Author Archive: Peter Webb
I left a good job in the consumer technology industry to go a trade on Betfair for a living way back in June 2000.
I've been here ever since pushing very boundaries of what's possible on betting exchanges and loved every minute of it.
New blog now available
We’ve upgraded our old blog to a new one. The old blog will remain a rich resource of content, but the new one will be even better. It will give you a wide range of new features including the combination of videos and written articles. It will become a great way to find detailed content on sports trading, strategies and using Bet Angel. We will update all message areas eventually to reflect that. But in the meantime please visit the …
Best Betfair trading competition ever!
Win a day of unprecedented access and tuition from one of the most successful Betfair traders of all time and creator of Bet Angel, Peter Webb.
Background
Peter pioneered trading on Betfair and was one of the first people to see the potential for applying stock market-style trading tools and strategies to traditional betting markets. The knowledge and experience Peter has acquired has been carefully documented over the years and is also encapsulated in Bet Angel. Now you have the …
Top five tips for winning on the Grand National
It’s the Grand National and it’s one of the most famous horse races of the year it’s the race that everybody has a bet on, but very few will win.
Here are five top tips on how to win on the grand national this year: –
(1) Place a bet that will win more if you win
My first suggestion for you is to pick a horse at random from the ground national, after all, that’s what everybody else does. …
Trading the US Masters
I like the US Masters. This is mainly because it’s the only major played on the same course each year. This means you can collect a ton of stats on how the course plays and form your strategies around that. It gives me a good guide as to when to trade in and out of a position. You can do this on most courses, but because the Masters is at the same location every year it is much more predictable.…
A world cup that is suited to the desert
Saturday sees one of the world’s richest horse races take place at Meydan, the Dubai world cup.
Over the years I’ve moved from dabbling in the Meydan markets to doing them seriously. They often make for a useful addition on a dull Thursday in the UK. Therefore I’d recommend a dabble in these markets if the volume is holding up and there is no clashing with other races. The world cup itself must be one of few where the prize …
Betfair trading – Easter Racing markets
Betfair trading – Formula 1 – Street traders
Formula one is back this weekend, so we will get to see how the new cars will shape the sport this season.
I delved into the sport in depth a few years ago and have kept all the records up to date to look at key aspects of it from a trading perspective. While there are not huge amounts of money traded on F1, I’ve enjoyed the intellectual pursuit of understanding the sport a bit better. It’s thrown off a …
The Flat is back
Tomorrow marks the traditional return of the flat turf season at Doncaster.
The end of the footy season is nearing, the Grand National is right upon us and the first Golf Major of the year is almost here. It’s a period of transition.
Transition
At this time of year, we move from the National Hunt season to the Flat season proper. This marks the return of flat racing over the green stuff and that may bring out new horses or …
Betfair trading – Slow and steady wins the race
Further to my post at the weekend about my trading style outside of a major meeting, I thought I would raise my hand to the mouse today show you.
I had planned to do this anyhow, but a couple of comments about me using ‘old’ results meant any thought of me not doing it was summarily dismissed and trudged my way through the snow late this morning to slip and slide into the office. The reason for showing older results …
Back to reality of day to day trading on Betfair
Well, that was a really good week. But then I really do throw the kitchen sink at big meetings like Cheltenham,. The reality of day to day trading though is starkly different.
Big meetings and races
Big meetings and races don’t come around that often and account for a very small percentage of the mix over the year. So when they occur I push as hard as possible, it’s the only time I can do that. They probably only account …
Trading Cheltenham
It’s Cheltenham and that means that next week we will be treated to some quality racing and expected market turnover of £120m. I can’t wait.
In this post, I have put up plenty of statistics about what will and won’t work at Cheltenham and some comparisons to previous years. Hopefully, this will give you a few points. There is also plenty to help you get stuck into this Cheltenham if you are a Bet Angel user.
Cheltenham trading videos
As …
Impossible
It’s all Impossible
When I was young, I was constantly reminded how some things were just impossible and why I shouldn’t try. I had many dreams, but a difficult start in life meant they were very, very distant. I had no mentor, guide or path to follow so I didn’t know how to achieve the things I so dearly wanted. Life was going to be a whole lot of hard work!
I started to read up and understand how others …
Testing times – Profit from them!
Trading on Formula One racing may seem unusual, starting to trade even before the season has even started even more unusual; but it can often present some really good opportunities.
At the start of each year after a winter break, I watch preparations for the new Formula 1 season with interest. The various teams are testing new cars and configurations and it generally leads to a mixed bunch of results. But typically that’s what testing is all about. It’s at …
Preparing for a major race meeting – Cheltenham
Big meetings are generally mean big opportunities for me, so I take a lot of care to carefully prepare for each one. Cheltenham is one of the biggest.
Last year, the big meetings accounted for just short of 20% of my entire year. That’s why I put so much effort into each one. Not only that, while invites are always gratefully accepted, I’m still politely declining them. I intend to do so for as long as is practicable.
Collecting and …
The Betfair exchange – Getting more and less efficient at the same time!
One of the questions that people often ask me is whether the markets easier to trade than they were 10 or 20 years ago and are the markets on the Betfair exchange more efficient or less efficient now. The answer is an odd one.
Are the markets efficient?
If you ask me, are the markets more efficient? I can say to you yes and no because, curiously, as the markets have evolved both situations have transpired at exactly the same …
Betfair football trading – Profiting from knockout stages
Knockout Stages of Champions League
February brings the knockout stages of the European Champions League. The group stages tend to eliminate weaker teams from the tournament. The remaining, generally higher quality teams, know they are a few matches away from a shot at the glory of the champions league title. It’s all or nothing from here!
