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.
My curious liquidity poll
I recently asked on the bl0g poll, top right of the blog in case you hadn’t noticed, about what constitutes ‘good’ liquidity in a market. I think there are quite a few considerations you could take account of when assessing what ‘good’ liquidity is. But it was sparked by another poll which asked ‘What would make you move to Betdaq’. The answer came back ‘better liquidity’.
We are all aware of the chicken and egg syndrome that exists in the …
Performance anxiety – Why players lose form
Lovely piece on psychology in the weekend FT. It examines why players of a sport often inexplicably lose their form. I’ve been studying this specifically in a few sports to come up with predictors of decline. My research was sparked by the collapse in form David Duval after he won the British Open golf and I started to dig around deeper and deeper for events that can lead to a decline. I’ve found it useful in Golf and Tennis which …
FA Cup Fifth round
Rather predictably we reach the fifth round of the FA Cup today with 99% of the market made up from Premiership teams. In round three that figure was 94.7% and round four 96.10%. What’s the betting we reach the final with 100%?
The fifth round is more likely to make that happen as there is only one clash this weekend where two premiership teams meet up. I think this looks the most interesting, Sunderland vs Arsenal, as it has the …
Black Caviar makes it 19/19
Black Caviar the wonder from down under, put in another good performance early this morning 05:10 UK time, to get win number 19 out of 19 and move within a whisker of an all time record.
She went off at 1.15 but traded as low as 1.12 pre-off. The race was a bit closer than other recent efforts and she traded out to 1.49 in play. 99.2% of all money wagered was on this horse, amazing!
Free Bet Angel Workshop
Just a short note to let you know we still have a couple of places on the Bet Angel workshop at our offices next Monday.
https://www.bettingexchangeacademy.com/courses/academy-courses/bet-angel-workshop
The morning session is free but for a small supplement you can attend the whole day which also includes a buffet lunch.
Please contact the academy for full details if you are interested is this or future workshops.
Bet Angel sponsorship – Win a copy
We are pleased to announce we are sponsoring the entire days racing at Southwell today. Racing starts at 13:20 and finishes at 16:50 with eight races on the card.
For once there is a full days racing in the UK and Ireland. It seems to have been ages since that was last the case, we hope it is a good day for everybody!
We have set up a competition to win a copy of Bet Angel. Just enter your name …
Champions league is back
Yippee! Tonight we have the first leg of the knockout phase of the champions league. I am positively moist with excitement! What a horrible clash though, with valentines day! I fear that valentines day will win tonight but the football will win tomorrow.
I’ve been doing a lot of work on pre-off activity on the football recently, I thought I would take a fresh look at things. It’s surprisingly how you uncover new things when you return with fresh eyes. …
Administrators appointed at Portsmouth and Rangers
The state of football’s finances and excesses was put into the light again today when another two clubs applied for administration orders.
While it’s a difficult time for both clubs, administration is generally done as a last resort and gives the clubs a chance put their affairs into order.
For punters it can be an opportunity. Search for Porstmouth on the blog to see the fun and games I have had in the past with relegation and promotion markets when …
It’s 4:50am and -10c outside
But my day has been well and truly warmed up by witnessing Black Caviar complete a bloodless victory in the big race of the day at Caulfield, Melbourne. An effortless victory brought win number 18 out of 18 races. The crowds were packed deep to witness this equine miracle.
In total £2.9m of £2.91m was matched on this remarkable horse and it went off at an SP of just 1.08! I had to transfer funds equivalent to a small house …
Weather there is opportunity
Despite the poor weather and disruption to the sporting schedule there are still a lot of opportunities around. Yesterday seemed a surprisingly good day on the racing and Meydan helped a lot, no snow in Dubai! This morning there was some Aussie racing on first thing, so that’s set me up nicely for this afternoon.
I live not too far from Newbury and when I rose bright and early this morning I walked out to the nearest field, which was …
Grey bot
Messed around in the Greyhound markets yesterday with a surprisingly good results. I don’t know whether it was the weather, other participants or what, but it seemed OK.
Because of the lack of scale I can’t really participate in the greyhound markets much, they are just too small for me. But I wanted to have a play to see what they were like in comparison to the last time I did it. Not much has changed.
Average turnover was between …
Opportunity through adversity
OK, so it looks like there will be no ‘real’ racing in the UK for a while. But rather than bemoan your fortune use the opportunity to experiment, examine and look for new ideas or opportunities.
Quite a few years ago I got into the mode of taking time off in February. I learnt that it was the lowest yielding month of the year and part or all of it could easily be skipped without too much impact. So I …
On average.. The essense of value
Let’s start by proposing something simple. If you back or lay something it’s impossible to be right 100% of the time. I think most people will realise that it’s impossible to win every bet you ever placed. Therefore you have to accept that you will place losing bets. If you place losing bets you need your winning bets to cover your losses, that’s the only way to make money in the long term.
To get your an overall profit you …
Snow way
UK racing cancelled, a few football matches on. But just over that hill there, there is a ton of snow and some kids waiting for me to push them down it. Not a difficult choice of what to do this afternoon. Besides, we will be shattered after a few hours of this!
Enjoying little pleasures like this while you can.
A question of scale (part one)
I got a phone call from the Financial times the other week about the collapse of Centaur. They wanted to know how I knew it would collapse long before it did, they originally phoned me for an opinion when Centaur first started up and I told them then what I repeated recently.
