The ASB Classic is the first WTA 250 tournament of the year on the WTA 250 Tour. Comprising of 32 players competing for tour points and prize money that will advance their world standings as the points accumulate. As with other posts in this series I will be looking at the fate of the top eight seeded players for each tournament furthering my own research into making small profits by laying these players to a fixed liability of £1.00 (which is 10% of a starting bank of £10.00) at the Betdaq exchange, where at present I enjoy a 0% commission rate. The top 8 seedes in order of rank were for this tournament as follows 1. Keys. M 2. Mertens. E 3. Anismova. A 4. Sun. L 5. Tauson. C 6. Raducanu. E 7. Osaka. N 8. Volynets. K
Both Mertens and Raducanu withdrew from the tournament before the start due to injury.
Round 1
With just 6 of the top 8 seeds starting the maximum loss if all seeded players won in the 1st round would be £6.00. Both the 3rd and 4th seed lost their first round matches. Sun (4) losing 6-3/3-6/6-3 and Anisimova (3) losing 2-6/6-2/6-3. The table below shows the P/L of the first round matches where each of the seeded players were laid to a £1.00 liability.
Round 1 resulted in a small loss of 34p and 4 players advancing into the 2nd round.
Round 2
With 4 of the top 8 seeds progressing into the second round and a 34p loss from the 1st round our maximum loss if all players won the second round would be £4.34. Unfortunately for our laying strategy this is exactly what happened. The table below shows just this.
A total loss of £4.34 after round 2 still leaves us £5.66 of our £10.00 bank intact and is ample to now see us through to the end of the tournament.
Quarter Finals.
The quarter finals have eventually seen the match up of 2 of our seeded players, Touson and Keys so we now know that our Maximum loss for the Quarter finals is not £4.00 as in the second round but £2.00 plus whatever the outcome of the matched up seeded players returns. This could be a profit if the favourite has short enough odds and loses or a small offset loss if she wins In the event of it No 8 seed Volynet loses to Parks and in the Match up match between Touson and Keys, Keys was the odds on favourite to win the match but Touson won it in straight sets 6-4/7-6. This produced an overall profit of £1.95 for the Quarter Finals round as shown in the table below.
If we add this profit to our previous losses in the 1st and second rounds we still have a loss of £2.39.
Semi- Finals
With just 2 of the seeded players in the semi finals and each playing another player our maximum loss for the semis is just £2.00 if both players advance to the final. And this is exactly what happened unfortunately. Both players won in straight sets Tauson winning 6-4/6-3 and Osaka 6-4/6-2. This brought our total tournament loss to £4.39 with a similar situation as in the quarter finals where two of the seeded players play each other. The table below shows the semi final results
The Final.
The tournament organisers must have been very pleased with themselves as the seeding worked and 2 of the seeded players meet in the final but depending on which one wins will either increase our tournament loss or decrease it depending on the odds. Osaka was the odds on favourite at 1.53 and if she wins then our tournament loss would be increased. If however she were to lose to the “underdog” Tauson who had lay odds of 2.79 then we would win more from Osaka’s loss than from Tauson’s Win and it would decrease our overall tournament loss. The table below shows just what happened.
As you can see in the table we lost £1.00 with Tauson winning but we won £1.89 with Osaka becoming runner up. This gave us a 89p profit to add to our tournament loss of 34.39 giving a total of £3.50 loss. The table below shows all the lay bets made and odds with stakes for each match.
Summary
Over the whole of the tournament we would have made a total of 18 bets at £1.00 liability. The early exit of Anisimova and Sun helped preserve the bank to a certain extent and from this point a total loss whilst possible proved unfounded and left us with a workable bank of £6.50 of which we can take into the second WTA 250 tournament using liability bets of 65p.
Disclaimer
If you liked this content please “like” so I can get some feel for the effort I am putting into this being beneficial to others who are looking to make a couple of quid but no fortunes.
Please gamble responsibly and dont bet more than you can afford. The content of this post is historical fact and in no way guarantees the out come of future tournaments.
