Because of the nature of an exchange, most books tend to gravitate towards the 100 per cent mark. However, some markets are not as popular and may be virtually empty. See this as a great opportunity. If you price these up to 120 per cent, it is not too unlikely that your lay bets will be taken giving you a healthy return for little or no risk. And if one of your lays is taken, then you shouldn’t be too worried; because you have priced it up to a defensive 120 per cent, then hopefully you should have laid under the odds anyway!
Take advantage of the betting histories provided, both on markets and your personal account. At a touch of a button, Betfair allows its customers to call up their entire betting record in the past three months, broken down into sports, to the pence. Use this information to help you identify how you can improve as a punter or indeed.
There is a very good reason that traditional bookmakers don’t give their customers such readily available and detailed information. Similarly, traditional bookmakers don’t publish their field books. By clicking on the graph icon on the site, exchange bettors can get a trading history for every runner/option.