Pre race trading is backing or laying a runner on an exchange and closing the position on the other side before the jump, so what you make depends on how the price moves, not on which horse wins. On Australian racing the money in an exchange market usually grows as the jump approaches, which gives a trader the best conditions and the hardest deadline in the same few minutes.
Each trade here opens and closes before the jump, and nothing is described after it. Prices are hypothetical, and commission is an illustrative 7% input, because the exchange sets its own rate and can change it.
A pre-race trade from first bet to the jump
Pre-race Betfair trading uses the same two bets as any exchange trade, with a deadline set by the race clock. Betfair trading explained covers the basic trade; here is one planned from start to finish.
Example: hypothetical prices, not a real race. At 20 minutes before the advertised jump, you back Runner 3 for $144 at $3.85. Your plan: a target lay at $3.60 (five ticks shorter), a stop at $4.20 (five ticks longer), and a close at whatever price is available 2 minutes before the advertised jump if neither has traded.
| Exit | Lay stake | Working | Result either way | After 7% commission |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Target, $3.60 | $154.00 | 144 x 3.85 / 3.60 | +$10.00 | 10.00 x 0.93 = $9.30 |
| Stop, $4.20 | $132.00 | 144 x 3.85 / 4.20 | -$12.00 | -$12.00, no commission on a loss |
Five ticks each way, but not the same money. From $3.85 the target is five steps of 0.05, while the stop crosses $4.00, where each step doubles to 0.10. If every trade ended at the target or the stop, this plan would need 12.00 / (9.30 + 12.00) = 56.3% of trades to reach the target just to break even. The equal-result stake comes from the green up formula: lay stake = back stake x back odds / lay odds.
Risk: Betting involves risk. The target may never trade, the stop can fill past its price, and a trade still open at the jump stands as a full-sized bet. See responsible gambling for limits and support.
When money arrives in Australian race markets
The first job in trading Australian racing is knowing when a market can take your bets. An exchange race market usually opens with little money near each price and fills as the jump gets closer, partly because late information keeps arriving: scratchings, track condition changes, rider changes and moves in bookmaker prices. How fast it fills varies with the meeting, the race and the code (thoroughbred, harness or greyhound), which is why no general rule replaces watching the races you plan to trade.
No public figure tells you how much money a race will attract, so keep a log. For the runner you plan to trade, write down at fixed points before the advertised jump how much the whole market has matched, how much is waiting at its best back and lay prices, and how many ticks separate them. With illustrative figures, a log for Runner 3 might read:
| Minutes before the advertised jump | Matched in the whole market | Waiting at Runner 3's best back and lay | Ticks between them |
|---|---|---|---|
| 45 | $12,500 | $180 and $130 | 5 |
| 25 | $31,000 | $520 and $460 | 2 |
| 10 | $78,000 | $2,100 and $1,600 | 1 |
| 3 | $164,000 | $5,800 and $4,900 | 1 |
Note: none of these figures is a measurement of any race. Your own log is the only measurement that counts for the races you trade.
Read the log for three things: when the spread first reaches one tick, when the money at the best price is several times your stake, and how far the price moves in the last 10 minutes. Those mark the window where a trade can be opened and closed at the prices you plan. Liquidity in betting explains each measure.
A race can start after its advertised time. Count down from the advertised time anyway, and treat any delay as extra time you cannot rely on.
Reading weight of money before the jump
Weight of money sets the money waiting on one side of a runner's price against the money waiting on the other: layers' offers, which backers can take, against backers' offers, which layers can take. A heavy pile of layers' offers is usually read as a price about to drift, and a heavy pile of backers' offers as one about to shorten.
In the last minutes before an Australian race it is one input among several, and it fails in predictable ways:
| What you see | Why it can mislead | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| One side much heavier near the price | Offers can be cancelled before anyone takes them | Whether money actually trades at those prices |
| A heavy side well before the jump | A few small offers can make up the whole book | Total matched and the spread |
| The exchange heavy one way, bookmakers moving the other | Money bet with bookmakers never shows on the exchange ladder | Bookmaker flucs for the same runner |
| A big offer sitting just behind the best price | It may be placed to be seen, then pulled before it is reached | Whether it is still there when the price arrives |
Treat weight of money as a reason to look closer, never as the reason to open a trade. A trade needs a cause you can name, and weight of money only describes offers.
