Concepts
Beating the market in horse racing
Beating the bookmakers is one thing — beating the entire market is the gold standard. The market here means the Betfair Starting Price (BSP), the cleanest unmargined consensus of every bettor in the world. If you beat BSP consistently, you have a real, durable edge.
What "beating the market" means
Your average taken price (the bookmaker price you actually got) is higher than the BSPfor the same selections. If you back at 7.50 and the horse runs at BSP 6.00, you've beaten the market by 25% on that bet.
Why BSP is the benchmark
- Cleanest market — no bookmaker margin
- Reflects the consensus of every Betfair user, including professional layers and arbers
- You can never accidentally bet at BSP — you'd be matching the smartest money
- Beating BSP measures your forecasting skill, not luck
The threshold
- Below 0% vs BSP — you're losing to the market, even if you have some winners
- 0–3% — break-even territory, can't survive variance long-term
- 3–6% — genuine edge, real long-term profit
- 6%+ — strong edge; bookmakers will restrict you fast
How to measure your own edge
- Log every bet: horse, taken price, BSP, result.
- Calculate average taken price ÷ average BSP across at least 200 settled bets.
- Anything > 1.05 (5% beat-BSP) over a reasonable sample is professional-grade.
How Odds Father makes this easy
Every member bet logged in the tracker records the taken price and BSP automatically. The track record shows the rolling beat-BSP %.
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