The title of this article is quite a bold statement. How to guarantee your profits in a greyhound betting system. Notice it says ‘guarantee a profit’, not win every race.

In any greyhound betting system, the most basic trades are known as back and lay.

Those of you reading this, expecting the silver bullet to win every greyhound race you wager on, should click away now. If there was a system that won every time, guaranteed, do you think it would be given away for free?

As you read this article and see which areas of this sport appeal to you most. And as you understand the benefit of using the different types of bet. You will be ready to use your new knowledge and have ideas for creating your own greyhound betting strategy.

Along with discipline and a reasonably sized betting bank. It is possible to make a steady profit over time.

Now, grab your favorite drink, sit back and read on.

If you’re already familiar with greyhound racing, please feel free to skip over the sections of this article that you already know. For those of you who are new and want to discover more about greyhound betting systems, keep reading.

First off, just looking at a race card and trying to figure out the winners of a greyhound race is not the way to profit. Just like any sports betting strategy the best greyhound betting systems will include different ways to bet on a race or series of races. Let’s start with setting yourself up for success.

Getting Started – Preparation

How To Prepare Correctly

If you’re going to be successful in any venture then it’s really important to have a good foundation. It’s just as true for greyhound betting. There are four cornerstones to your success in developing your own betting strategy.

Whether you are going to the track or betting online, it helps to be prepared. The four pillars for your success are; understanding how dogs run in a race, what traps they are drawn in, the weather at the track, and being a track guru.

Understanding The Dogs

The phrase horses for courses, is just as true for greyhound racing. Understanding how dogs run in a race and at a certain track is important. If a dog is fast out of the box, it’s likely best suited to sprint races. Maybe it’s slow to start but likes to come from behind. In which case it will do best in a stayers race.

Doing the research on the dog’s pedigree, previous performances, and the trainer it is stabled with, can help in analysing the runners in a race. Helping you identify likely winners and potential losers in a race.

To be successful in understanding greyhound racing and finding the right dogs. You are going to need to learn how to read form.

LEARN HOW TO READ FORM

Typically form guide cards are the same whether you’re at the track or checking the race card online.

It does take time to understand the form card. But with practice you’ll start to understand the different signals presented on them to help your selections.

I’ll run through a UK race form card with you here;

To illustrate let’s use a Swindon form card for the greyhound running out of Trap 3.

After the Trap number is the dog’s name.

In previous years, there used to be a letter in brackets. THis would indicate what part of the track a dog preferred to run; [R]ails,[M]iddle or [W]ide. But not any more!

Not that big a problem as you can check from the form in the ‘Remarks’ column how the dog ran in previous races. Here’s a summary of what each column signals;

Date – The date of the race

Track – Racetrack name, usually dogs will run at their ‘home’ track unless they are in the national competitions like the ‘Derby’

Dis – Distance of the race ran

Trp – Trap the dog ran from

Split – The time, in seconds, the dog ran from leaving the traps to crossing the starting line

Bends – the dogs position in the race at each bend; 1 to 6 or 1-8 depending on number of dags in the race (country specific)

Fin – where the dog finished

By – distance dog won by or was beaten by the winning greyhound

Win/Sec – name of the dog that came second (if this dog won) or the dog that won the race

Remarks – abbreviated summary of the performance; e.g. Mid = Middle, Chl = Challenged, RnIn = Run in

WnTm – winning race time

Gng – Track going allowance

Wght – the greyhounds weight before the off

SP – forecasted starting price of the dog

Grade – Grade of the race ran

CalTm – Race time of the dog, includes adjustment for the going allowance

In the above example T3 seems to be a good prospect to win the race, it’s been placed or won in its last 4 races on this track and distance. And Brosna Pet has been joint favourite in its last 2 races when finishing 2nd both times. You would have to see how it compares against other dogs in the same race. Did it win?

Yes it did, it was also a very short odds on favourite.

MBT Sports Pro Tip: Look For Value in The Lower Grades

UK greyhound races are graded A1 to A11. With A1 being the highest grade. The younger greyhounds will usually run in the lower grade races. By looking at these lower grades you could spot a future profitable dog.

In the lower grade races odds are often better value because of the outcome being less certain. It’s always worth following the lower grade greyhound races, which is where the younger dogs will be running.

Greyhounds are bred for a certain type of race. But when they are just starting out the dogs will be trialed over different distances. You should follow certain race tracks and keep a watch on the new dogs’ progress. Doing this will help you spot value and should be an integral part of your overall strategy.

Know The Trap

When you’ve identified a good prospect in a race you’ll need to check what Trap it’s running out of. If you have a copy of my book The Two Trap Greyhound System, you’ll know that some traps are more successful than others. This is especially true when you can identify certain race tracks.

