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.
Any two from five
Calculating combinations was the first place I started when I went on this long journey from a very young age. The intention back then was to win the football pools and combinations were an important part of spreading risk around my selections. Today, any two from five teams could be relegated and that means that they are ten different ways for this to happen, see the following ‘any two from five’ list. You would list the teams in ascending order …
Open letter to Betfair
Dear Betfair Support,
As you may be aware the world is due to end to at 6pm local time in the UK. In case you are not aware I would like to point you to the following news article that explains the detail behind this prediction: –
https://fostercity.patch.com/articles/will-the-world-end-today
Obviously this is of great concern!
Putting aside a key concern about whether you are I will be raptured. I would like to raise a few points with you?
If the world …
The big backer
If you are active on the markets, then I am sure you may have seen this character around. If not then they appear fairly regularly recently, either trying to get filled at a certain price or just deliberately trying to stop the price from moving. I think it’s an odd strategy, as dipping in and around the markets is like playing poker. You don’t want to show your hand!
When somebody shows their hand like this then it’s an …
BHA announces serious charges
Following an investigation into suspicious betting activity on a number of races, the British Horseracing Authority has charged 13 individuals with serious breaches of the Rules of Racing. The allegations focus on horses being laid to lose on betting exchanges in 10 races that took place between 17 January 2009 and 15 August 2009.
Each of the jockeys is additionally charged with a breach of Rule 243 of the old Rules of Racing in that it is alleged they communicated …
How to play the play offs
I was asked for an opinion recently on the championship play offs. I tipped a Reading vs Swansea final with Reading likely to edge it. So far so good, as both Swansea and Reading are through, so how did I get it right?
It’s quite simple really, “Form” is the answer. When you look at play off success over the years then form stands out as the key determinate. Form teams do well in the play offs on average and …
Djokovic the destroyer
What an interesting summer we could be in for on the Tennis front.
It’s a quite remarkable start to the season for Djokovic. I wrote a detailed magazine article where I had tipped him up as the next #1, but didn’t expect that to be happening near the end of May. His run is taking on truly historic proportions.
Here is a top ten for Djokovic: –
https://espn.go.com/blog/statsinfo/post/_/id/19913/top-10-of-djokovics-record-run
I don’t usually trade or watch much sport on a Sunday but …
Bad Luck
I talked last week about my jinx and you witnessed my efforts to demolish it. You should never forget to put things into perspective. My battle was a personal one against an arbitrary target. Some people face much worse luck and much bigger battles. It’s a credit to them that they persevere in spite of much hardship.
So the next time you feel unlucky, or you have lost a few quid, take a read of the following: –
Bet Angel in the FT
Have several people in my inbox saying we are in the FT this weekend. Thanks for the tip off, it’s nice to get some recognition after 11 years of hard work!
You can view the article here: –
https://www.howtospendit.com/#/articles/4599-the-smart-money-a-winning-psychology
Eurovision
Even if you are not watching it, you should take a look at Eurovision this evening.
I’ve done well backing outsiders that shorten during the contest in the past and early voting patterns can often give you the ability to dutch a range of long odds into shorter prices. Don’t leave it too late to get out though, as winners can become apparent very quickly and will shorten fast.
My biggest ever success came from backing Lordi a few years …
FA CUP final
Is it just me or does the FA Cup feel like it’s losing is significance? Maybe it’s the dominance by big teams, maybe it’s the fact that this season the premiership and the champions league have pushed it around a little? Anyhow that’s not to detract too much from this famous competition. I am sure either supporters will be rightly proud if their team pull of a win.
The market is pricing in 2.50 goals with an advantage of 0.50 …
Black Caviar
Just got up early to have another look at Black Caviar who was running at Doomben this morning. As expected, she delivered her 13th win out of 13. Quite a feat and she is causing a significant amount of interest in the racing world and also from a betting perspective. Went off at 1.22 this morning with £1.7m out of £1.8m was matched on just one runner.
Jinx buried?
Day 4/6 and the seas are still calm. Well I say calm they are a little becalmed to be honest, but that’s sort of ok even if it is making for a tough week. I managed a decent day yesterday though, no thanks to York.
York has been quite tough this week and I haven’t enjoyed it, but other traders have done OK. So today I will dump all other activity and just try to be really focused today. I’ll …
Important Information
Well day 3/6 on jinx week has passed without catastrophe. Yesterday wasn’t a great day by any means and I really fouled up on one race, but I’m still moving ahead on the week and hope for a better day today.
I’m always experimenting and there is no better way of doing that than directly in the market itself. I will always recommend this, as it’s the best way to really know what is really happening and how your actions …
York
Looking forward to some quality at York today. It seems racing is lacking a lot of quality this recently, volumes are not great and underlying liquidity poor, so I am keen to get stuck into some decent stuff.
There are a few threads on the forum about York in previous years. We have noticed that patterns often repeat in racing meetings so it will be interesting to see if the same happens again. I navigated yesterday without any errors, but …
Jinx week
For some reason this week each year is the week where errors creep in, unexpected things happen and bad luck gets called in. I’ve netted some of my most spectacular failure in week 20 for some reason, year after year. I can’t explain why and despite attempts in previous years to be super cautious during this week, something always trips me up. It could be anything, a system crash, broadband failure, Betfair crash, highly unusual event, anything.