Before the year 2000 you would have to go back to 1962 to find a player out of the top 5 seeding in the ladies tournament that won. Since and including 2000 there have only been 10 players that were within the top 5 seeding that have won the ladies tournament. Where did these players fall by the wayside and what odds on the exchange could you lay them off at? 2024 saw 31 seed Krejcikova winning the tournament with a 2-1 victory over 7 seed Paolini, but the top 10 seeds started falling out in the 1st round with the dismissal of Zheng and Vondrousova with sportsbook odds of 1.17 and 1.13 respectively. Round 2 saw 5 seed Pegula lose to unseeded Wang, her sportsbook odds were 1.25. The third round was a disaster for the seeded players with 1 seed Swiatek (Odds 1.08), 9 seed Sakkari (Odds 2.2) , and 10 seed Jabeur (Odds 1.5) all crashing out. This left just 4 of the top 10 seeded players progressing into the 4th round which also saw casualties in the form of 2 seed Gauff (Odds 1.29) and 11 seed Collins (Odds 1.44). (I have included Collins at 11 seed because No 3 seed Sabalenka withdrew before round 1 and did not play in the tournament). Both remaining top 10 seeded players, seed 4 Rybakina and seed 7 Paolini made it safely through the quarter finals but the semi finals were the limit for seed 4 Rybakini (Odds 1.2) who lost to eventual winner Krejcikova. As mentioned before Paolini was the last of the top 10 seeds to fall and became tournament runner up with match odds of 2.2.
The implications of these events warrant some serious investigation into either backing the underdog at sportsbook odds if you haven’t got an exchange account or laying the seeded player on the exchanges.
2024 Round 1 Matches
Wimbledon 1st round matches backing the underdog at £1.00 level stakes
The table above shows the results and profit had you backed the underdog with Bet365 sportsbook for a £1.00 level stake. As you can see your profit would have been £1.00
Wimbledon 1st round matches laying the top 10 seeded players.
This second table shows the results and profit achieved when laying the top 10 seeded players for a £1.00 liability at the exchange with a 0% commission If you factor in a 2% commission then the profit would be £3.02 instead of £3.25.
2024 2nd Round Matches
Wimbledon 2nd Round Backing the Underdog at £1.00 Level Stakes
In the 2nd round just 1 seeded player was knocked out and the “underdog” for the match was Wang Xin who was 3/1. Total stakes for round 2 was £8.00 producing, after Wangs’ win, a total loss of £4.00. This brings our total P/L for the tournament if we were backing the opponent of the top 10 seeded players to -£3.00.
Wimbledon 2nd round matches laying the remaining top 10 seeded players for a £1.00 liability
This table above shows the results if we had laid the remaining top 10 seed players. Our loss after 2% commission would be £3.74 giving a total loss of £3.72
2024 3rd Round Matches.
Wimbledon 3rd round matches Backing the underdog for a £1.00 level Stake
2024s’ 3rd round saw 3 of the top ten seeded players get knocked out including No 1 seed Swiatek which produced the highest individual profit of £7.00. The overall profit for round 3 backing the underdogs at Bet365 was £5.30 giving us an overall tournament profit of £2.30.
Wimbledon 3rd round matches laying the remaining top 10 seeded players to £1.00 liability
The dismissal of 3 of the remaining 7 top 10 seeded players has put our P/L back into the black with a 3rd round profit of £5.71 before commission deduction. With this factored in the 3rd round profit is £5.51 giving a tournament profit of £1.79
2024 4th Round Matches
Wimbledon 4th round matches backing the underdog at £1.00 level stakes
The dismissal of both Gauff and Collins in round 4 would have given us a level stake profit of £2.50 backing the underdog at Bet365 the retirement of both Keys and Kalinskaya ensured safe passage to the Quarter Finals of the remaining 2 top ten seeds Paolini and Rybakina. With these two wins in this round our total tournament profit for backing the underdog now stands at £4.80.
Wimbledon 4th round matches laying the remaining 4 top 10 seeds to a liability of £1.00.
Laying players at such short odds at the exchange has paid off in this round giving us an after commission profit of £3.10 adding to our tournament profit giving a total of £4.89
2024 Quarter Finals
Both of the remaining top 10 seeded players made it safely through to the semi finals reducing our Level stake profit when backing the underdog to £2.80. Laying the seeded players also had the same effect on our laying to a liability profit to £2.89 after commission.