Getting out before the jump
Every pre-race trade needs a deadline before the jump, set before the first bet. The 2 minutes used here is an illustration: choose yours from how quickly your own closing orders tend to be matched.
When the deadline arrives and neither the target nor the stop has traded, you have three choices. With the $144 back at $3.85:
| At your deadline the market shows | Your choice | Working | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| $3.70 to back, $3.75 to lay | Lay $147.84 at $3.75 | 144 x 3.85 / 3.75 | +$3.84 either way |
| $3.95 to back, $4.00 to lay | Lay $138.60 at $4.00 | 144 x 3.85 / 4.00 | -$5.40 either way |
| Either | Leave the back open | 144 x 2.85 | +$410.40 if Runner 3 wins, -$144.00 if it loses |
The third row is not a trade any more. It is a $144 bet at $3.85 that you never planned to place, so close at the deadline whatever the price, unless you would have backed the runner at that stake anyway.
Two habits make the deadline easier to keep. Queue your target lay as soon as the back is matched, so it is in the queue early. At the deadline, close by taking the best price on offer rather than offering a better one and waiting.
Unmatched bets at the jump
For a pre-race trader the setting on a closing order is part of the plan. Lapse cancels an unfilled close at the jump and leaves the opening bet standing alone. Take SP turns it into a bet at the exchange's starting price, and keep has no place in a trade meant to end before the jump. Defaults and exact behaviour are in your exchange's terms, and unmatched bets covers each setting.
Part-matched closes are the common trap. Say only $90 of the $154 target lay at $3.60 is matched when the jump arrives:
| Result | Back $144 at $3.85 | Lay $90 at $3.60 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Runner 3 wins | +$410.40 | 90 x 2.60 = -$234.00 | +$176.40 |
| Any other runner wins | -$144.00 | +$90.00 | -$54.00 |
If the other $64 lapses, that table is your bet on the race. If it converts to the starting price instead, its price is only set at the jump, so neither result is fixed any more. Make the matched amount on each order the last thing you read before your deadline, and finish or cancel whatever is still waiting.
Scratchings and late news
A late scratching changes the shape of a race at once. On the exchange, expect bets on the scratched runner to be cancelled. The exchange's rules can also cut the odds on bets already matched on the runners left in the race, and cancel offers still waiting, so a trade that was even can end up lopsided. Check your exchange's scratching rules, then recheck both results of any trade you hold.
Fixed-odds bets with bookmakers are handled another way. The stewards declare deductions for bets placed before a late scratching (for NSW on-course bookmakers, under BR 14 of Racing NSW's Rules of Betting), and each bookmaker's terms say how it applies them. Scratchings and deductions explains the bookmaker side.
Other late news moves prices just as fast: a track condition change, a rider change or a gear change. A trade that is open when news lands can move several ticks before you can close it, which is one more reason to size from the stop with room to spare.
Mistakes in pre-race trading
With the same hypothetical runner:
- Opening before your log says the market can take the trade. At the 45-minute point only $130 waited at Runner 3's best lay price and the spread was five ticks, so a $144 back opened then had no exit near the price for its full size. Open only in the window where your log shows a one-tick spread and money several times your stake.
- Setting the stop in ticks, not dollars. Five ticks each way looked balanced, but the stop cost $12.00 against a $10.00 target because it crossed $4.00.
- Opening a trade on weight of money alone. Offers can be pulled in a second, leaving a position with no reason behind it.
- Leaving the close to the last few seconds. An unfinished close at the jump is a bet.
- Trading more races than you can watch. Two deadlines a minute apart leave one of them unmanaged.
- Raising the stake on the next race to win back the last one. Stop instead, and leave the deposit limit on your exchange account where you set it.
Using B337's racing board before a trade
B337 has no way to back, lay or trade on the exchange, so every pre-race trade is one you place yourself. Its Terminal lists prices from 40+ bookmakers across racing and sports, with Betfair's back and lay prices alongside. On a race it also shows flucs and a countdown to the jump, which lets you set bookmaker moves against the exchange price as the deadline approaches.
The Terminal's prices come in on a repeating cycle and can lag the exchange's own, so take your trading price from the exchange ladder every time. Bookmaker names are trade marks of their owners. B337 is not affiliated with them.
Pre-race trades depend on laying, liability and commission, all covered in the lay betting guide.
Risk: Betting involves risk. A pre-race trade can be left half closed at the jump, late news can move the price past your stop, and there is no guarantee of profit. See responsible gambling for limits and support.