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.
Boxing day bonanza?
Hope you had a good Christmas, we are back with a bang today.
It’s a another boxing day holiday in the UK and the sports schedule will be stuffed full of fixtures, meetings and all manner of sporting events. On racing, even with one meeting abandoned there will be 80 race in the UK and Ireland today.
That’s sounds like heaven to sports traders, but it can be a bit of a nightmare. So many things happening at once often …
Book your Betfair points holiday today
For the larger commission payers amongst you, this is a reminder to make sure you examine whether its worth booking your Betfair holiday next week.
When you generate commission you get credited with Betfair points. The more points you have the lower commission you pay. But each week Betfair decay a big chunk of your points which you would then top up with more activity.
Next week is a short week, especially if you are into horse racing, so it …
I lose money regulary…
Insert caveat – When I’m testing a new strategy!
In the thinner winter markets I often spend a lot of time revising data collected at other times of the year and inching forward on new ideas. I’m a great believer that no matter how much data you have, it’s more important to actually apply things into the market. There are two key reasons for this: –
(1) You need to be careful when Data mining, it can be statistical deja-vu. …
William Hill agree to buy Sporting Bet
The boards of William Hill plc , GVC Holdings plc and Sportingbet plc are pleased to announce that they have reached agreement on the terms of a recommended offer pursuant to which GVC will acquire the entire issued and to be issued share capital of Sportingbet and members of the William Hill Group will acquire the Sportingbet Australian Business and certain other assets from the Sportingbet Group and be granted a call option over the Sportingbet Spanish Business (the “Offer”).…
Trading correlated win markets
Last night we were presented with a good opportunity to trade a correlated market and it’s a favourite trade of mine.
Leeds were playing Chelsea and the opportunity was to oppose Chelsea without actually betting against them. This is because we were in the latter stages of a tournament. It’s important to note that this tactic only really has any logic when matches are taking place on different days.
In the latter stages of a tournament a red hot favourite …
Is the Queen a West Brom supporter?
While watching MOTD 2 the other day, I noticed that the Queen has been pretty busy.
Not only did she manage to visit the prime ministers cabinet meeting this week, but at the weekend I seem to have caught her watching West Brom vs West Ham. See picture: –
SPOTY
I’m enjoying watching sports personality of the year this evening. A self congratulatory indulgence, but justifiably so after a wonderful year for sport in the UK. Difficult to pick an outright winner from a general perspective, so many valid candidates, but Bradley Wiggins has been the short priced favourite for ages.
A point of note however, public based voting competitions can often throw up some really unexpected results. Voting patterns are difficult to predict and campaigns, deliberate or well intentioned …
Do simple things, very well….
I’m oftened ask what is the ‘secret’ to sports trading. Is there a Betfair trading strategy works and is really easy?
Of course there is no one liner that I can give that could possibly encapsulate all the experience I have gathered. I’ve participated in hundreds of thoasands of markets and know much about how the markets are priced and how they work, tha’s a lot of information that can’t be crunched into one line, but there is a small …
Betfair H1 results – Exit LMAX – Rev up, earnings down 25%
A right old mixed bag in Betfair’s results this morning. Official results here: –
https://corporate.betfair.com/media/press-releases/2012/13-12-2012.aspx
If you want the full set of results, regulatory disclosure and detailed extracts, please visit the Bet Angel forum.
As expected Betfair’s new CEO taking the opportunity to hit the reset button on the business. This is a very common practice for incoming CEO’s and will allow better comparitive results this time next year. This set of results you can take in any number …
The Gambler’s fallacy
The Gambler’s fallacy is a psychological error, also referred to as the fallacy of the maturity of chances. It is the belief that deviations from expected behaviour revert to mean. This is often referred to as ‘the law of averages’, I prefer to call it ‘The flaw of averages’
It layman’s terms it’s the feeling your mind gets when 15 reds pop up on the roulette table. There can’t be a sixteenth can there? So you bet black. In reality, …
The Academy
Back in 2004 I stood up in-front of some financial market traders, in Clitheroe of all places, and talked to them about how I traded on Betfair.
Such was the interest that the company that invited me asked me to do a full day of training for them and that was how I started offering advice on how to trade.
Since then things have moved on a lot. It was tough back then as people hadn’t really grasped the concept …
Clever ways to trade and visualise football data
Market data can be boring in it’s flat form format. By re-interpreting this data you can not only get a bit of depth in a market but perhaps see things you haven’t seen before. I tend to visualise data, because this allows you to look at the data in a much more intuitive manner and this means you can spot opportunties easier as it significantly aids your reading of a market.
In the embedded video we use the multi market …
Are traders really the dominant force on Betfair?
You often read about traditional backers (or layers) moaning how traders ‘mess up’ the market.
I’ve posted elsewhere on the blog that I actually think trading creates a range of new opportunities for traditional strategies because they often chase prices into value territory, without actually realising it. So much so that I’ve started taking advantage of outlier prices. But that point aside, I do often wonder just how much trading goes on and on what scale? We already know you …
Trading the last set of group matches
A couple of nice reminders in the last two days on curious scenarios that can occur in the dead rubber matches.
First we had Arsenal last night. Already through to the next stage of the champions league and not much to play for in the last match. As consequence people started discounting the fact that Arsenal would not win and it pulled in the price of Olympiakos quite dramatically before the off. When the team news came out and the …
Not bad for a winter Tuesday
First snow of the winter arrived here this morning and I had to dodge in and out of various potential mishaps on school run this morning.
