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.
What to do when Betfair API is down
Unfortunately Betfair suffered another outage this afternoon. Here is how I am set up to deal with such issues: –
I always have two version of Bet Angel running. One in API mode and one, with the refresh off, in non API mode (Log in via connection mode 1).
This means I can switch quickly between applications and if I am caught on one I can exit on another. We note that a site crash seems to happen in stages …
Cheaters never prosper
I saw this post on another blog recently and it shows up how statistics can actually reveal very little at all. This is obviously unintended in this case, but is a trap a lot of people fall into very often. Especially when gambling / trading.
https://www.soccerbythenumbers.com/2011/09/cheaters-never-prosper-connection.html
I first looked into the relationship with fouls and goals some time ago and the link is the attacking strength of one team over the defence of another. If your defence is under pressure …
Betfair AGM pt. 2
Having been to many AGM’s in the past I didn’t expect much from Betfair’s first AGM.
I almost didn’t get in as Betfair were blocking access to people who have nominee accounts. Not many people own shares directly any longer, but I’d never been blocked access to an AGM before despite this. However, I had contacted Betfair directly before the AGM to indicate that I was going to attend; so this piece of foresight was enough to get over this …
Betfair AGM
By the time you read this I should be ensconced in my position at the Betfair AGM.
When Betfair listed I took a look at the prospectus and felt the company was fairly richly valued given the outlook and nature of the IPO. I wrote for a financial magazine for three years in another life, so I was in a great position to be a judge of the IPO. I put pen to paper and detailed my rationale which was …
Good old fashioned gambling
Since Betfair introduced new charges for their most successful customers, me included. I’ve done a fair bit of work all over the place. Back on Betfair, no matter how easy the opportunity, I can’t tell you just how difficult it is to actually do something that you know will result in the loss of 60% of your profit, I don’t know about others, but I really struggle to do it.
So, I’ve done some additional work on Betfair by looking …
Full tilt poker was a Ponzi scheme
I’ve been following this story for a while and listening to the rumours but now US authorities have come out and mentioned the P word.
“US authorities have accused the owners of online gambling site Full Tilt Poker of operating a huge Ponzi scheme that defrauded players out of $440m (£289m).”
Full story: –
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14997069
Red vs. Blue
I recently watched an episode of Horizon on BBC iPlayer. These documentaries are right up my street and I love exploring some of the more esoteric views of things. This particular episode was all about colour and how the brain interprets colour. It was really fascinating as it highlighted that a lot of the colour you see is “interpreted” by the brain and not actually “real”.
One element of this was looking at the effect of red and blue and …
What does value look like?
I’ll often make suggestions around value. In my football ratings I point to matches that will have above or below value median results. What I am trying to say is this looks value, that is value, this isn’t. But what does value look like?
One thing it is not, is a tip. I’ll liberally scatter the words ‘on average’ into many posts as that is what value looks like. All sports and most events show a great deal of variability …
Europa league ratings
Don’t forget to use Soccer Mystic to have a good look at each match yourself!
In hindsight I’ve been too optimistic this week in the champions league. What I have learnt so far is that some teams have not settled into European competition yet and others have been a bit cautious; this is surprising in the group stages. Biggest surprise was to see Inter lose last night!
I like the Europa league as you get two bites at the cherry …
Champions league ratings
Nice result on the Barcelona match last night! Our top four goal ranks produced three over 2.5 goal matches and the bottom four three under 2.5 goal matches. I would have estimated four matches would be likely to reach >2.5 but there were only three. I would lean on the side of lots more goals than normal this evening and therefore overs are in-play and unders at risk this evening.
Because this evening’s matches should produce more goals I would …
Champions league ratings
An interesting bunch of matches tonight and I reckon they will throw up, on average, around 21/22 goals as a group. Don’t forget to fire up Soccer Mystic for a good look at these matches.
I’d rank most to least goals as: –
Barcelona vs. AC Milan
Porto vs. Shakhtar
Genk vs. Valencia
Chelsea vs. Leverkusen
Dortmund vs. Arsenal
Plzen vs. BATE Borisov
APOEL vs. Zenit St Petersburg
Olympiakos vs. Marseille
I’m intrigued by the Barcelona and Dortmund match. Are …
Awesome match
At last, a real classic match to talk about at the US Open. Djokovic through to the final after defeating Federer, again, in the semi final from two match points down. A great trading match as well, with some clear cut entry and exit points.
Who scores first in a football match?
When trading football, whatever strategy you use, it tends to gravitate to the key question, who scores first? (You could add when to that as well!)
I first asked this question in the early 80’s and worked out how to calculte this and most likely time for a goal. I recently revisited some old material and transplated it to today’s markets so see if much had changed. Not a great deal has changed to be honest and the stats are …
Three day game
Andy Murray finally put to bed his forth round match at the US open. But the fact it took three days highlights one of the potential issues with trading Tennis. Do you take a long term or short term position, do you hold a position or close it out at defined points?
