This is a very smart piece of software specifically developed for people that want to hedge their bets by trading out in play (or pre race). There are many sites and services dedicated to providing information about the chance of horses winning, from race cards to ratings services with many levels of information. Few of these however give information showing exactly how well horses have run. Sure there are in-running comments, winning distances and speed ratings but none of these actually tell you how much money could have been achieved in-play from the lowest price the horses were traded at.
Exactly how well horses have run, with a direct link to profitability, can be calculated by using two pieces of information about each horse in each of its previous races, which are the Betfair Start Price and the Lowest In-Play Price it traded at. This can give the exact in-play profitability for this horse so we end up with a form guide for in-running performance instead of the usual ‘crossing the line first’ performance.
With ‘dobbing’, for any given horse we want to see how profitable it has been in the past. ‘Dobbin Day’ is desktop software for PC or Mac that acts as a data visualization tool, showing graphical and tabular data about runner’s previous in play performances.
It also handles all the bet placement work needed to place these types of bets, tracks the progress of your bets and saves your betting history for your own analysis.
There are five very useful short videos on the site that explain how it works and here’s one video overview of what it does:
This is an extremely smooth bit of software. It’s very user friendly and easy to use and, being someone that doesn’t tend to read instructions (!), I found it totally intuitive. In other words, you can load it up, start to mess around with it, and instantly understand what you’re looking at.
The graphical data is immediately useful. Simply dragging the bar across the chart you can see at a glance how profitable a particular horse has been hedging at whatever level you like. Once you see a level you like the look of it’s simply a matter of double clicking that selection to add it to the bets for the day.
Bear in mind this is not a ‘system’ as such. There’s no point asking them for past results on any particular setting, rather this a tool to help you to make a decision on what you want to bet on.
If you like you can simply use the tool as a bet placement bot for Dobbing, or Trobbing, as it’s so easy to set up. But you’ll find you get drawn in to the possibilities of the data it provides. A single license allows you to run multiple bots, as the license is for one Betfair account, so you can experiment to your heart’s content with various settings to see what works for you. Whether you wish to go for a few well targeted Trob bets or plenty of scalping type hedge bets, this software will quickly and easily identify the horses that have shown a historical form for attaining the hedge level you want.
I really like this bit of kit. At the moment I’ve been running it on my VPS, but I know they have plans for a completely web based version that should be out this year some time. This will completely negate the need for a VPS, or to have your home computer running. This will be a free upgrade for anyone that has already bought a desktop license.
I have no hesitation in giving Dobbin Day an approved rating. It is an excellent bit of kit, great fun to use, and should be a useful tool in any bettor’s arsenal.
You can download Hedger Pro here
UPDATE
Hedger Pro (formally Dobbin Day) is now completely web based so no software to download and you don’t need to leave your computer on. It also has more functionality.
I completely agree that this a superb piece of software. Nigel really is the gold standard of software designers. I met him many years ago at a seminar where he was the resident software man. Dobbin Day, like all his software, is not only intuitive and completely flexible, it is also (and this is rare) very professional looking.
Having showered this with plaudits, I must confess that, having purchased it a couple of years ago, I don’t use it. I found that dobbing is more sophisticated than many sellers make it out to be. In other words, you can’t assume that, because a horse has shortened in running previously, it will do so in today’s race, however often this has happened. It may be a clue, but there are many factors involved, particularly the other runners in the race. I was using the software blindly picking runners which had been successfully dobbed in the past, and I found that this is simply not profitable.
That said, I certainly wouldn’t put anyone off buying the software. I’m sure it can be profitable if you do work out all the important factors in today’s race, and used in conjunction with the excellent information available on Geegeez Gold, if you have the time, I have no doubt that decent profits are out there to be had.