Fewer matches occur at this stage and the liquidity in the markets is focused on the remaining markets. So overall matched betting totals on …
Betfair trading – Football trading – Who scores first?
Watch a football match and often you will see the outsider team take a ‘shock’ lead according to most sources, but how often does the away team score first?
Goals
Football is a, generally, a low scoring contest. Not only that, you can have a lot of shots and still not score. The chance of a goal from a statistical perspective is interesting because goals are ‘rare’. This lends itself to seeing away teams taking a ‘shock’ lead more often …
ICE totally gaming – A well timed industry event
Early February each year brings ICE totally gaming.
It’s a quiet time of the year and I’ll often holiday in February as the financial impact of trading less won’t really be felt by the end of the year. So the show is well timed to kick start the year and take some actions forward before that break.
The show
About 30,000 people descend on London’s Excel arena to glare at half-naked women, if you want to believe the press stories …
Betfair trading strategies – Trading order flow
There is no doubt trading is an odd thing to do in a betting market.
‘Real’ Trading is generally tricky to understand, can be counter-intuitive and worst of all it’s a great way to profit.Why worst of all? Well, there is the problem, people find it hard to really fully understand it. Cynics of the world unite!
How I trade on Racing
On Racing, I’m a ‘pure’ trader. I trade order flow. When I arrive at a market, I observe …
Dublin Racing Festival
The first ever Dublin Racing Festival takes place at Leopardstown this weekend. Over two days there will be seven Grade 1 races on the card. It promises to be a really good weekend of racing. You can view the ‘official’ website : –
https://www.leopardstown.com/Dublin-Racing-Festival/
What is the Dublin Racing Festival?
Traditionally Leopardstown has hosted some key features races, but well spaced apart over three meetings. The Dublin Racing Festival is a streamlined merger of the three meetings, wrapped into a …
What are the best Tennis markets to trade?
There is no such thing as a perfect trade or one that is completely riskless. So the next best thing is to find the best place to be in a market adn when.
Volatility in Tennis
When you are looking to trade Tennis you are effectively selling volatility. Markets are generally priced efficiently before the start of a match, but trading is all about exploiting how a player goes from that point to closing out a match. That progression can …
Welcome to Winter
First the good news, we are only eight weeks from Cheltenham!
Winter
I’ve always held the opinion that the start of the year is badly timed. The new year is seen as a time for optimism and for a fresh start. Unfortunately, the new year is plonked right in the middle of winter.
If you are trying to trade sports, especially Horse Racing, that’s probably not the best time to start, or is, depending on your outlook. Let’s look at …
Trading the FA Cup
It’s the FA Cup third round this weekend and marks just over halfway point in the season.
Has the FA Cup lost it’s ‘magic’?
If you are talking about a smaller club meeting up with a goliath, then perhaps not. But it may be that the smaller club faces a diminished version of said goliath. As they say, Money talks and it doesn’t say much in the FA Cup, apart for smaller teams.
Win a game in the second round …
Five top new years trading resolutions
Some of these may surprise you, others not so much. But if you want to get off on the right foot here are my suggestions for you.
(1) Exercise
Even if you just go for a walk, start each day with some exercise. There is a proven link between exercise, wellbeing and brain function. It should be the first thing you do ahead of anything else, each day. Make the time to do it, there should be no excuses.
(2) …
Goodbye 2017
So there it goes, another year slips into the past. I hope you have a good evening whatever you choose to do on new years eve. I’ll talk about 2018 as we cross into that year. I have a few plans for next year.
Many thanks
First off, my many thanks go to all the people, including our customers, that have supported us over the year. Because of the unique way our team is made up, we throw as much …
How to win (and lose) £45m in a few minutes
This week in 2011, we were treated to a day of spectacular proportions and this post relives that moment.
Leopardstown
It’s a busy week between Christmas and the New year and once out of the Kempton meeting, we move into a quieter period. But Leopardstown still brings us some quality and is worthy of a look as the week wears on. I’m generally less convinced by other markets but will often trade them if an opportunity presents itself.
The are …
Christmas racing markets
It’s almost time to relax, but typically this can start and end sooner than you expect on racing markets.
Pre-Christmas period
The markets in the run up to Christmas day can be a bit barren. It actually works well , as it means you can most likely take the entire week off and not really miss anything. This year you missed a crash on Betfair! But that itself produce some awesome Betdaq markets. I didn’t have too many commitments this …
Binary thinking
Imagine you are a caveman meandering through a landscape, you hear a rustle in the bush. “What’s that…?”
Your brain kicks into action and provokes a flight or fight response. It could be lunch, or it could kill you! Your primitive brain makes a really simple judgement and decides that the payoff here for ‘kill you’ is pretty bad, -100% in fact. The pay off for food is there as well, but it can’t offset the negative. So you walk …
Finding value in malevolent markets
You will be forgiven for thinking that humanity is an outdated concept that should be replaced. But they do say, to err is human. But to completely screw up, you need a computer!
Flash crashes
The stock market was set up to allow companies to raise investment capital from investors. A simple and effective concept that works. But modern financial markets are more like a giant casino. You can still raise funds, but the aftermarket dominates the central purpose. The …
Hennessy Gold Cup – One of my favourite races
I have fond memories of the Hennessy Gold Cup. I’ve traditionally done well at this race and it’s the race I traded live at the IX Investor show for Betfair in 2006. I know I’ve posted this summary, or something similar, before. But it’s definitely one of the highlights of my trading career so far so it’s worth a reprise for those that haven’t seen it before.
Betfair at a financial market expo
Seeing a betting company at a financial …
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