2024 Semi Finals
Wimbledon 2024 Semi Final Matches showing the backing of the underdog at £1.00 level stakes
Paolini triumphed in her semi final match against unseeded Vekic but backing Krejcikova to win against Rybakina paid dividends producing an overall semi final profit to £1.00 level stakes at Bet365 of £2.0 giving us an overall tournament profit with just the final to play of £5.30.
Semi final matches involving the remaining 2 top ten seeded players when laying to a £1.00 liability.
Again laying the seeded player instead of backing the underdog produced a greater profit before 25 commission was deducted even with the commission subtracted the profit is £3.28 giving a total tournament profit with just the final to play of £6.17
2024 The Final.
The Final for Wimbledon 2024 where 31 seed Krejcikova beat 7th Seed Paolini 3/6 6/3 6/4
Backing the “Underdog” in the final at Bet365 produced a profit of 73p which when added to our tournament total for backing the underdog at £1.00 level stakes has given us a tournament grand total of £6.03
Laying the seeded player paid off again giving a small profit after commission of 78p
Laying the no 7 seed Paolini at odds of 2.25 has seemed the only sensible bet in the tournament given the odds of the eventual winner, Krejcikova, of 1.8 at the exchange. A profit of 78p was achieved after the reduction of 2% commission and when added to the tournament total for laying each and every one of the top ten seeded players produced an overall profit of £6.95. This is 92p more than backing the underdog at a sportsbook.
Analysis of the tournament.
Without doubt had we laid the top ten seeded players then our profit would have been more than backing the underdog at the bookmaker. However there is the fact that bookmakers need to create at least a 7% overound and we may well have benefited more by backing the underdog at an exchange especially if you have a promotional 0% commission. Without the top seeds falling by the wayside early on in the tournament the profit would have been less or even a loss might have occurred, certainly our profit was boosted by the single fact that Swiatek crashed out in the 3rd round! Overall a success and in fact a low risk strategy. Laying to a liability of just £1.00 means that we can monitor and control any losses. We can make the lay bets in the knowledge that if we start with a small bank of just £10 and not let any emotion enter into our decisions we can keep this strategy fun.
How the seeded players faired in previous years.
2023
Top 10 Seeds
Swiatek – Lost in Round 4 (Odds 1.19) Sabalenka – Lost in Semi Finals (Odds 1.7) Rybakina – Lost in Quarter Finals (Odds 1.71) Pegula – Lost in Quarter Finals (Odds 1.76) Garcia – Lost in Round 3 (Odds 2.05) Jabeur – Lost in The Final (Odds 1.5) Gauff – Lost in round 1 (Odds 1.34) Sakkari – Lost in round 1 (Odds 1.36) Kvitova -Lost in Round 4 (Odds 1.8) Krejcikova Lost in Round 2 (Odds 1.35)
Swiatek Reached the 4th round where she lost to Svitolina After losing 3 lay bets at £1.00 each we would have won £5.26 giving a profit of £2.54 Sabalenka Reached the Semifinals where she lost to Jabeur. After losing 5 lay bets at £1.00 each we would have won £1.43 giving a loss of £3.57 Rybakina Reached the quarter finals were she lost to Jabeur. After 4 losing lay bets at £1.00 each we would have won £1.41 giving a loss of £2.59 Pegula Reached the Quarter finals where she lost to Vondrousova. After losing 4 lay bets at £1.00 each we would have won £1.32 giving a loss of £2.68 Garcia Reached the 3rd round where she lost to Bouzkova. After losing 2 lay bets at £1.00 each we would have won 96p giving a loss of £1.04 Jabeur Reached the final where she lost to Vondrousova. After losing 6 lay bets at £1.00 each we would have won £2.00 giving a loss of £4.00 Gauff Lost in the 1st round to Kenin. We would have won £2.94. Sakkari Lost in the 1st round to Kostyuk. We would have won £2.78 Kvitova Reached the 4th Round where she lost to Jabeur. After losing 3 lay bets of £1.00 each we would have won £1.25 giving a loss of 1.75 Krejcikova Reached the 2nd round where she lost to Andreeva. After just 1 losing lay bet of £1.00 we would have won £2.86 giving a profit of £1.86
Conclusion.
