Why?

[monkeymagix]

Hi

This may just be the heavy opiate medication I am on since my operation getting me confused but I have a trading BOT and the other day there was a race inplay where the favourite (Livelovelaugh) was down to a price of 1.42.

I already had a matched LAY bet on the runner so I wanted to mitigate my bet by cancelling it out with a back bet that matched the liability etc so I didn't lose/win anything (or much).

Therefore the maths came back and I was offering a much higher BACK price of 2.30 on a horse that was currently priced at 1.42. The market (at the time) obviously thought this horse was likely to win, therefore the question I am trying to figure out is why wasn't this bet taken up.

If people thought the horse would win then taking a price of 2.30 would have been a lot better than a price of 1.42 but the bet wasn't matched and remained unmatched until it lapsed.

In the end the horse actually LOST the race so I lost my LAY bet and had to pay out the liability. However if I had got my BACK bet matched it would have mitigated it.

The race was not suspended/closed at the time.
The horse was the lowest priced in the inplay market.
Money was available in the market.
The current BACK price for the horse inplay was 1.42 and I was offering 2.30.

So I am either confused, missing something, or got something wrong. If everyone thought a horse was going to win and the average price was 1.42 but someone was offering a lot higher price why wouldn't it be snapped up?

Ideas or corrections on my thinking much appreciated.

Thanks

[betdynamics]

I think the way it works, is that your BACK bet needs to be matched to someone else's LAY bet.

Therefore, in order to get your BACK bet matched at odds of 2.30, someone would have to LAY at odds of 2.30.

The market was offering lay odds much lower, so your bet remained unmatched.

[monkeymagix]

Ok that makes sense seeing its an exchange. Will need to change my mitigate maths out then!