It’s worth knowing the Track stats by distance as well as how often your selection has won out of that trap and over that distance. This is especially useful if you are placing large wagers. Have a read of the FAQ section in my article that covers traps in more detail here.

Weather Conditions

The weather can play a big part in the outcome of a race. This is especially true when the track is not an all weather surface. Just as dogs perform differently depending on the Trap draw. They can either win or lose depending on the weather conditions. When you’re checking a dog’s past form, check what the weather was like on the day it either won or lost. 

If your selection has never won on a rainy day, probably best to avoid that race if it’s raining.

Become A Track Guru

This factor is as equally important as any of the other three. Especially when developing your own greyhound betting strategy.

Understanding the dog, the traps and how the weather impacts them is crucial. Understanding how a Track performs is just as important. You need to become an expert at a few tracks and only focus on race meetings at those tracks.

Obviously the tracks you choose should have a proven history of past winners, with some clear signals. In many countries dogs usually race at only one, or two local tracks. Getting to know the dogs, the successful trainers, and the track will help to identify possible trends or signals.

It’s best to choose busy and popular race tracks as they will have a lot of dogs and a good back history of data on which to do your research. All of this research will take some time. But when you start to see the fruits of your research with more successful winning dogs I’m sure you realise the benefit.

Before I get into how to create your strategy, let’s take a look at some of the background into the sport of greyhound racing.

Greyhound Racing: background

Greyhound racing was at its peak over 70 years ago. Back in the 1950s there were more than 100 greyhound stadiums in the UK.

Fast forward to today and there are only 19 official race tracks left in the UK.

The sport has been saved ironically by the internet and the popularity of online gambling. Greyhound betting makes up 20% of bookmakers annual income.

About The Races

As mentioned earlier, every greyhound is registered to a ‘home’ track and the greyhound races between home dogs. In the UK races are graded from A1 (the highest) to A11. In Australia by letters A, B, C, D, J and M (for Maiden), and in the USA it’s A, B, C, D, E and M (for Maiden). 

As a dog progresses up the order the races become more competitive with more ‘equally matched dogs; – well in theory anyway. Dogs will move up or down the graded races depending on form.

Each country’s greyhound association will stipulate race distances, some are the same. But it’s worth getting to know what these distances are and what distances are most used at the race tracks you’re following.

Greyhound Traps

I’ll cover the 3 major greyhound countries, UK, Australia and USA.

In the UK, six dogs per race is the maximum permitted number of runners. Each trap has its own colour scheme, which is reflected in the jacket each greyhound wears. This makes it easier for you to spot your dog by its jacket colour.

• Trap 1 – Red jacket, white number 1
• Trap 2 – Blue jacket, white number 2
• Trap 3 – White jacket, black number 3
• Trap 4 – Black jacket, white number 4
• Trap 5 – Yellow jacket, black number 5
• Trap 6 – Black and white striped jacket, red number 6

In the USA, eight dogs per race is the maximum permitted

• Trap 1 – Red jacket, white number 1
• Trap 2 – Blue jacket, white number 2
• Trap 3 – White jacket, black number 3
• Trap 4 – Green jacket, white number 4
• Trap 5 – Black jacket, red number 5
• Trap 6 – Yellow jacket, black number 6
• Trap 7 – Green/White striped jacket, black number 7
• Trap 8 – Black jacket, white number 8

In Australia, eight dogs per race is the maximum permitted

• Trap 1 – Red jacket, white number 1
• Trap 2 – Black and white striped jacket, red number 2
• Trap 3 – White jacket, black number 3
• Trap 4 – Blue jacket, white number 4
• Trap 5 – Yellow jacket, black number 5
• Trap 6 – Green jacket, red number 6
• Trap 7 – Black jacket, yellow number 7
• Trap 8 – Pink jacket, black number 8

A bit of a pity they couldn’t agree to keep 1 through 6 the same and change 7 and 8!

Types of Betting Markets for Greyhound Betting

I have written a number of articles on the various betting systems for greyhound racing. You can check out ‘5 Greyhound Betting Systems That Win’ and ‘Betting on Greyhounds – A Beginners Guide’ for more. I’ve included an overview below for reference.

In greyhound betting, there are four main markets:

• Straight bets
• Forecast bets
• Accumulators
• Prop bets

In my experience, the best greyhound betting strategies use a mix of all types of bet. Let’s cover each one and see how they work.

Straight Bets

Straight bets are simple win or place bets. You wager on an outright winner or you’re betting each way.