So you can …
Match of the season
A tantalising match this afternoon between Man Utd and Chelsea and the market is being cautious by pricing up Man Utd at 2.34 for the win. I would have priced Chelsea near 4.00 for a win here, but with so much at stake; its probably right for the price to be a bit shorter. The market is priced for 2.50 goals with 1.30 going to Man Utd.
Home advantage is historically 0.40 goals so if you take that out, the …
Busy day
Looking forward to a busy day today.
Promotion and relegation battles will be settled on the football pitches today, that always throws up opportunities. There is nothing like career death to focus the mind of a highly paid footballer. I’m looking for an outside chance today. I’ll probably spread around my options to even things out. Did you know that Bet Angel can monitor and fire in bets across multiple markets almost simultaneously? This is ideal for football where matches …
April
Well the met office has just confirmed it was the hottest April since records began in the UK and while the weather was great, trading conditions could be described as good as well. Despite my pessimism at the start of the month I did pretty well. I was just short of last years total, but considering I have decided to ease back on activity this year this was a fine result. The problem I have with this is that is …
Best trade ever?
It was a couple of years ago I said this and I’m hoping for a repeat again this year, but then again I was hoping last year would see a repeat and that didn’t happen either! Here’s hoping! You can never predict where a really big opportunity, but as long as you are focused you will always be able to jump on the back of one when the inevitable occurs.
Part of trick is being available and alert to opportunties. …
Betfair clarify outage policy
A positive move from Betfair to help people out when the site goes down, credit to Betfair for addressing these long held concerns. For the full detail of the statement click on the following link: –
https://promotions.betfair.com/customer … -update-uk
Betfair have also clarified what constitutes an outage: –
“In the event of an unplanned Sports Exchange outage, we will disable the betting functionality across all channels, ensuring a level playing field. However, should Betfair Mobile and/or our API go down, …
Just say no
Should be change to an alternative vote system in the UK? Well, the betting market seems to give a pretty clear answer to the likely result.
May the 4th be with you
Hmm, not sure Ferguson is making the right decision to rest players ahead of tonight’s Champions league semi final. OK a two goal lead should be plenty but a goal for Schalke could really put the cat amongst the pigeons. I guess he will bench key players and bring them on if it merits it?
I had a quick look on the DB and hunted for Man Utd matches at home priced between 1.50-1.60. It threw up five recent matches. …
Going up or not?
I feel sorry for QPR fans who have just ‘won’ promotion to the premier league but could yet be scuppered by the FA hearing into irregularities. It’s another example of why value tends to exist at either extreme of the market. People discount something as certain or not far too quickly than chance would and this is where value is often found. My P&L is punctuated with big spikes where value lays or backs eventually return a big one …
Forgone conclusion?
You can’t help but think, like the rest of the community, that the two champions league semi finals are forgone conclusions. I looked at the weekend markets and curiously all teams lost, so no clues in there. But it was possible to start opposing Man Utd after it dawned to me that they may have half an eye on the semi final.
The market is discounting a win by one goal for Barcelona tonight but much depends on whether Real …
So you think
Despite the long weekend I couldn’t help but be tempted to dip in to the Curragh yesterday to take a look at ‘So You Think‘. I’ve seen this horse progress in Australia so my ears pricked up when I heard it was running in Ireland yesterday. It didn’t disappoint and despite it’s short price I managed to get a decent position on it, netting just short of £127. This could be a good summer for the flat season …
Guineas
I had a fantastic result on the Guineas last year, when just about everything fell into place nicely. This year already looks a bit tougher so I can’t assure myself of a similar result, but will try my best to make something happen. The much vaunted ‘Frankel’ is currently trading at 1.59 which should generate a lot of volume today, but whether it does much else is another question! I’ll be reviewing the Guineas trade, amongst others, in my next …
Royal wedding tip
Fontwell 17:30, Current favourite to shorten even further? Why? The favourite is called ‘Royal Wedding’.
My youngest daughter is fastinated by the spectacle, my son said ‘What wedding?’. Have a great day William and Kate!
Farcelona
That was the word on the street after the sending off last night. It seems a common trait to dislike success, but you can’t escape the fact that Barcelona have proved on many occasions that they are by far the best team in the tournament and did so again last night. It’s just such a shame they have often degraded their performances with gamesmanship.
It’s also a shame that the first leg was a duplicate of the other semi final, …
Schalke vs Man Utd review
The market was predicting a low scoring affair but it was obvious, fairly early on, that the match was likely to be anything but. Man Utd’s pace seemed to surprise Schalke and plenty of chances were created.This produced the unusual effect of there being little price decay in the under 2.5 goals market.
Come half time there were plenty of shots but no goals so a back of overs was a natural step. It took a while be eventually there …
Royal wedding bets
Yes, you can punt on the Royal wedding as well!
I doubt this market will interest me much, but I do like the idea of ‘your sex is on fire’ being the first song the couple dance to.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12999090
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