We would have lost £5.51 over the whole tournament this year if we had laid each of the top 10 seeds to the end.
2022
Top 10 seeds
Swiatek – Lost in Round 3 (Odds 1.2) – P/L £3.00 Kontaveit – Lost in Round 2 (Odds 1.50) – P/L £1.00 Jabeur – Reached the Final (Odds 1.83) – P/L -£4.80 Badosa – Reached the 4th Round (Odds 3.4) – P/L -£2.58 Sakkari – Reached the 3rd Round (Odds 1.20) – P/L £3.00 Pliskova – Reached the 2nd round (Odds 1.71) – P/L £0.41 Collins – Lost in the 1st Round (Odds 1.79) – P/L £1.27 Pegula – Reached the 3rd Round (Odds 1.57) – P/L -£0.25 Mugurusa – Lost in the 1st round (Odds 1.25) – P/L £4.00 Raducanu Reached the 2nd Round (Odds 1.70) – P/L £0.43
Conclusion
We would have Won £5.48 over the whole tournament this year if we had laid each of the top 10 seeds to the end.
Yesterday I showed you how to create a basic query in TSMs’ Selection Hunter to find some likely winners using the back test mode to discover any trends and it came up with the following 3 horses The selections are 13:50 Stage Star 14:25 Copperhead 15:00 Sunray Shadow.
13:50 Stage Star Stage Star met the provisional odds criteria of between 2.00 and 2.99 but went off at a BSP of 3.21. Our conditions of placing a bet with betangel were that the BSP had to be between 2.00 and 2.99 for the software to trigger. 3.21 was out of our range at 3.21 so no bet was made.
Stage Star only managed 4th out of 5
14:25 Copperhead Joe Tizzards’ Copperhead also qualified as the provisional odds were posted as 2.85 but again the BSP was outside of the criteria and went off at 3.5 giving us another miss fire from Betangel. Copperhead Won by 14 lengths!!!
15:00 Sunray Shadow The final selection was the Skelton trained and ridden Sunray Shadow who’s Provisional odds were posted at 2.5. Winning by a length and a 1/4 the BSP was well within the range at 2.23 and Betangel Fired the bet in 10 seconds before post time catching 2.25
Summary 2 of the 3 selections went off at odds outside the criteria one of them winning but alas one losing 2 of the 3 went off as favourites despite all 3 being ranked as provisional favourite. Betangel fired just one bet and this returned 125% ROI Given the strike rate of the criteria when back tested (68%) 2 actual winners from our query seemed to tentatively back this trend.
Cautionary note While this was a completely genuine test run you should not go out and back every Aintree runner with a BSP of between 2.0 and 2.99 even though I back tested over a period of nearly 2 years results you should always do as much research as you can and start with stakes that you can afford to lose.
Build your bank steadily Racing is not going to finish tommorrow!!!
The staking Machine software has limited use for free but If you want to take advantage of the Selection Hunter you will need to pay – It only costs £24 for 1 year – Twenty Four!! this is not a typo and can be paid via paypal That’s only 2 quid a month and if you had backed Sunray Shadow for a quid you would have made over 1/2 a months subscription already.
Timeform is a respected and well followed source of racing form and they rate each horse for each race by using a star rating. You may have read my post on using this rating system to pick your horses for the ITV 7 well what if you were to back each 5 star rated horse in every race for a day. Below is a PDF of the 5 star Runners for 8th June 2024 and how they faired. The figures are based upon the ISP (Industry Starting Price) and the stakes reflect a £5.00 profit should the horse win. It is worth noting that at least one of these selections (Billyb) was available at odds greater than the starting price as I actually backed it at odds of 4.50 at 11am that morning.
