---
title: 'I Tried Betting on Every Horse Race Favorite — Here''s What Happened'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=s98rrDwVz7s'
video_id: 's98rrDwVz7s'
date: 2026-07-27
duration_sec: 895
---

# I Tried Betting on Every Horse Race Favorite — Here's What Happened

> Source: [I Tried Betting on Every Horse Race Favorite — Here's What Happened](https://youtube.com/watch?v=s98rrDwVz7s)

## Summary

The speaker conducted an experiment where he bet on the favorite in every horse race over a year using a betting exchange. The strategy was surprisingly close to breakeven, with a slight profit before commission but a small loss after commission. However, by simply improving the price by one tick, the entire strategy turned profitable.

### Key Points

- **Methodology: Blind Betting** [00:30] — Bet on the favorite in every race with no skill or judgment.
- **Profit Target Staking** [01:11] — Used a fixed profit target of £1 per race, varying stake according to odds to equalize risk.
- **Betting Exchange Advantage** [02:42] — Used Betfair exchange for best odds; bookmakers guarantee long-term loss.
- **Post Time Betting** [03:10] — Bets placed at post time for best odds and smallest spreads.
- **Results: Profitable Before Commission** [04:49] — Strategy was profitable before commission, slightly negative after.
- **Core Insight: Breakeven Baseline** [07:16] — Random betting with correct staking breaks even before commission; need to tip the odds in your favor.
- **One Tick Improvement** [12:33] — Improving price by one tick turned the strategy profitable after commission.

### Conclusion

The experiment demonstrates that with the right tools and minimal tweaks, even a random betting strategy can become profitable. The key is using a betting exchange, proper staking, and small price improvements.

