Back and Lay Timer including “Lay the Field”
The back and lay timer tools give you the option to program the software to place an ordinary back or lay bet at a set time before the scheduled off time or after the event actually starts. Because things can start late, the after option is much more useful, particularly for the “lay the field” strategy. In addition, if you submit the bet(s) before the off you will need to lock the padlock manually on each bet if you want them to be kept in play. For this reason we recommend that lay the field bets are timed to be placed one second after the start of the race.
To set up the back or lay timer, click on the + sign next to the tool and tick the box to the right.
Choose a selection from the dropdown or use All/field to lay the field. Enter your stake and odds and the time in the relevant boxes, check either – (before) or + (after) and click submit. The bets will be sent to Betfair at the time chosen either before or after the event starts.
There are additional options to use Fill or Kill, Stop Loss or Tick Offset. If ticked these options work to the settings that you have in these tools, so if you want to place a timed bet with tick offset of 1 tick you will need to have 1 tick selected in the tick offset tool. You do not need to tick the tick offset tool as well as the timer tool. We do not recommend using more than one of these options at a time. .
Laying the field at low odds is a recognized trading strategy because the more bets that match the more you win, with the risk of losing a maximum of 1 small bet liability. Attempting to set up this tool to back the field at low odds is guaranteed to lose you money. Every bet will match at the current Betfair price as soon as the bet is sent (except for very short priced favourites below your odds threshold), meaning that unless the winner’s price was longer than the number of runners you are automatically on a loser, and even when you win there will be a lot of losing bets reducing the profit to nearly nothing. Most races are won by horses at shorter odds and you will lose far more often than you win, with losses mounting up very quickly especially in big fields.