Trading winter racing markets
Winter in the racing markets can be a bit bleak. A chunk of the races can be fairly poor affairs and that’s if the racing goes ahead at all! My overall potential drops quite significantly at this time of year on the racing, I typically see a decline in the …
Chocolate and Nobel Prizes
I’ve taken this headline from a tongue in cheek article on the BBC web site.
This article reminded me of conversation I had with somebody recently about their ‘success’ in gambling markets. They came up with a thought recently, put it to use in the market and were walking away with hundreds a day. They came to me to ask if this was good. It was an outright gambling strategy, so I guess they also wanted to show me …
My highlight for November
Today brings a potentially good day for me, a highlight for November and a reminder of good times.
It’s the fighting fifth at Newcastle today. It’s often a small field and can be a bit tricky, but it usually contains some decent opportunities. Last year there was a big drift on Binocular before the start as the money came in for, correctly it turns out, Overturn. That led to a really good trading result. I will be happy with that …
Serving your trading apprenticeship
I’ve often advocated a number of different things on this blog relating to how you should approach your time in the markets. The reason, I’ve been through it all!
I’ve posted a link on the forum to some stuff I read recently that I think will be of interest to readers of the blog.
It’s talking about an ‘apprenticeship’, what does it take to get to establish yourself in a role and master it and I think it’s equally applicable …
Now Betfair exit Greece
It was announced at 7:04 this morning that Betfair are now, on top of all the other recent markets, exiting Greece. It’s another blow for the exchange model in Europe.
Full statement is available here: –
https://otp.investis.com/clients/uk/betfair/rns/regulatory-story.aspx?cid=270&newsid=293343
The key part is the following: –
On 5 November 2012, the Greek Gaming Commission issued a Decision that includes provisions for financial penalties and criminal sanctions against gaming operators that continue to operate in the market without a permit. Betfair believes that …
Fergie time
Here is an interesting piece from the BBC website about Manchester United and extra time. I did an article for a magazine around four years ago on exactly the same subject, I think I may have blogged on it as well at some point. Unfortunately the BBC didn’t pick up on that, but hey I’m not bitter about it!
However this is well constructed and a good summary of the situation relating to whether teams get additional time when they …
Champions league
An interesting set up for tonights Champions league.
The market thinks there will be around three goals a game on average this evening and total of 21. I’m not so sure?
An average of three goals is often forecast when there is a clear winner, but that really doesn’ t look the case tonight. The least competitive matches are Spartak Moscow vs Barcelona, FC Nordsj vs Shakhtar and Benfica vs Celtic. But of course, as Celtic have proven, that odds …
Cheltenham Open
At last, some quality comes back into the jumps season!
With the Cheltenham open this weekend we can look forward to the fact that the festival is only four months away! Hey, you need something to look forward to during the, often bleak, winter season.
The Open is a useful meeting and volumes will be higher than normal so it’s an opportunity to get tucked into some decent markets. This isn’t like the Festival though so you shouldn’t get wildly …
Tactical football trading
As is well publicised, I started my odyssey in sports when I was very young, analysing footy matches looking for draws.
I still endlessly search for new information, a quest to find something that hasn’t been found before. To give you some hope if you are doing the same, I am always finding new things. Sometimes by looking for something else.
I recently revisited how a football match unfolds and if there was information contain in the first half stats …
The comeback kings
When trading you are looking to lay at the shortest possible odds first then trade out at much higher odds, or vice versa. Doesn’t matter which, I’ll take either!
However you need something to happen for that opportunity to arise. In football there are many ways that this can happen but the main method to see a swing in odds is goals.
The perfect scenario is for a team to conceded a goal then comeback to win the match. This …
New version of Bet Angel
Just in case you missed it, you may not be on our mailing list, we recently released a new version of Bet Angel. Lots of tweaks and enhancements but the main upgrade was a new feature we have added to Bet Angel’s Guardian feature.
Guardian is the powerful multi-featured, multi-market tool within Bet Angel. Using Guardian you can search for, view, sort and trade multiple markets all at once; even if Guardian is closed. This means you can cover …
Newton would have used exchanges
Newton’s Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Sometimes people are perplexed at how you can correctly call price action on an exchange, but sometimes it’s quite easy; thanks to referancing Newton’s third law.
Every betting market must add up to 100%. It’s impossible for it to exceed that value in either direction for any prolonged period of time. So if something is coming in, in one direction, this means something else, either …
Betfair forced to exit Germany
In another blow for international expansion Betfair has been forced to exit Germany.
In July Germany applied a turnover tax of 5% on stakes which Betfair believed wasn’t applicable to it. Betfair confirmed that discussions are continuing with tax authorities regarding the potential tax liability, if any, arising from bets placed on its exchange since the law came into effect.
Betfair is now reviewing its operations in this market. In FY12, approximately 4% of Core Betfair revenue came from Germany …
Next US president is……
US Presidential markets are surprisingly good trading fodder.
OK, I know we have some European football on this evening and the Melbourne cup just passed, but once in four years means I will devote this post today to draw your attention to this market.
The last market in 2008 drew total traded volume of £13m. This was actually down on the previous election in 2004 where a lot of uncertainty created a wild swing in the market. At one point …
Melbourne cup
I’ll be interested to see what the Melbourne cup does overnight this year.
This is the first time it has been run since the turnover tax was implemented in Australia which the objective of protecting the incumbent operators in the market. I think the outcome, so far, has shown that traders don’t dominate the market in the manner people previously assumed. Turnover, as far as I can see, on most big races is pretty much the same as before and …
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