## Transcript

favorites in every single horse race over the course of a year? Sounds like a disaster waiting to happen, especially when you realize that there was absolutely no skill or selection process used at all. This is exactly what I have
learning the results and how you can turn them profitable, just watch the turn them profitable, just watch the rest of this video.
blindly bet the favorite on every single horse race over the course of the year. Now, I can't exclude that I missed some of them, but there'll be a very, very small percentage, but I tried to bet on every single race over the course of
every single day um over the course of a year. And the methodology was that simple. I didn't use any skill or judgment whatsoever. Didn't look at any tips or try and make any particular judgment. I just bet on the favorite and
left it at that. Now, for those of you who know me um and follow my videos, you many different types of sports, especially on horse racing. So, this is uncomfortable to me. However, it may feel uncomfortable to you, which is why
for this experiment, what I did was I actually backed to a set profit target. And the back uh bet that I placed would change according to the odds. So, if the odds were very short, I would place a bigger bet. But if the odds are very
Because what I was trying to do is get a one pound profit on each individual race. And the reason for using a one pound profit, which isn't very much, was replicate me, you don't get yourself into serious trouble. I don't want to
encourage that. Use small stakes while you're messing around. But the interesting thing about using a profit target, I'll bring up a little um graph that will basically show you how my stake varies according to uh the odds
that I see on the betting exchange is that you equalize your profit um with the potential risk. And that's why I vary my stake according to uh what profit I want to get out of that particular favorite. And you know it's
difficult to explain uh quickly and succinctly but basically that's the net effect as you equalize your risk with your potential payoff. So uh the the basically telling you the sort of stakes that I would use according to the odds
of that particular favorite. Now as I've just said I was using a betting exchange as well. If you go into a bookmaker or you go on course or to a sports book you And that is because when you use a bookmaker or sports book, they adjust
their prices so that you definitely definitely lose over the long term. You will lose money if you attempt this with a bookmaker. But on a betting exchange, you get absolutely amazing odds. Typically the best you will get in the
entire industry and that will uh be one of the keys to being able to get a profitable strategy. The other thing that I did was that um the bets were placed at post time. So, if you actually look at a horse race, post time is the
start, but the horses are never fully ready at post time. It's always going to know by placing them at post time that I get the best available odds and the smallest spreads and other factors. That is the best time to place this
particular type of bet. So, I bet to a fixed profit target. I used a betting exchange and I bet at post time. That was when the bets went into the market, not several hours before, right at the critical point within the market. And
the great thing about betting exchanges is you can use software like BetAngel to place any bets, but I did. All I did was I automated it because obviously I'm going to be busy on the markets doing other things. I really want the software
to go in and do this for me. Uh because I want to be focused on other things and different strategies. So, yeah, it was automated. And if you want to automate it too, you can use software like BetAngel uh to perform these sort of
experiments. So the big question is how did it do? So pursuing this particular strategy, how did it do? What happened if we just went in blindly and back to every favorite over the course of a year? And
got a graph here of the results of this particular strategy. Now I didn't start this in January and finish in December. I just came up with the idea um probably maybe just over a year ago and what I did was I decided to do it for small
replicate it. I don't want to encourage irresponsible gambling and all of those things. So I backed to a profit of one pound and just saw how we got on. And this graph is the result of exactly how we got on. Now I actually do bet on
horse racing and pretty much every single horse race and I bet millions a ridiculous, but it's true. But for this experiment, we kept it down to low levels so that you could replicate it if you want to give it a try. And what you
we accidentally created a profitable strategy. I know that sounds bizarre because we're doing it completely at random, but you can see that from the start of this particular strategy, anything above the middle line is
basically when the strategy is in profit. Anything below the line is when can see some interesting moments within this particular graph as well. There was one particular period at the start of the year where it plunged negative. It
was profitable for ages. Um and then suddenly it just sort of sunk like a stone. Uh but then of course it came roaring back and turned itself into occasions when the strategy was underwater over the course of this
particular year. Um but generally it always seemed to recover. So yeah, remarkably just going into a market looking on the bet fair exchange which is the betting exchange that we used uh looking at the top of that list and then
backing that favorite to a profit of one pound actually was profitable over the course of the year. But I will insert a caveat here because the graph that you can see here actually excludes commission. If you bet with a book
maker, they adjust their prices so that you're guaranteed to lose over the long you're guaranteed to lose over the long term. You just simply cannot win. Now, that problem. With a bookmaker, if you win, they lose, and therefore, your
restricted. But on a betting exchange, you can win, and you will not be restricted. But one of the ways, the way that they make money is they don't give you weird prices and close your account and restrict you. They will take a
commission on your winning bets. So, the graph that you can see here is actually the profit before commission. And if we actually take commission off, it actually take commission off, it actually turns a little bit negative. So
we backed the favorite um in every single race and it was profitable before commission, but after commission it was slightly negative, but actually not by money that we would have lost taking commission off, it's still very, very
small. And as a percentage of the turnover they were actually committed to the market, it's absolutely tiny. So, the net upshot of this is even if you went into the market and you backed the favorite at random, um, but you backed