There are two sides to the coin. The fact an event has no definitive end point vastly increases the volatility and the chance of getting two prices matched …
Don’t come back till St Leger day
The oldest classic horse race in the world is almost upon us again and while it marks the closing of the flat turf season, tradition dictates that it also marks an upturn in financial markets if folklore is to be believed.
“Sell in May and go away, don’t come back till St Leger day”
There is a general ‘theory’ that during the summer stocks languish and only when everybody is back to their desk does the market perk up. Here …
Betfair revenue down 7%
Full regulatory news release available from the following link: –
https://www.investegate.co.uk/article.aspx?id=201109060700136723N&fe=1
Betfair suffer DNS hack
Betfair and a number of popular web sites suffered when hackers changed their DNS records to redirect their visitors to their site. It’s important to note that the site itself was not hacked. For the full story read the following link: –
Fooled by randomness
Acknowledging the angle offered by Nicolas Taleb, where he uses this phrase to write an entire book based on the fact the odd things happen more than they academically should, I would like to point out the same can happen in a football match.
Often I see people claiming to have found some new system for trading football. You know the sort, hold a chicken in your hand, put your head out the window and place a back bet …
Passive Tennis trading
Missed most of the US open last night as I opted to play Tennis rather than watch it, but I still profited on the matches last night.
I also had a nice reminder of how using stats can show a different version of the match than the score. I won 6-4 6-4 last night, but the first set was quite tight and I effectively won it with a break of serve in the ninth game. The second set was not …
New in-running tool
Something has been annoying me for ages and that is how I’ll often sit between races waiting for the next one to start. It’s a lot of wasted time, so I recently decided it was time to do something about it. The result is a new tool for Bet Angel users.
The concept is a clickable user interface that shows you the progress of a race as it happens. Its the first ever product to allow you to click on …
Marmite Monday
It’s that day of the year that you either love or hate. The August bank holiday in the UK brings a whole bunch of racing, all on the same day.
In total there will be ten cards todays and about a billion races. This may seem like heaven for some, but it’s a nightmare for others. Quite a few races will attract little liquidity, a lot isn’t of great quality and many races will clash meaning that you can’t do …
Back the draw
I’m going to put up some information on Saturday’s about football / soccer. Some of it may seem contradictory for some of you and some logical, but it’s all based on years worth of research and application in the market.
For starters: –
If you backed the draw, pretty much at random, last weekend; you would have have netted a cool profit. I know, because I did exactly that and suffered a 60% thumping as a result! I was doing …
The right connections
First a history lesson.
A long time ago Betfair offered unfettered access to their servers. You could smash into their servers by requesting price information at will. Back then there was no API and you could only screen scrape information from Betfair. Because of this an arms race developed and Betfair considered banning the bots, but thankfully that never happened. What actually happened was an API was born and Betfair started slowly but surely changing the way their site …
Eye Watering
I’ve been playing around with spreadsheets and a number of other strategies recently. With the increase in commission charges levied against me, I figured it would make sense to look outside my normal activity. While it’s flattering to know you are better than 99.9% of market participants have ever been, it’s less flattering to give away the majority of your profit! By ‘normal activity’ I am talking ‘active’ participation. I now have a very big incentive to find less manual …
Champions league qualifiers
An intruiging bunch of matches this evening. Several are priced for a great deal of uncertainty and that can create some good opportunities. I reckon we should be in for another 13/14 goals in the matches this evening. The matches are much more complex this evening, so after my tip last night, I’ll duck a tip this evening!
Arsenal can win in Udinese but it’s not going to be straight forward. I’ll be monitoring the first half and making a …
Champions league qualifiers
I reckon there will be around 14/15 goals this evening. The least number of goals this evening is likely to be in the match between APOEL & Wisla Krakow.
Free morning workshop
This summer we have been holding a series of morning workshops, we are currently conducting another one this morning. These have been aimed to improve your ability to use Bet Angel and your participation in the markets. Because of the small class sizes we do have a waiting list, but if you are interested in attending future courses, please register your interest now.
EBore & the sack race
The York EBOR moved this year to a Saturday and as a consequence it killed it from a trading perspective. Chester races were only five minutes in front of York and Chester did it’s best to ruin York all day saving the best for the feature race by going off only 38 seconds before the big race at York. Racing UK got in about five seconds of coverage and most of that was covered with a graphic of the odds. …
Hitting the panic button
The football season is only a few matches old and yet some fans are hitting the panic button already. Hot favourites for the championship Leicester City have already lost two games at home. Not the form of a championship winning team! Teams at the top of the table rarely lose home games, let alone two in a row. Could Sven be on his way out again?
I recently did some work on managerial changes and their impact on teams. On …
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