Conclusions from Cheltenham day one
And they are off. Sort off, after a delay then a cancelled race.
Hmm, that was a bit of a messy start to Cheltenham but that’s never stopped me in the past and it didn’t yesterday. When I heard that race times were to be put back I wasn’t sure what I would see. Would we get a double surge in volume? No was the in-direct answer to that question, but it obviously did lead to an increase but also a situation where it was difficult to make direct comparisons on prior years.
Traded volumes
On the top level, volumes were hard to compare because of the delayed start. I’ll wait for ‘official’ Betfiar data to come back on that one. But last year, without the delay, Betfair had matched bet turnover of £29.5m, this year it was £25.6m. The XC did £2.6m last year so if you add that back it its still down. But this year should be inflated by the late start. It’s a mixed picture. Today will reveal more. The starting price of Sprinter Sacre will add a lot of volume today.
Fill rate
If you look at overall fill rate it took about ten seconds longer this year on Betfair to get an order filled. On Betdaq it was 20 seconds quicker. This number will only really play out over the week, but I’d though I point that out to as it stood out. Prices are less likely to move on Betfair though, so that accounts for some of this. It all boils down to your trading style as to what is important. Overall there is a little more movement in the markets this year.
Control account
Another interesting point from yesterday. I run a control account using Bet Angel automation feature that trades at random in the background. The idea is to give me a benchmark on the market. Yesterday it won 4 out of 6 of the races. Of course trading at random will not make you any money because when you get a loss it will usually dwarf your gains, but of course there is a solution to that. Nonetheless when you trade at random you will be pleasantly surprised how many races you actually get right! I tend to use it to measure how quickly orders filled and so on. It’s a useful thing to do.
Overall view
After an erratic start I soon began to get the flow of the markets and settled down nicely. I didn’t notice any great change to the way that the markets were acting in comparison to prior years. Once I’d settled I began to up my stakes and by the third race I was really going for it. If there was one mistake I made yesterday it was not being aggressive enough, I was far too cautious to start. As my confidence grew I start to push a lot harder so I’ll do that from the off today. I have include a couple of results here, you can see from the Betfair and Betdaq equivalent that either exchange is suitable during the festival and pretty comparable, especially when charges are taking into account.
I’m looking forward to the rest of the week.
Category: Horse Racing