it at post time and you'd backed it to a set profits target, then you really have made money before commission. You would have lost a little bit as a percentage after commission. But of course, that brings on the big question,
which is how do you get this particular system profitable? So when we look at that graph, this is telling us a really key core fundamental point that I've known for many many years. And that is that as long as you
structure your staking to equalize the level of risk that you're taking on any individual market, generally speaking, the worst that you can do at any one particular moment in time is break even less commission. If you bet at random
and you structure your staking correctly, uh that is um you the worst obviously have to pay commission and that drags down your overall results, what we would call slippage. But at a core level, as long as you
don't do anything stupid, you'll more or less break even. So your mission, >> should you choose to accept it, >> is to overcome that. Uh you need to tweak things slightly in your favor so that you get a more favorable result.
you pick better selections? certain types of markets, certain types of days, certain types of odds, all of those sort of things will help you just sort of tip things a little bit in your favor. And one of the things that I like showing
concept is I have a thing called a golden board. It demonstrates uh a at a random distribution, it shows the same thing. It shows that your positives you need to do is tip that board
slightly in one direction. and then that will be enough to turn the entire profitable. It's the same thing that I've done for many years. Every time I go into a market and I look at something, I bet or trade on it randomly
parameters to tweak it so that I can actually turn it profitable. That's basically what I do um every day, every month, every year for the last well over 20 years now. So yeah, um when we're looking at the way that the market has u
what it's telling us again. And what we have to do then is to try and figure out a way of actually tipping that slightly in our favor. So one of the objections I hear to telling people about this is they say,
particular sport or whatever." Uh but the interesting thing about betting exchanges is that's not absolutely necessarily a prerequisite. If you know you've got a little angle there, you may be able to get a slightly better price
or make slightly better selections that will allow you to turn it profitable. exchanges offer you other ways of being able to turn this to your advantage. Um, so let me talk you through a couple of
simple things on a betting exchange that will allow you to turn the odds in your favor to turn that line rather than slightly negative after commission to slightly positive. So if you bet with a traditional
you'd see what the best available back price was, um, and then you would place your order into the market. So, if I place a back order at 276 for £560, you
can see it returns about £10. And you'll notice that I didn't do my stake of a pound. That would be 56p. But you can see that I can't enter 56p in here because there's a minimum stake on bare. But if you use software like BetAngel,
you can use 56p. H. So, how would we improve uh this position within the market? Well, you can always ask for better odds because asking for, which is what I'm doing here, then you can see we get a bigger
return uh for the same stake. And it may seem a bit odd because, you know, we're backing here at um let's let's choose something that's up here. Let's choose 284 here. Uh we're backing at 284, which isn't available um at the current back
price. But when we actually put it in the exchange, what actually happens is the bet gets placed in the market and it sits over at 284 until somebody takes it. So, we're going to improve the price at which we can get within the market
only by a little bit uh but it will sit there and wait for somebody else to take that particular order. It's a great way of improving uh the price that you can actually get on the exchange. And it's even easier to do if you're using a
piece of software. So, if you choose to use a piece of software, then you're are many advantages. It's a little bit more complex and involves a bit of the prices that are available, all of the odds that are available, how much
away. Whatever you want to do, you can just press a button and it will automatically place um a bet in the market for you. Um but things improve automation because that gives you even more flexibility.
If you choose to go down the automated route, um you have lots of options that it's literally infinite what you can do. You can see here even simple options like uh placing a bet at the fixed price, best market price, second, third,
reverse market price, above, below. There are just so many options. You can improving the price that you're likely to get when you back the favorite. So, of course, you know, I can hear people
make neglig and it doesn't blah blah blah objection objection objection. But what I did was I went back into my spreadsheet, got all of the uh data from each individual bet and I improved the price by one tick. By one tick, what
exchange is the next odds increment. So if I was backing at four, um I just adjusted it to 4.1. If I was backing at odds of three, it would be 305 or two odds of three, it would be 305 or two would be 202. 1.7 I'd back at 1.8. I
would actually just get an extra one tick of uh better odds. Uh and that the effect was mcurial. Basically what happened was that it actually turned the entire strategy positive. We ended up in the situation where just by asking for a
managed to get the strategy positive over the course of the year. Very simple refinement, something that would have worked incredibly well. So yeah, all of worked incredibly well. So yeah, all of these little things do really add up.
So quite remarkably, the result of going into every single horse race and backing the favorite actually ended up with us making a small profit before commission. After commission, we made a small loss. But we were able to look at ways that we
the whole thing profitable. And the only thing that we did that was could be didn't use any selection process or you know certain types of odds and stuff exchange where we knew we'd get really good odds. We backed to a target profit
of course we did that automatically using BetAngel. If you did this with a your chance of achieving the same results? Zero. >> And that is because it's all stacked
against you. If you win, they lose. And if you lose, they win. Whereas on a balances it out. That makes the market hyperefficient. And that means that that to become profitable is actually really really thin. And using a bit of
intelligence and knowledge will actually get you over that barrier. Of course, selections, the races, various other factors within here to make this much show you in this video here is actually that step to getting to profitability is
that step to getting to profitability is much smaller than you would think.