Forecast Bets

Those of you familiar with horse racing will likely know these types of markets:

• Forecast – pick the winner and second place dogs in the correct order.
• Tricast – pick the first, second and third placed dogs in the correct order.
• Reverse – Similar to Forecast and Tricast, but the dogs you select can place in any order for you to win.
• Exacta and Trifecta – these are Tote-only versions of Forecast and Tricast bets which have a minimum stake and winnings defined by the number of winning tickets and the Tote pool dividend. You’ll usually have to be at the actual race track to place these wagers.

Accas

Unless you are completely new to sports betting or trading you will be familiar with accumulator bets. The odds can be very high with an acca bet, this reflects the level of chance versus probability of success. As every prediction on your ticket must be correct, or your bet loses.

MBT Sports Pro Tip: Acca Strategy

A good acca strategy is to pick performing teams/dogs/horses that are generally low odds favorites or joint favourites and place them in an Accumulator bet of 3 to 6 selections. Placing low-stakes accumulator bets should always be a part of your betting strategy.

Matched Betting

Matched betting comes in various forms. Back and Lay, hedging, arbitrage, or the most popularly known variation is matched betting.

All three will guarantee a lock in profit. All three require a lot of extra time and effort to trade in.

Back and Lay

Simply done by covering every bet you place with your bookie by ‘laying’ it through a betting exchange. When done well, back and lay can almost completely eliminate potential gambling losses. It does require a lot of time and effort.

Here’s a simple explanation of how backing and laying works.

About 5 minutes before the race, let’s say you picked a greyhound running in Trap 6. In this case, a “back” would be betting on Trap 6 to win. A “lay” bet would be betting on the opposite – i.e. Trap 6 not finishing in 1st place.

Obviously you can’t just back and lay straight off. You need to find a variation between the back and lay odds, also known as a spread. The spread is where you get the guaranteed profit. Back and lay is only effective in the run up to the start of a greyhound race, just before the off. 

Greyhound races finish generally inside a minute, so there’s very little in-running time to lock in a trade. You do need to watch out for the odds and how they move through the build up of a race. If lots of others bet on Trap 6 the odds will shorten (go down). If not then the odds go long (move up). You need to be able to catch the odds that are profitable to you.

Here’s a recent example;

Hedging for Guaranteed Profit?

No doubt you’re familiar with the phrase ‘hedging your bets’.

Hedging protects you from losses and locking in a guaranteed profit. This is definitely more of a sports trading strategy since you’re locking in lower guaranteed profits as you are covering yourself against a loss. For example, rather than double your stake with a straight bet by using a hedging strategy you may guarantee say just an extra 50% return or half point guaranteed profit.

There are variations on hedging. Maybe betting on say the favourite to place but then the second favourite to show. In greyhound racing this is very doable. You do have to be right on top of your trading game for this to work. If the odds move too quickly against you, you won’t lock in that guaranteed profit.

Arbitrage

Arbitrage is similar to hedging your bets but it is done in a way that it guarantees you a profit regardless of outcome. This can be done through a betting exchange. This is because you can bet on how the odds are moving as well as how the odds are positioned. If you’re new to betting exchanges you should be very cautious when starting, best to paper trade or virtual trade until you’re comfortable with your new trading abilities.

Matched Betting – Free Bets

Matched betting is very popular, mainly because it makes use of bookmaker special offers so that you can create free bets, lay the pick on an exchange and profit regardless of the result. This subject would make a whole other article. For now, just know it’s a great way to support your sports betting strategies.

Build Your Own Greyhound Betting Strategy

YOUR STRATEGY

I hope this article has helped you get familiar with greyhound betting and that you’re ready to create your own strategy.

As I said earlier, your strategy should have a number of systems or markets within the core system. Will you look to back and lay, straight bets or arbitrage? Whatever you decide you will need a good understanding of how the races work, the form of the greyhounds, and other important factors which can affect the outcome of a race.

Taking a more professional and disciplined approach to your sports betting and trading will inevitably make you more successful and profitable. The more you learn about greyhound racing, the tracks, the form etc and identify a couple of tracks you have a better understanding of will help with your success.

Once you’ve found the area of greyhound racing that appeals most to you, you can build your greyhound betting strategy around those criteria and signals.

Finding the Value Bet

Over time as you become more experienced you’ll be able to calculate your own odds and compare those against the bookmaker odds. A value bet is where you have identified an opportunity where your analysis suggests that the online bookmakers have got their odds wrong.

Creating and keeping up to date records of your bets, signals that worked, those that didn’t, and making key notes of that, will help you understand more. It takes time to become efficient and consistent with your winning bets.

Always remember to only bet what you can afford to lose and never bet with emotion. Keep calm, be disciplined and professional and you will achieve success over time.

Recovery strategy

It has to be said that there are two main schools of thought around stake recovery plans. This is a very divisive subject, much like climate change or the world being flat!

