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.
More next manager markets, please
Not so long ago we bagged a really nice profit on the next Wolves manager market. For some time it looked like the world and his dog wanted Harry Redknapp to get the England job and it seemed a sensible appointment. You could have ad ‘arry to lay to 1.27 at best. But the FA, as they have proven on many occasions, are not the general population. They are a largely politcial entity.
Probably the broadest hint that Hodgson was …
End of season Italian football
As I have pointed out before, end of season Italian football can throw up some strange situations and odds. Today we have Atalanta vs Fiorentina where the draw was matched around 2.36-2.40 before the off. Currently it is 1-0 at half time, equaliser anybody? TBH though it doesn’t look like this match is headed for a draw at the moment.
Maybe it’s my imagination, but if feels like there are less of these matches this year than last, unless …
Last day nerves, apathy & the weather
When we approach the end of season crunch games, when relegation or promotion can be decided on the last game, look out for shocks. Also, in the mid division stuff, where there is little to play for; also look to the outsider. It’s at moments like these that you can find value in the markets. Normal statistical analysis becomes much less reliable at these points.
Look for early signs that a team that ‘has’ to do something is showing nerves. …
Black Caviar – New records all round
This morning we saw Black Caviar step up to win a record 20th race in a row. Number 21 is already planned and number 22 could be a royal Ascot showdown with Frankel. Amazing.
If this happens, the race of the decade could be on the cards. While this race could be massive, with Ascot just up the road from me, I’d be tempted to take a day out of trading just to see this race.
In the race today …
Betfair to continue with Racing in Australia
Reports coming in that despite their loss in the recent high profile court case, Betfair appear to have made the decision to continue to offer racing to Australian customers. Here is a copy of the correspondence.
Dear *****,
Many of you will be aware of a recent decision by the High Court of Australia which upheld Racing NSW’s decision to impose a turnover based fee on wagering operators.
Due to the additional cost to Betfair associated with this decision …
Gary Neville’s orgasm
There you go, I told you the draw was value!
In case you’re not sure what the title is all about listen in here: –
But seriously I think Gary Neville can be forgiven for making hilarious noises, as I was too! There were many points in the match last night where it was very easy to shout at the television for one reason or another. I had several complaints from the household about the noise I was making, …
Short Betfair!
Page seven of the business section in the Evening Standard today. Thought you may want to see it.
Basically they are saying short because of the GC stuff, which we know is not an issue anyhow, so a poor piece of journalism there. But also because the share buyback has supported the price and that is about to end. I’d say that was a better piece of insight.
Overall, It is going to be a big sporting year so I …
Barcelona vs Chelsea – The stats
OK, Barca are 1.28 to beat Chelsea. Barca are 1.49 to qualify.
Here is something for you to experiment with. Try looking at related markets using Bet Angel and linking it to a spreadsheet. By doing this you can easily set up a spreadsheet to work out all the derivatives this evening. For example, Chelsea would qualify it was 0-0 or say certain combinations of the correct score market came in, say they scored an away goal. Add up …
London Marathon
Good luck to all those running the London Marathon today. I still harbour ambitions to do one more marathon, but for the moment I will remain on the side of the road encouraging support. Not a big trading market but it can throw up the unexpected. In 2005 you could have backed the women’s runner in running at 1.50 at 22 miles while firmly in the lead thanks to an unusual situation. It’s worth laying low or backing high …
Lay the draw – Revisited
Whenever you look at all strategies, no matter how complex, there is always some simple underlying key metric that is essential to whether a strategy works or not. This is also true in the case of ‘lay the draw’.
I’ve recently been looking again at value backing. There is a little more depth behind what I am doing, but one of the key issues you face if you pursue a value strategy is deviation from mean. You may be able …
Craving more Craven
Stuck in a pretty good performance on the first day of the Craven meeting and was pretty pleased all round with overall performance. Some of the testing I’ve been doing on new ideas came good as well, so I’m really chuffed. The champions league didn’t really through off a quality opportunity last night, but apart from some stuff before the off I didn’t really get that involved. Second legs should be interesting.
I prefer to know whether I’m in a …
Nuts, lightly roasted
I’ve been experimenting with a new strategy recently. I’ve learnt from past experience that data mining can be statistical deja vu. So whenever I make the transition from theory to practical, it always pays to be cautious. So on this occasion I have hedged my position on separate accounts to understand how the main strategy performs but without putting myself at too much risk.
Immediately the strategy started working, with a couple of glitches, so the main account started to …
After Aintree – Time for some R&R
With the Aintree meeting now behind us it’s time to take stock and get some R&R ready for the start of the flat season proper.
Aintree meeting
The Aintree meeting was a peach and I had good days most of last week, including the important races at Aintree. The Grand National was pretty eventful overall and lived up to expectations in all respects. We captured extensive data, which we are analysing in the early part of this week. But the …
Grand National 2004 style
Interested in seeing what Betfair looked like in 2004?
While busy preparing for this year’s Grand National I went back through the archives. In it I found a few screenshots that I had taken from way back in 2004, I thought I would share them with you. It was around 2004 that I started doing detailed archives of my work.
It’s interesting to see how some things have changed but some haven’t. I haven’t made a note of when these …
Great start at Aintree meeting
Well that went well.
No matter how experienced you are you can never be sure exactly sure what lies ahead each day. You will always be at the mercy of the market. So it’s nice when you find yourself on the right side of that. It’s a bit of a confidence boost for the weekend. The best result of the day we saw on Betfair, came on the first. The best on Betdaq on the last. But both were useful …
Punting on the Thames
My first rule for getting involved in the market is liquidity. If there is enough liquidity in a market, it’s usually worth getting involved. So on Saturday I thought I would give the Boat Race a go.