If you had backed each 5 star rated horse that ran on this day to a £1.00 level stake you would have got a profit of £3.87 which is a 10.18% ROI (Return on Investment) If you had backed them as I do to a £5.00 target profit then you would have a £24.93 profit but the stakes involved are greater! My total stakes for all races would have been £117.94 for that £24.93 profit but it is still a 21% ROI After a quick analysis of the results there were a total of 38 runners of which 15 won which is a 39.5% strike rate. More interestingly is the fact that if you had backed the horses which ran in just the handicap races then of the 31 handicap races run 27 actuall ran of which 12 won. This gave a profit of £12.41 to level £1.00 stakes giving a 46% ROI. Staking the horses to a £5.00 target profit gave a profit of £32.52 for a total of £58.79 stake money yielding a 55.3% ROI. This is just 1 days analysis but it seems that it may be worth pursuing further.
7 races – 7 winners how hard can it be? The criteria for this exercise in losing money is that I selected Timeforms 5 star runners and where these were non runners as in race 3 and 7 the next best 4 star runner with the lowest odds.
Race 1: 14:05 Beverley Maw Lam backed at 3/1 for a stake of £1.67 Lost
Running P/L -£1.67
Race 2 14:15 Bangor on Dee Can’t beat history backed at 4.5 for £1.42 Lost
Running P/L -£3.09
Race 3 14:25 Haydock Divina Grace backed at 3.5 or £2.00 Lost
Running P/L -£5.09
Race 4 14:40 Beverley Moving Force backed at 2.75 for £2.86 Lost
Odds moved slightly in my favour but still no return Running P/L -£7.95
Race 5 15:00 Haydock Sea Theme backed at 5.50 for a stake of £1.11 Lost
Running P/L -£9.06
Race 6 15:15 Beverley Billyb backed at 4.5 for a stake of £1.43 Won 🤑
A rule 4 deduction reduced my profit from £5.00 to £4.75 Running P/L -£4.31
Race 7 15:35 Haydock Ramazan backed at odds of 6.00 for a stake of £1.00 Lost
While sat waiting for yet another customer to come and unload their meat I quickly did the ITV 7 on Wednesday 5th of June. My criteria was simple – I just selected the 7 horses that Timeform rated with 5 stars. Not rocket science but nothing to lose. I had 2 winners from the 7 – this equates to a 28.5% strike rate. I then got to thinking what if I had backed these 7 selections individually for a target profit of £5.00 so I did the maths If I had backed these at S.P. my total stake would have been £13.16. With 2 winners both yielding £5.00 each in profit (not returns) I would have come out with a £2.81 overall profit
Further to my post on Bookies and Tipsters I will be following Hugh Taylors Tips and Backing each one for a £5.00 Profit with SkyBet. Not at the advised odds but at whatever odds are available at the time but because Skybet like to pay out on extra places and offer few races with Best Odds Guaranteed I will be backing them at SP with a stake that will give a £5.00 profit at the odds given at the time.
Four selections today and going into the 5th day with a profit of £3.78 First selection to run today is
4:27 Nottingham : Phoenix Passion Advised Odds 5/2 (3.5) Odds available at 10:00 : 13/8 (2.63) Stake £3.07 Result –
Second to run is
5:35 Kempton : Remaat Advised Odds 11/1 (12.0) Odds available at 10:00 : 3/1 (4.0) Stake £1.67 Result –
Odds of 3/1 taken as SkyBet are offering Best Odds Guaranteed
The third Selection was City House in 7:15 at Kempton but has been withdrawn and is a non-runner.
Fourth and Final Selection today is 7:45 Kempton : Miss Kubelik Advised Odds 9/2 (5.5) Odds available at 10.00 10/3 (4.33) Stake £1.50 Result –
Good Luck all – need it – these bets take me into a Loss state 😂
Yesterday I backed Hugh Taylors sole selection at S.P. Here’s what happened (If you have just happened upon this post and are thinking why would I back a horse at SP when the price is steaming in please read the post I did on researching his April Selections the link is immediately below and will open in a new tab)
Further to my post on Bookies and Tipsters I will be following Hugh Taylors Tips and Backing each one for a £5.00 Profit with SkyBet. Not at the advised odds but at whatever odds are available at the time but because Skybet like to pay out on extra places and offer few races with Best Odds Guaranteed I will be backing them at SP with a stake that will give a £5.00 profit at the odds given at the time.
Only one selection today and is as Follows
Lingfield 8:15 Advised Odds 9/1 (10.0) Odds available at 09:30 : 4/1 (5.0) Stake 1.25 Result –
Betornot 