Betalay System Review

Betalay System Review

Betalay System

Having received a copy of the Betalay system for review I set out to test it over a 45 racing day period. Selections were trialled to £10 stakes at Betfair SP (after deduction of 5% Betfair commission). Betalay is a laying system, applying to races in Great Britain only. It’s a very simple system – you lay horses using a simple criterion based on rank in the betting market in races that meet the qualifying criterion. It is applicable to all types of race under Flat and NH rules. There is an upper odds limit, above which you do not bet, which is a sensible precaution in any laying system and limits the amount you can lose on a single bet.

You place the bet no earlier than 30 seconds before the start, to be sure the horse you’re backing meets the system criteria at the off (or, at least, very close to the off). This means either that you must be available to monitor live prices and place bets manually or that you use a betting bot (automated betting software) to place the bets automatically.

The Betalay system costs £27 and comes in the form of an eBook that explains how to operate the system. As an eBook, of course, the system offers no possibility of a free trial or a guarantee of money back if not satisfied – the eBook describes the system and once you’ve seen it you know the system.

The eBook is eight pages long and very clearly describes the system and how to operate it. It also recommends a particular automated betting software package, should you wish to automate your use of the system. There is also a link to download Betalay’s own configuration settings for the software.

One substantial caveat at this stage: the Betalay website provides results for the system since the year 2000.  Unfortunately, these results are completely misleading, on two counts

• They are based on laying at SP which makes no sense as lay odds available on Betfair and the other exchanges are almost always considerably higher than the odds available from the regular bookies, on which the standard SP is based. My own research shows that, for the range of prices covered in Betalay’s historical results, Betfair SP odds are, on average, almost 16.5% higher than standard SP. The effect of this is that losing bets would, in reality, have lost more than quoted in Betalay’s results history and thus the profits quoted are considerably overstated.

• The results do not take exchange commission into account. Since the betting public can only place lay bets using Betfair or the other exchanges and since these exchanges charge typically 5% on all winning bets, this means that, again, the profits quoted in Betalay’s historical results are greatly overstated.

These are fundamental errors in calculating returns on any laying system and it is surprising and disturbing that Betalay would overlook them in presenting their claimed historical results.

Betalay Half Way Graph

So moving on to the trial, a snapshot was taken approximately halfway through.   At this point the trial was showing 205 winning bets from 237, a Strike Rate of 86.5%. This is pretty much precisely the statistically predicted strike rate at the average odds at which we have laid (7.29). So, while this is still a small statistical sample, it seems that at this stage of the trial the Betalay system was performing no better or worse than the statistically expected outcome.

This was borne out by our near break-even Return On Investment (ROI) figure. It is slightly negative, a loss of £64.10 on a total amount risked of £14,905 giving an ROI of -0.4%. This is in fact slightly better than we would expect from matching the predicted strike rate, which would normally return a bigger loss, when we factor in 5% commission on winning bets.

 At the halfway stage, our longest losing run was two; our bank reached a peak of £404.90 and a low of -£129.30; we’ve had eleven winning days and twelve losing days; our best day returned a profit of £114, while our worst saw a loss of £301.50. 

At the end of the 45-day system trial, Betalay showed a loss of almost £150 or 15 points. 391 wins out of 453 bets represents a strike rate of 86.3%. The average odds at which we placed lay bets was decimal 7.3. As it happens, 86.3% is precisely the strike rate we would statistically expect over the long term when laying at 7.3. So I think we can say that our trial shows that the Betalay system performs no better or no worse than laying horses at random at around this price.

Of course, performing at the statistically predicted strike rate guarantees a loss when commission and market over-round are factored in. The Betalay system, which comes in the form of an eBook at a price of £27 was easy enough to understand, interpret and use, though unless you are a full time punter you need a betting bot to automate selections and placing of bets as the selections are based on meeting the system criteria within 30 seconds of the scheduled race time.

Betalay End Of Trial

There were an average of ten bets per day. The longest losing run was two.  The bank reached a high of £404.90 and a low of -£297.30. We had 21 winning days and 24 losing days; our best day returned a profit of £161.50, while our worst saw a loss of £301.50, which you can see from the graph of the betting bank over the period of the trial.

Overall, I didn’t see anything to suggest that the system can beat the statistical odds and there’s nothing in the logic of the system criteria, in the results obtained or indeed in historical results over years that indicates otherwise.

Finally, as I mentioned at the outset, the historical results quoted on the Betalay website are misleading as they do not take into account either Betfair commission or the mark-up on Betfair lay prices as compared to standard SP.

So would I recommend this system?   Personally it’s not for me because what it gives with one hand it takes back with the other.   The swing between profit and loss is to frequent and too major, it is not good to see your betting bank drop by 70 points over two weeks.   Objectively, does it have potential? Perhaps if you wanted to take the profits and run when they showed and wait for the drops to pass by.   But this is not the way a system should be run.   On this basis I am classifying Betalay as a “neutral” betting system and will ask you to make up your own mind.

Take a look at the Betalay System…

.