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.
Betfair reduce in-play delay on football
Received an email from Betfair today that details a plan to reduce inplay delays.
Currently they put a bet placement delay in of 8 seconds when placing a bet in play on football / soccer. They are looking to reduce the delay to 5 seconds in matches this weekend. They also plan to reduce the half time bet placement delay to one second.
See the forum for more details
Man City vs Chelsea
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Premier League: Man City v Chelsea (Mon, 20:00)
Man City turned on the style at White Hart Lane to move to the top of the table and it’s clear that Chelsea are second favourites with the bookies, but a defeat here will leave them six points adrift with a vastly inferior goal …
Testing times
It is with interest that I am watching preparations for the new Formula 1 season.
The various teams have been testing this week in Jerez and it’s proved to be a mixed bunch of results so far, but hey, that’s what testing is all about.
But the uncertainty during testing and all the rule changes that have occurred this season could throw up some unexpected results as we head through the season. So I’m really interested in taking a deeper …
Pre Match football trading
In the absence of racing today I’ll be dipping into Kempton to have a look this evening, though I doubt I’ll trade it, and I’ll also be welcoming the premier league football into my arms.
Football was one of the first markets I actively traded on Betfair and I still do it today. Trading before the match starts allows me to get off to a head start on things and, if necessary, carry over the profit to play around with …
Merseyside Derby
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Premier League: Liverpool v Everton (Tue, 20:00)
The first Merseyside derby of the season was a 3-3 thriller and with both teams still occupying positions in the top six and separated by just one point this is one of the biggest meetings between these teams in years.
Liverpool have won 10 of …
Tales of the unexpected
With the Australian open over we can reminisce on what happened. The most obvious thing was that the first grand slam of the year had two unexpected winners. I’m not expecting that to repeat through the season. Djokovic, Nadal and Murray are at the top of their careers at the moments and that has to be a theme through the year.
I’ve learnt to look at the Aussie Open for clues of break through players. I think we saw a …
Federer vs Nadal
Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer will continue their great rivalry tomorrow when they meet for the 11th time on a Grand Slam stage.
It should be an interesting match, but I thought the quarter between Murray and Federer would be as well, but that didn’t turn out to be so blockbusting. I’ve had a quiet Aussie open. Some decent results but less active than last year while I’ve been working on some key projects. The early mornings were too much …
Another classic betting coup
Barney Curley may have retired but his presence was felt yet again as four heavily gambled horses romped home in style for a big accumulator today. This brought back memories of May 2010.
Eye of the Tiger came in at 13:30 at Lingfield, Seven Summits at the 13:40 at Catterick then Indus Valley and Low Key in the evening at Kempton.
The link? All the horses involved were previously associated with Barney Curley. Winning trainer John Butler, a former …
The £16m football accumlator
After a busy week I’ve been catching up on email and reading through some reports and stuff. I’m a little late but spotted this and thought I’d share it.
“Online Sportsbook has continued to show strong wagering growth, up 48% in the first two weeks of 2014. However, football results in week 2 were highly unfavourable with an unusually high number of odds-on favourites winning. Driven by the impact of this on our otherwise very attractive accumulator business, we recorded …
Sunday football previews
Chelsea v Man Utd (Sun, 16:00)
The first meeting between these teams this season was a drab nil-nil affair that is probably best forgotten. With Arsenal and Man City both hosting bottom-six teams this weekend Chelsea will need to win to stay within three points of the lead, while United know they cant afford to drop too many more points. So hopefully the significance of the game creates a bit more excitement.
Chelsea are in decent form having won their …
Betfair link Sportsbook to the exchange
In a positive move for exchange liquidity Betfair have finally linked up the Sportsbook front end to the exchange mechanism.
In only appears to be on Football markets at the moment but no doubt more markets will follow. As it now stands anybody placing a bet on the Sportsbook will automatically see their bet ‘referred’ to the exchange. If the exchange price (less 5% commission) is better than the sports book price, then the bet is placed via the exchange …
Courtsider scandal at Australian open hits the headlines
Australian authorities took a big step to send courtsiders packing last night with a aggressive move to enforce gambling laws. Australian legislators take a dim view of in-play betting as they feel it will damage the integrity of sport and it’s banned in Australia. This moves indicates they are actively seeking out courtsiders during games.
News broke as follows: –
“Last night a 22 year old man was arrested and charged with offences under Victoria’s new crimes integrity in sports …
Australian Open Tennis is here
The start of the year is a great time to get some Tennis trading experience under your belt. If you want a quick browse of previous advice dispensed on Tennis, click here to search the blog for Tennis articles.
The Australian Open is the first grand slam tournament of the year and usually presents some good opportunities. In 2012 we were treated to a legendary final which I documented on the blog. The final turned over £46.2m in matched …
Arsenal shouldn’t worry over Walcott
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Theo Walcott, Forward, Arsenal
Theo Walcott’s cheery mood following Arsenal’s FA Cup victory over Tottenham was quashed when scan results on his knee injury ruled him out for the rest of the season and this year’s World Cup. England will surely suffer from his absence but Arsenal have coped well without him …
Trading team news on football matches
I’m looking at the Man City and West Ham match this evening. I see City are 1/5 on for the win! The big question I am asking myself at this moment in time is, what teams will walk onto the pitch this evening?
