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.
Early season expectations
A interesting write up brought to your by our friends over at Football Form Labs. Check out their site and the powerful software that sits behind these comments.
[Peter – I’ve also looked into the start of the season for opportunities to lay or back teams with difficult or easy starts. Bournemouth and Norwich have a fair start but descend into some really tough fixtures as the season warms up. You can use this information and the sort of …
Numis issue sell note on Betfair
A few days old but worthy of note. Numis have issued a sell note on Betfair.
I respect Ivor Jones’s opinion on Betfair because he often asks very good questions during the conference calls and has a better handle on the business than most analysts. He also can be objective and I can’t! So it’s worth noting his comments.
“It is not, in our view, on track for the market dominance which merits “unicorn” status and which appears to us …
My Betfair Birthday
I celebrated my ‘Betfair Birthday’ this week. It’s now been just over FIFTEEN years since I opened my account and started on Betfair. It’s also been a decade since the first version of Bet Angel was released. We are currently on version 1.40 with version 1.41 right around the corner.
When I first started my journey my eldest child was three, she is now eighteen and able to trade herself. I didn’t envisage that when I started! I also didn’t …
Punters ask for Moore
We are all familiar with a gambled horse.
It starts when a horse in a race receives particular attention. Seeing that horse is being backed, other people back it feeling they may be missing out on something. You find that often sets off a gamble as people discount a lot into the movement of the price of the horse as a ‘sign’, usually without any regard for the underlying rationale.
The Partnership gambler
Yesterday, we were treated to a different …
U.S. Open golf
That was a really interesting first day at the U.S. Open golf at Chambers Bay in Washington.
There were lots of complaints by commentators, golfers and traders about the state of the course. It certainly was “challenging”. I figured that a brand-new course may be difficult to trade and that’s exactly what happened. I’ve made a bit of a Horlicks of it and I think I’ll almost certainly face a loss on this tournament. It seems I never really do …
Busy, Busy, Busy
Was going to do a full update today with videos but completely manic at the moment with sports, potential liabilities and profits coming out of my ears this morning. If this were a financial market I think the term they used is ‘fully invested’. I’m sorry I can give you a full update but at least you know when I can’t its because I’m putting my balls on line, just like our customers!
So. a quick appraisal.
Royal Ascot
Royal …
Royal Ascot week
And so here we are, another year, another Ascot. That came around quickly didn’t it!
For me, it’s another declined invitation to attend. While that pains me, for the moment I’d still rather be on this side of the desk during one of the busiest weeks of the year. By next year my eldest will probably be in a position to take over! Subject to performance and enthusiasm!
Ascot is obviously a big deal and generally I target it to …
BETDAQ Royal Ascot promotion
BETDAQ is back with a key promotion at Royal Ascot, well timed if I say so myself!
As I’m sure you’re aware, next week is a huge one for traders with Royal Ascot and the US Open taking place. BETDAQ has traditionally performed well during the big meetings (see the image below), if not better nowadays than Betfair. So it’s an ideal opportunity to give it a try next week. I tend to trade on both exchanges during these key …
Apophenia
Apophenia is defined as, the “unmotivated seeing of connections” accompanied by a “specific experience of an abnormal meaningfulness”. For the full definition visit the wiki entry: –
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia
Apophenia has come to imply a universal human tendency to seek patterns in random information, such as gambling or charts. It’s a flaw that afflicts many.
Apophenia and Gambling
Probably the best known appearance of this in gambling markets is the gamblers fallacy. This is when a long run of results lead …
Champions league final
Another excellent write up brought to your by our friends over at Football Form Labs. Check out their site and the powerful software that sits behind these comments.
Saturday evening in Berlin will see what is undoubtedly the showpiece event of this year’s football calendar as Barcelona and Juventus clash having disposed of Bayern Munich and Real Madrid between them in Europe and dominated their respective domestic leagues. Indeed, the aforementioned …
Let’s hope the Derby is this exciting
I’ve taken a diversion from just just posting an image of a result to putting some detail into events at the Oaks today. It was such a fascinating market from beginning to end.
