounts right up till the off when Ransom Note was no longer favourite and had drifted marginally from an early 9/1 to 10/1.

As the race turned inplay Ransom Note's Betfair Sp had gone from an expected 12/1 to an actual 24.45/1 in a flash. Now I'm sure you'll agree that if every race offered those kind of betting opportunities we'd all be knocking down the doors of the exchanges for a piece of the action. When the race had run and the winner was known there was a deafening silence because the race screen was frozen, the payouts on this event did not materialise in the usual time frame that Betfair normally take to settle racing markets.

No payouts and no news from Betfair. What could be happening? There had been a 1000/1 match of money in-play. Was there foul-play? Rumours and counter rumours were hitting the top of the forum in waves of disbelief, conspiracy theory and chinese whispers.

http://community.betfair.com/horse_racing/go/thread/view/94102/25069825/Ransom_Note_SP_25.5_-_what_happened_there

http://community.betfair.com/horse_racing/go/thread/view/94102/25070405/Will_they_void_the_4:25

http://community.betfair.com/horse_racing/go/thread/view/94102/25070089/4.35_not_settled_

After 45 minutes of chaos on the forum an announcement had appeared, Betfair were examining the SP of Ransom Note. About 15 minutes later, the market was settled and the price of 25.45 was recorded as the actual Betfair Sp. There was £2,400.00 backed to Betfair SP. You can only feel sorry for the layers. Were you one of the backers?

As ever, stay lucky!