I trade a lot of football before the match starts. Why? Well if I do anything in-play then trading before the off gives me some leeway to what I want to do with a strategy in-play. …
A question of scale (part four)
I have finally completed my quartet of posts called ‘question of scale’.
Parts one, two and three have been looking at the question of scale in the exchange markets. Four looks at what this effectively means for me and it starts with a simple question.
OK, I’m going to give you £500,000 to invest. Where will you invest it and what return will you get?
Let’s put that in a savings account. Hmm, only 1-2% interest means we will …
Picking an FA Cup shock
Ah, the romance of the FA Cup!
The romance bit comes from a non league team coming up against a major club and beating them. But the evidence for regular giant killings is a little thin on the ground.
Last year of course Wigan ensured the demise of Mancini’s tenure at Man City by winning the Cup. In 2012, for the first time since 1994, a minor team made the fifth round. In the prior year a league two team …
My Sports trading journey – Part five
A new year seems a good place to try and round off my story of how I got trading and my journey through the markets.
Click on the links to catch up with parts one, two, three and four
The jump
So I had taken the great leap into the unknown. For years I’d worked diligently up the corporate ladder and could have stayed in a senior position, but had now stepped off. At the back of my …
£17k
After I posted up my summary of 2013, I realised there was another statistic I could have added to the mix. Commission paid. I used a number of strategies last year. Including some experimental ones and that meant that the most I paid over a four week total in commission last year was a staggering £17,697.
To clarify that’s commission generated, not profit. Eye watering stuff. I hadn’t realised just how much until I ran over the stats! Just wanted …
Happy New year – Mission impossible 2!
Bit of an exaggeration, but not far from it!
New years day brings a smorgasbord of activity on the sports markets and it’s a tough day. Not least because most people will be hungover, but there is also so much sport going on, it can be a demanding day.
It’s better than boxing day though as it’s a bit better aligned. Cheltenham has often produced decent results for me on the first day of the new year. Lots of footy …
A year in the life
You may recall my blog posts a day, a week and a month. So what better way to sign off 2013 than a year in the life.
The year
I tend to follow a predictable pattern each year, skipping between major events where liquidity is highest. I used to do everything a few years ago but as my percentage return on invested capital shrinks, I am much more picking nowadays.
So I can tell you at the start …
Consistency
So the festive trading period is over and we now return to more mundane matters on the racing front.
Nothing outstanding occurred for me on the trading front, but Sprinter Sacre pulling up at an SP of 1.20 was probably the high or lowlight of the period depending on which side of the book you were on. You could hear the howls of anguish like never before coming from the crowd. Another reason why trading is much better than traditional …
Variability of football, the tipsters nightmare
Here is a very easy puzzle for you to solve. Your friend asks you to forecast the result of a football match.
The scenario is quite simple: –
Team A Form
Hasn’t lost at home this year and is unbeaten run to 10 games. They have only conceded 16 goals in 17 games. They have lost just two of their last 36 home games (W24 D10 L2) and are 4th in the league.
Team B Form
Has no wins in …
Mission not impossible
So, after a tough day yesterday we look forward to an easier task today. Some reasonable quality about and of course we have Sprinter Sacre on the card.There are also a sensible amount of races. Saturday looks promising on the racing front.
With hindsight, always a wonderful thing, yesterday didn’t go too badly for me. So as a matter of record I should blog that for a better reflection next year. But I think one thing that did trick for …
Mission impossible
One look at the racing card this morning and the music from mission impossible should have started running through your head.
Even with two meetings abandoned there are still a total of 11 meetings in the UK and Ireland today and a total of 720 runners over 72 races.
The problem you have on days like this is that the races fall all over each other and before one has finished another has already started. They are also generally lower …
Some rest for the wicked
So we are almost at Christmas and the sports schedule is thinning out into the run up to Christmas day. No racing today and it’s the same until boxing day. It’s lined up quite nicely this year to give me the opportunity to actually have a decent rest and do nothing! Well I’ll try at least, certainly there isn’t much to be done on the trading front.
So it will be a time of reflection and looking forward. With that …
Sunday match previews
These stats are brought to your by our friends over at Football Form Labs. Check out their site and the powerful software that sits behind these comments.
[Peter] I’ll be at St Marys watching Southampton vs Spurs so can’t comment on that match!
Swansea v Everton (Sun 16:00)
Swansea are unbeaten in five home games but Everton have been beaten just once all season – and everyone loses at the Etihad these days. Roberto Martinez has got the Toffees …
Player absence and team performance in football
These stats are brought to your by our friends over at Football Form Labs. Check out their site and the powerful software that sits behind these comments.
PLAYER ANALYSIS
Using Form Lab Black’s player analysis tool we look at a three significant players who will be missing this weekend and see what their absence might mean. N.B. Appearances mentioned below relate to starting and completing an hour unless otherwise specified.
[Peter – Based upon my research over many …
The best from the worst
Looked at the football last night to see if there was anything worth trading, but there was little on. I tend not to mess around in cup matches as they are less predictable than normal matches and subject to some funny activity now and again. Last night’s match between Fulham and Sheffield Utd looked really uninspiring fodder.
And so it proved as Fulham and Sheffield Utd slogged out a drab 0-0 draw. I was glad I missed it to be …