The first thing that happened was ‘Legatissimo’ contracted quite heavily, but the pictures showed that it wasn’t enjoying it’s journey to post, so it looked a obvious lay. Slowly but surely the market reacted to it’s behaviour. This generally got worse till the horse cleared the main …
The Oak’s Betfair’s first ever market
So today we reach the Oaks and tomorrow the Derby, when the summer racing really starts to step up a gear. The start of June means Royal Ascot is just around the corner.
If you are a Betfair newbie you may not know that the Oaks at Epsom was Betfair’s first market way back when they started in June 2000. But it was a little later that year, on June 11th. Mark Davis reminisced on his blog about it. I …
Bet Angel for an Apple Mac iOS, iPhone or iPad tablet
We often get queries on whether you can use Bet Angel on a Mac or an iPhone or an Android tablet etc. I have posted up some information in the forum and on You Tube. But I thought I would give a full explanation here so it’s easy to find.
Bet Angel is written specifically for a Microsoft windows platform, but there are many ways in which you can run in on another platform. When we talk specifically about a …
Two card Tuesdays
We have reached the time of year when Monday and Tuesday UK racing drops to two cards in the afternoon. It’s an important time of year, as this changes the characteristic of these cards to the negative, but also it allows you to do a few other things and skip these cards if needed.
Impact on racing
Racing tends to be lower quality on a Monday and Tuesday and that combined with the 15 minute gaps in-between the cards leads …
New version of Bet Angel
In case you missed our existing posts on social media we just released a new version of Bet Angel.
**New version**
You can read about the key changes in this version in the forum: –
https://www.betangel.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=10476
The new version is available if you are an existing user or trialist, just download it from: –
https://www.betangel.com/download/?product=BetAngelPro
**New charting**
We have also updated You Tube with a couple of videos about the new charting feature we have introduced. You can subscribe to …
FA Cup final special
I was going to write up the FA Cup final and then this arrived. An excellent write up brought to your by our friends over at Football Form Labs. Check out their site and the powerful software that sits behind these comments.
FA Cup Final: Arsenal v Aston Villa (Sat, 17:30)
Tim Sherwood will be up against the club that he supported as a boy in Saturday’s FA Cup final at Wembley as his Villa side take on last …
French Open Tennis – When it’s good to see red!
We are currently embedded into the first week of the French Open. It’s a tournament that is played on distinctive red clay, and if you want to bet or trade on this seriously, then it’s important to understand the significance of the surface at this venue.
Research by the ATP showed that the average length of a point on the grass of Wimbledon was just 2.7 seconds versus 8.2 seconds on Clay. To understand why this is the case, …
One Bank Holiday you may want to trade
Bank holidays can be a bit of mare. Four billions horses, racing over a thousand meetings.
OK, A slight exaggeration there, but you get the picture. Too much racing, too many courses, not enough quality and everything falling over itself.
But today that actually isn’t the case for once. We have 392 runners and they are spread of 42 races, but remarkably the card is lined up perfectly. That means, even allowing for later starts, it’s unlikely that any races …
Monaco Grand Prix
You could be forgiven for thinking that if you qualify on pole in Monaco you will win. The tight street circuit is a big test for anybody who is attempting to overtake, but my stats paint a different picture.
Street vs. Race circuits
Monaco was one of the first circuits I profiled and it was because I expected it to throw of some definable characteristics. But what it taught me was just how different street circuits are to custom race …
York Dante Metting
After a successful Chester meeting we roll onto York for the Dante meeting this week.
The York card looks OK but the other stuff on the card today looks a little ‘testing’. For a direct comparison look at the prize money. Bath has a grand total of £19.5k, York £185k. I’ll be cautious and use small stakes at Kempton as a result,
As we move through the early part of the flat turf season, the early part of the week …
Saturday Soccer Stats
With three games remaining this is the definition of a ‘six-pointer’ as a win for either side could well prove the death blow to the other’s hopes of survival, and if Burnley lose they will definitely be down this weekend.