After many years of trading in my experience I much prefer to have an opportunity to recover my lost stake on a future wager, rather than think I have lost my stake forever.

Don’t misunderstand me; there are some really bad recovery systems and if you follow them you are almost certain to lose your shirt. The martingale system being one of those.

The martingale system is simply where you double your stake in the event of a loss. This relies on you having a big enough betting bank or you are infinitely wealthy. If you have a poor strategy, or worse still, no betting strategy you are certain to lose everything and real fast. So DON’T do it.

Just to illustrate. If you had a 100 point betting bank and you placed 5 points to win, but lost the first event. And you used the martingale system to recover. You only need a losing streak of 4 bets to run out of stake money!

Another bad system is The Monte Carlo system. Basically this is where you bet against an event simply because you believe the winning run has to come to an end. This really is gambling and chance. It’s not based on any proven system.

A really good example is in football; The Premier League season of 2003/4, a lot of punters (amateur gamblers) lost a fortune betting against Arsenal. They won the Premier League without losing a single game. 26 wins and 12 draws.

Imagine the temptation to bet against Arsenal, especially during the silly season of Christmas. Had you tried, you would most certainly have been the worst for it.

So I don’t believe in not having a recovery strategy, nor do I believe in a ‘all in’ recovery approach either. I prefer to use a stake recovery system but with an unemotional stop loss which I set before I start trading for the day.

Stay Away From Fun Bets

Another word of warning. Avoid bookmakers’ special bets. You know the ones; the Premier League Special acca at 200/1 for example. When you look at the detail you can easily be seduced into thinking the outcomes are realistic.

But ask yourself ; in 5 matches do you really see both teams getting over 1 corner in each half and both teams to score in each half? If you’re tempted, just look at that offer again.

Over 1 corner each team in each half. That’s 2 corners each team each half. 10 teams. There is a tendency for teams to start slow in the first half. Statistics show there are more corners in the second half in the majority of matches. 

Then add to this all 10 teams to score a goal in each half. If you really think this is worth a punt, check out the statistics for the number of matches that are 0-0, 1-0, 0-1 at half time. I’ll save you the search; it’s 75%.

Fortunately there are few fun bets for greyhound racing.

FAQ’s for Greyhound Racing Systems

What is the best way to bet on greyhounds

There are many different ways you can bet on greyhound races, and the best approach will depend on your goals and resources. I have covered this in detail in my article on ‘What’s the Best Greyhound Trap to Lay’. That article explains:

1. Research the dogs and their past performances.
2. Track conditions.
3. Spread your bets around.
4. Set a budget.
5. Learn different types of bets.

How do you win big on greyhounds

There are many ways you can win big on greyhounds. My article on 5 Betting Greyhound Systems That Win can be found by following this link.

How often do greyhound favorites win

As with any type of betting or gambling, luck will always play a role in determining the outcome of a race. However, there are some factors which may give you an edge to certain greyhounds over others when it comes to winning races.

Such things as the dog’s pedigree, being well trained and conditioned for the race ahead of time. Also having experienced handlers who know where to properly position the dog in the Trap in the order for maximum speed and efficiency.

And of course form. Statistically it’s been seen as an average across all tracks that favorites win around 30% of the time. Which means they lose 70% of the time! if you’re using a lay strategy that’s great news!

What is the most profitable greyhound betting system

I think I’ve answered this question in the main body of this article. Your own strategy which should include a variety of betting types as well as a disciplined staking plan will in time show you profit.

What is The Two Trap Greyhound System

Having gone over in detail all the information you need to build out your very own greyhound betting strategy. I am here to tell you there is a way to profit from greyhounds without having to study form, focus on one or two race tracks, follow trainers and analyse all the data.

You can learn about the system in my book; The Two Trap Greyhound System. Get your copy here.

CONCLUSION: IT’S TIME TO OPEN THE TRAP!

I hope this article has inspired you to look into creating your own Greyhound Racing strategy.

As you can see, there’s plenty of different ways you can go about developing your own system. The best greyhound betting strategy will use different bet types. So having decided on your bankroll for the day or event, you should set your staking plan and for your different types of greyhound wagers.

You might decide to have straight or place winners. Or mix it up with some accas and forecast bets. And if you’re going to use matched or arbitrage betting systems, then this is more sophisticated.

If you’ve enjoyed this article and you aren’t already subscribed. Join our newsletter here and get our free book; ‘Evergreen Sports Betting Strategies You Can Start Today’. And if you want exclusive sports tips, systems and strategies that we only share with members then head over to mbt-sports.com.

Good luck in your sports trading and remember: ‘Stop Gambling and Start Trading! Click here if you want to learn more about a greyhound betting system that truly works.

This article is also published on Medium.