Dobbing – Betfair Trading Strategy

Dobbing Betfair Trading Strategy

What is Dobbing?

Dobbing stands for “double or bust” it is a Betfair trading strategy used on the horse racing markets.

The Dobbing Betfair strategy involves backing a horse pre race and having a lay bet matched in-play at half the odds of the initial stake. 

Dobbing Betfair Strategy
Double or bust

The aim of a Dob (double or bust) bet is to make a profit that is even to your stake essentially doubling it.

Lets take a look at an example of a potential Dob bet.

Dobbing Betfair Strategy

In the above image you can see that I have put in a potential back bet of £100 on Bonnie Gals at odds of 5.00.

I have also placed a potential lay bet of £200 at odds of 2.5. If both of these bets were matched you can see that this would equal a profit of £95.00 (£100 – 5% commission) across all outcomes.

If the lay bet is not matched in-play then you would lose your stake, this is where the bust part of the name Dob (double or bust) comes from.

Dobbing essentially works like a straight betting method where you are getting odds of 1.95 ( After 5% commission) on every bet.

Dobbing Betfair Trading Strategy

How to find a good Dobbing Horse?

The double or bust strategy is one that is quite popular so there are a number of good resources available online.

Patternform for example has an excellent page showing you the historical percentages for horses that have dobbed in the past.

Dobbing Betfair Trading Strategy
An example of the Patternform Dobbing overview.

This is a good starting point when looking for a horse that will potentially Dob in-play. 

There are several factors to take into account when choosing horses that will be a successful Dob trade.

For example you might look at filtering horses that have historically dobbed 75% of the time, look at whether they favour specific courses, Are they likely to lead the race? Weather conditions?  Do specific odds ranges work better?

Dobbing Betfair Trading Strategy
Patternform Pace Card

The pace card is another excellent resource from Patternform which gives you an indication of likely front runners in a race.

There are a few different variants of this method with some people opting to try to take more then 100% profit on there stake and others taking less. The most common method however seems to be for people to aim for basically an even money bet minus the commission.

Dobbing can be a profitable angle to consider when looking at trading the horse racing markets and might be something to consider having in your trading arsenal.

3 thoughts on “Dobbing – Betfair Trading Strategy”

  1. The term DOB (Double Or Bust) was first used on the Patternform site back in 2008. I initially devised the term DOM (Double Our Money), but I didn’t think it was catchy or descriptive enough – in that it didn’t include the losing part. Double Or Bust covered both the winning and losing, so I went with that. It’s taken a few years to catch on but it’s interesting to see people using it. The final act will be it’s inclusion in the Oxford English Dictionary – but I fear that’s a few years away 🙂

    Reply
  2. That’s pretty cool. Didn’t know that Patternfrom coined the term double or bust.
    Think you right to about changing it from DOM. Domming doesn’t have the same ring to it really.

    Thanks for posting

    Reply

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