Hull were outplayed by Arsenal on Monday but they had won back-to-back matches prior to that and their recent home form is quite good. They’ve won three of their last six at the KC …
TPC Sawgrass – The cut
Some decent results from this championship this week. Jordan Spieth didn’t carry his Masters form into Sawgrass and has been cut. Returns to £10 stakes at the cut: –
Start to cut – Rory McIlroy – 9 to 7.6 – £1.84
Start to cut – Kevin Na – 100 to 9 – £101.11
Start to cut – Rickie Fowler – 60 to 10.5 – £47.14
Start to cut – Jim Furyk – 27 to 22 – £2.27
Start to cut …
Chester May Festival
Chester May festival starts today and it’s a welcome addition to the card, but based upon previous years it’s nothing amazing from a trading viewpoint.
Obviously we all love some extra liquidity that the quality racing will bring, but it’s never been a meeting that I’ve got really good amounts from. By that I mean I’m not banging in three figure results a race. Just the odd one or two a day. The thing to note about Chester is its …
May Bank holiday racing
So that’s the Guineas parked for another year. I did OK, but didn’t get as much as I would have liked from the feature races, I just can’t get my orders filled quickly enough. But it was a satisfactory result. Over the two days I produced remarkably similar results. So 10/10 for consistency but maybe a bit less for the overall results.
Another public holidays means a whole bundle of racing on the card, often too much. If you have …
Saturday Soccer Stats
Spurs salvaged a draw at Southampton last weekend to maintain their sixth position in the standings and they remain hopeful of finishing fifth after Liverpool’s midweek loss at Hull. Man City, meanwhile, are back up to second following their rather lucky win over Aston Villa. Of course Villa are in good form and did recently end Spurs’ 10 match unbeaten streak at home.
Spurs started the season poorly at White Hart Lane, losing …
Trading the Newmarket Guineas meeting
The weather is looking mixed this weekend for the first real big trading market of the flat season, the Guineas. I’ve always enjoyed the Guineas meeting and have had some fun and game over the years on it.
Last year on the 2000 Guineas I bagged a decent total from the race. The market reached over £4m in turnover but tomorrow I think it will be down a bit. This is mainly due to the market dynamics and the fact …
Trading early season flat racing
With Aintree out of the way we are now in the transition to the full flat racing season and evening racing.
The seasonal transition from one code to another can present problems if you bet and trade with the same style throughout the year, so it’s worth exploring what is different about this time of year.
The first thing to note is that the late season jumps racing has been suffering more than normal this year. A dry April and …
Punchestown Festival
The Punchestown Festival this week is a good opportunity to get tucked into some good quality Irish racing.
The jumps finale offers a decent prize fund and total prize money today is £283,000, versus one tenth of that on the UK meetings.
Irish racing is much weaker than UK racing typically, doing about half of what you expect on a UK race, but the good quality stuff can produce decent volume. So it always worth a look. The Punchestown festival …
Permutations at the ready
Bournemouth are at home to Bolton this evening, a win will see them get promoted. Well I say that, but a win would put them three points ahead of rivals with a vastly superior goal difference. As good as a promoted.
There are a number of permutations available for the adventurous this evening. Bournemouth are 1.30’s for the match and 1.10ish for promotion. Backing them for the match but going against promotion could prove useful. Of course they could draw …
Saturday Soccer Stats
With six games remaining Barcelona have the advantage in the title race against Real Madrid. But it’s only a slender lead and while Espanyol have tended to be woeful at this time of year in recent seasons – in their final eight games since 2009/10 their record is W7-D11-L24 with a greater than 50% loss if you’d backed them in all those matches – you can guarantee they’ll be motivated for this clash.
Unfortunately …
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