When you looked at the proposition there were in fact many, many flaws in there; but the top one for me was one of scale. Mainly because I’ve …
Alternative racing today
With the UK racing looking like it is heading for a weekend white out, it’s worth looking at other alternatives at this time.
This morning in Australia we have a meeting at Moonee Valley that usually brings half decent liquidity. Over £200k was traded on the 10:15 which, while below normal UK volumes, isn’t half bad. You also have Meydan racing on today where volumes have been picking up nicely. That comes on line a little later in the morning.…
Betfair API problems
Only fair to balance posts out with a note that Betfair experianced API problems this morning!
This was particulary a pain as there are a number of events on this morning that were disrupted.
Betdaq API problems
Just sending this out in case anybody has any automated spreadsheets running on Betdaq Angel today.
The Beqdaq API has a problem this afternoon and things are not working as they should be. Please double check any thing you have running.
We altered Betdaq to the issue quickly and they are onto it.
[EDIT : Betdaq now have a fix for the issue and will be deploying it after today’s racing]
If you want to become aware of these sorts …
(N)Ice
Spent a lot of last week doing the industry rounds at a couple of trade shows, one of them was ‘ICE’.
I mentioned last year that my interest was raised when speaking to the non betting exchange part of the industry. It seems that the knowledge, research and ability I have acquired over the many years I have been doing this, is in demand from other parts of the industry; so last week was a check point on that progress.…
Underneath a legendary Tennis match
Not many words can describe the fantastic Men’s final at the Australian open tennis, so I wont try. But to say it was special, would definitely be an understatement. I started the match half dressed having not risen early enough to get changed properly, broke for a full Sunday lunch and still returned for a hour of excitement. Amazing stuff.
The great thing about these matches is that pretty much any trading strategy you adopt will win. If somebody goes …
FA Cup – Round four winners
Rather than a prediction this is a glance back. A look if the ‘romance’ of the FA Cup is still alive.
At the start of the third round, premier league teams made up 93.69% of the market. They now make up 80% of the market, the romance of an outsider winning the cup is still alive it would seem.
However, top flight four teams met each other in round three so we will have to delete these for the purposes …
Bumps and ripples
What can you tell about a Tennis match before it has started? Quite a lot actually.
The market is pretty accurate at discounting value into a match and assessing the relative strengths of different players, from that you can plot the most likely path through a match and its progression. You can also hunt for bumps and ripples in that path for odds that are most likely to be reached and how. If you do this, you will see that …
How to win at rock, paper, scissors
I posted this on the forum some time ago.
It’s actually a good analogy for the sort of though process you need to go through when trying to out-think others and one that I think is equally applicable in any market. Sometimes people don’t choose the most logical progression in a sequence of events. Even then is seems that people peoples decisions are often forced by an ‘invisible hand’. Anyhow, an interesting article I think: –
https://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/win-rock-paper-scissors-215511514.html
…
Two card Mondays
Not a new card game, but a statement on the Racing so far this year.
By and large the racing is at levels that are normal at this time of year. A bit erratic, low quality, poor betting markets. But the transition from predominantly three cards on a Monday last year to just two this year is making things just that little more difficult this year around. In the Summer I will often take the Monday afternoons off, or do …
I lost £288k in one night spread-betting
On the ‘mad bomber’ thread on the forum there has been some jocular suggestions about who could be the person being such erratic and irregular betting activity. Some have joked it could be a wealthy footballer, after reading this story suddenly that doesn’t look so far fetched!
“FORMER LIVERPOOL AND Manchester City midfielder Dietmar Hamann has revealed how he slipped into problems with drinking and gambling during his final season at Eastlands.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport
Betfair exits South Africa
With regulatory tangles ongoing in many territories Betfair has hit another bump in South Africa. This is a real shame as South Africa is on the same time zone as the UK. Betfair has already sent out emails to affected customers. Here is an extract of the key elements of the email: –
“We’re writing to inform you that following the recent ruling by the South African Supreme Court of Appeal, Betfair has decided that as of 00:01 GMT on …
Caught-siding
Courtsiding is the method used by people betting on Tennis to beat the in-play delay. The in-play delay is put on matches, such as the Australian open tennis, to stop people from placing bets before other people get to see what happened. It doesn’t work!
Because of the incentive of low risk profit, people will go to great lengths to beat the clock and this has become a feature of many in-play markets, not just Tennis. Like Biff in back …
Murray Matrix
Looking forward to seeing Andy Murray in action tonight.
Last night I bagged 25 decent winning trades from the overnight matches. I use Tennis Trader to work out key points in a match and what odds are likely to be traded around key points. By looking up these key points in advance I can set up a trade that will trigger at or around those points and offset to a value that will lock in a profit. All markets exhibit …
Aussie open – open!
Just about to head off to bed, but in half an hour the Australian open tennis will kick into gear. It’s a great opportunity to get stuck into the Tennis, even if you are not into Tennis, as a lot of matches will appear in the UK early in the morning when not much else is going on.
I have set up Bet Angel to do some simple automation in the early rounds of the tournament as I know where …
BDO Darts final tonight
Dart’s is a good trading sport and tonight sees the world final live on the BBC. This and previous tournaments have thrown up some great opportunties and matches: –
https://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/darts/8425631.stm
You sense that the future of darts in the UK is sliding towards the more regular, better funded PDC. If that means more coverage then great! I quite like darts, as it is a ‘pure’ sport. You against an opponent, it’s difficult to cheat and you win or lose on …
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