Double or bust literally means you double your stake or you lose (Bust).
The term "DOB" (Double or Bust) as far as horse race trading is concerned was first coined evidently by Martin Kilgariff on the Patternform site during 2008.
Betfair introduced the starting price in December 2007 (I was there) and the idea was to trade against this in-play.
Here are a couple of Dob Trades I did using Bet Angel.
Evidently Initially the term “DOM” was used (Double Our Money), but was discarded and replace with “DOB” soon after.
Although the double is really getting back your original stake plus the stake you make.
There are lots of variations on the theme but for this document we will stick with what is classed as the original concept.
Dob is actually an extreme trade bet.
You need to “back” and “lay” to make it work and you can only do this on the exchanges like Betfair, Betdaq or Smarkets.
I can only vouch for Betfair because this is where I do all my trading but the concept is the same wherever you do it.
Betfair just tends to have more liquidity especially in-play so you are much more likely to be matched.
Having said that you do have to be careful and concentrate generally on the front runners in a race where there is bound to be plenty of betting action in-play.
But why do it?
Well the simple answer is you do not need your selection to win to make a profit…
…You just need it to run well.
You just need to win more than 50% of your bets to make it work.
And even with a little manipulation you may be able to make it come together a little bit better once you get to grips on the concept of betting in play.
How does it work
Here is how the bet works based on a back (win) price of 5.00 and a stake of £10.
We first place a Back bet at the current price in this case 5.00.
We then immediately place a lay bet using double our initial stake at half the original price.
Win bet 5.00 – 1 x £10 = £40 profit.
Lay bet 2.5-1 x £20 =£30.00 loss
If the horse doesn’t win but we get both bets matched.
£40 – £30 = £10
If the horse loses the race and we don’t get our dob bet matched, then:
-£10 (We bust)
If we do get our dob matched and the horse goes onto win then
£40 -£30 = £10
The only time we don’t win is if the runner just doesn’t run as well as expected.
That is why using software like TTS can help you find great selections to use for Dob bets.
