Best of a bad job
Well that was an interesting day. I knew it was going to be a case of doing the best I could in tricky circumstances. Despite being tired it all worked out roughly in the end. But it didn’t feel like a successful day!
First up, the run-away leader in the US Masters made this a particularly tricky Masters this year around. I wanted a record result, I desperately wanted to break a four figure sum but it looks like that chance has gone. So far I’ve managed to pick up just short of £900, but I can’t see me getting to four figures unless Spieth has a major collapse. I’ve traded in and out of him a bit, but it’s not a nice set up for further progress. I’d show you a screen shot, but thanks to partial settlement its a nonsense at the moment.
Then of course we had the Grand National. I did ok and made some nice progress fairly quickly. It’s one of few races I’ll trade some time out right to the off. But as we passed the 3pm Saturday dead zone on Betfair I could see the API was struggling. But the Grand National market is a slow market, so I felt it was OK to continue with caution. A poster on the forum had pointed out that even Betfair were nervous, deciding to drop cash out on racing for the day to try and ease the burden on the site. Really odd decision that seemed. I did ponder if the decision was made for something other than technical reasons.
As my total built so did my confidence and I was ready to get a clean exit 10 minutes out, but things seemed to be perking up so I added to my position. Big mistake. The erratic performance of Betfair eventually decayed into a complete halt. Which, of course, leaves you wondering what exactly your real position is?
I was speaking to somebody else who was in a far worse position, so I felt reasonably lucky; but it looked inevitable that my nice trade was about to turn into a punt, so it did! As we hit post time the runners were ready and I wasn’t. It was really hard to know if I had exited correctly or not so as the race started, I was in the lap of the gods. I just couldn’t get any useful feedback from Betfair.
Over on Betdaq however things were fine and dandy. It was holding up well and performing well, despite very large volume. As Betfair collapsed, opportunities started to pop up out of the woodwork all over Betdaq. It had traded well anyhow, but now it was like taking sweets from a child. Near post time I carefully closed my position on Betdaq and waited and waited for Betfair to rise from it’s torpid rotting corpse state.
Eventually it did, but it was in-play, so I had to carefully unpick my exposure piecemeal. It was not a nice experience. I noticed quickly that the shape of the market was all over the shop. ‘Shutthefrontdoor’ had a crazy SP of 28 from a pre-off price of 10ish. Some people had been royally shafted there. There were a few examples further down the field as well. Basically it was a complete mess. Not befitting of a company that is worth £2bn and one that just returned £200m to shareholders is it?
But I survived and so did others, but I feel sorry for those that got caught. But there was a lot of warning however, I sent out as many messages as I could to be careful. It really shouldn’t be like this thought should it? You should be able to do stuff on the site with confidence and you can’t on these really big moments. We have a few of those ahead of us in the summer.
Meanwhile over on Betdaq a best result yet arrived. So a stressful, but ultimately successful day.
Love to go to Augusta and the Grand National, but it will have to wait for another year at least. I’ll be back behind my desk next April!
Category: Betdaq, Betfair, Golf, Horse Racing