Liquidity wasn’t great at only around £50k when I joined the market, but rose to £300k at the completion of the event. I managed to put a fair amount of money through the market but ended up with a paltry total really in …
2012 Masters day three
That all turned out pretty well in the end.
Woods slump on the second round help move me into a considerable profit. This isn’t because of any position on Woods, more the impact of Woods sliding from short odds to being out of contention; this shortens up the rest of the field. It needed something like this as McIlroy and Westwood are certainly in the frame and Mickelson also shaped up a challenge. That was netted off with some good …
2012 US Masters day two
As predicted the McIlroy / Woods battle didn’t really take off on the first day. Henrik Stenson looked like he was going to create some waves but equalled the worst ever 18th with a snowman (an 8). This was a real shame because he was pulling off such a great move that the green on him alone was worth a fortune, if I had traded out, but I didn’t! I went back and reviewed his round and he had a …
2012 US Masters
I’ve been busy tracking the Golf markets since 2004 and the first major of the year is good place to start the Golf trading season proper.
The thing I like about Masters is its on more or less the same course each year, save amendments and pin positions, with the same sort of characteristics and foibles. There is lots of data as to how each hole plays and where the tough and easy parts of the course are. So that …
Champions league quarter finals
Looking forward to tonights match between Chelsea and Benfica. It has a nice feel to it. I had a good result on the Barca match last night, so hoping for a good evening.
Benfica must score to have any hope of going through, Chelsea are much improved since the sacking of AVB and the players must be feeling the pull of a final; but they still lack some consistency.
Comments on the forum made me look again at this match. …
Trading football at random
If you trade something at random you will break even less commission? Is this statement true or false? If a football team is priced at 2.00 it has a 50% chance of winning a match, therefore you can’t exceed that, can you?
One curious thing you find if you start dabbling around at random in the markets, is the fact there are many situations in many markets when it’s possible to make money even if you don’t do anything clever. …
Betfair miss the chance for some great customer service
First off, on the plus side, the start of the flat turf season was a success, so that was a big positive.
On the downside; how would you feel if minutes into a game of football the match stopped and the team you just backed, decided to field a reserve team instead? Would you like your bet to stand? Thought not!
Yesterday at Meydan the Dubai Gold Cup had to be stopped mid race due to a fatal injury to …
Flat pack
Looking forward to the return of the flat turf season today with the Lincoln at Doncaster. 22 horses line up to battle out this competitive handicap.
We should rejoice at the return of the flat turf season. It’s return will herald less clashing and generally bigger fields. In the winter it can be a right pain when you have many cards and all the races and are falling all over each other. This will mean you should see better opportunities …
Betfair loses key Australian court case
Racing officials in New South Wales are rejoicing after a years-long challenge to their race fields legislation was this morning thrown out by the High Court.
Read more here – https://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-30/racing-nsw-wins-court-battle/3922762/?site=melbourne
Betfair Australasia chief executive Giles Thompson says he respects the court’s decision but says it will reduce the competitiveness of wagering on racing in NSW. “A turnover fee will place extreme pressure on our ability to continue to offer our customers what we believe is the best product in …
Why a lack of fuel is linked to sports trading
On the walk into the office this morning I passed the local petrol station, there were a queue right out into the road. I saw somebody I knew who had driven in from some distance and he revealed a similar story across a wide area. It’s all down the fuss about whether tanker drivers will go on strike. People are scared that fuel may run out if this happens. You can summarise this situation up quite simply, people are acting …
A question of scale (part three)
Click on the text for part one and part two
Curiously for some, it is actually quite easy to work out the maximum upside you can get in any market over time, that’s a definite calculable variable. See my previous blog post ‘profit exists everywhere’. You can also do the same for losses. When you look at those stats, you suddenly realise that the market is capped in either direction. That has advantages and disadvantages.
But the ‘market capped’ thing …
Profit exists everywhere
Somebody asked me the other day which markets have profit in them. Well the answer is that all have profit in them, it’s more a question of where it ends up. But all, have the potential for payoff. There are a couple of other key factors, which I will explain later.
Long before the market really gets going, each market can be split up and broken down in infinite detail. If you know how volatile it is then you can …
Sports Relief – Auction for signed England shirt
Just got back from my local school where two of my children have just done their run for Sports Relief.
Sports relief resonates with me as I’ve always been into sport. But it also strikes a chord because when I finished running competitively for a club, I still wanted to run. So I started to run for charitable causes instead. Keep fit and do something good as well. I ran my last Marathon in London in 1996 and my …
New version of Bet Angel
We’ve made some additions to Bet Angel and made a point release this week. The tweaks are: –
- New Sound Alert automation rule
- New Selection volume / Market volume automation condition
- Betfair charts and Advanced charts can now be synced with the selection shown in any of the ten ladders
- New ladder toolbar contains a button that displays the green-up value across all selections
Additional information is available on the forum. You can download the latest beta at https://www.betangel.com/download/…
UK Government changes remote gambling tax
During his budget speech today George Osbourne has announced plans to change the tax treatment of gambling tax so that it is generated at the point of consumption.
Depending on how it is implemented, this effectively stomps on offshore operators offering services to the UK while avoiding paying UK tax on those profits.
We have yet to see the detail yet, but that’s the breaking news.
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