Category: Using Bet Angel
Time to pull your act together Betfair
Another race failed to turn in play today, the 14:20 at Bath. This time, excuse the pun, I took a bath on my P&L.
I think I speak for a very large number of users, not just Bet Angel customers, when I say that Betfair really need to sort our their suspension and inplay process. The whole process, across a number of sports, seems to be in freefall. So many football matches and horse races in the last month have …
Swinging in the rain
Just checked out todays card before heading off to the Gym at lunch time. Today is one of the most swing oriented cards I have seen for a while. Not perfect, but certainly likely to be up there with some of the most volatile days of the year. If you like swing trading there should be some quality opportunities out there today, if you are only a scalper, watch out as it will be a volatile day.
Understanding Risk
I’ve crossed paths with John Kay on a number of occasions, I guess this is because we often have approached things in a similar manner. I don’t know him as such, but have followed his work , attended some of his lectures and spoken to him. I thought this piece I read in a weekend FT recently was a decent thought provoking peice. It tells you a lot about the way people approach risk. It sums up quite nicely how …
Reversed or not?
Several people have emailed me to ask why on some videos the ladder interface is reversed and it is not in others? There is no right way to do this and it’s really down to personal preference and what you are trying to achieve. I had no real preference and vary it according to the strategy I am deploying. To explain what happens when you choose to reverse the ladder or not, I have produced a video for you: –…
On the loose
A good example yesterday of activity caused by on course activity. Skylla broke loose at the start and this caused quite a lot of movement in it’s market price. The camera was staring straight at Skylla when the handler let slip of the reins during a ‘frisky’ moment and Skylla took the chance to run to the start. Ryan Moore could only hold his head in despair.
Contrary to what you may think or have been told, the price on …
Worst trade ever?
I wonder if this was the worst trade ever, or maybe just a blinding cock up of some sort by somebody?
Anybody trading this market couldn’t have failed to notice the sudden appearance of a £100k order in the book. This person was desperate to get filled on the back side and the order persisted for ages. I can only speculate what happened here, as when I looked at the data I couldn’t clearly see any particular strategy behind it. …
The two grand race
Ok not quite two grand and also it shouldn’t have been! But thanks to Betfair’s well documented problems this week, a failure to turn markets in play, I fluked a big gain on one race today. See below: –
To be honest I’d rather forgo the money and have the whole system working as it should do. It serves no one to have a faulty platform and it would be much better to be sure that you know what is …
Buzzing
After many years in the market it’s not often I get to feel great about a day but that’s how I feel after today’s session. I was in dialogue with a Bet Angel user at the start of the session and got off to a dodgy start. He reminded me that it would end up ok and that’s exactly what happened.
I was enjoying it so much I just blitzed through the card, including the Irish races, and managed to …
Expensive problem
This was the name of the horse that reared as it left the stalls in the first at Epsom this evening. I was waiting for a lay to get matched and hanging in there I had turned the lay to an SP order. As the fast pictures boys saw it l0ng before I the price shot out and the SP returned was dreadful. What was a nice profit turned into, well, an expensive problem!
7/7
Most people know the significance of this date, but for a small group of traders this date has even more significance.
On that very day I was scheduled to do a talk in central London on guess what, trading on betting exchanges. Obviously, in the ensuing chaos, we all arrived a little late. A few of us had directly got caught up in the bombings but nobody was seriously hurt, just a few bumps and some confusion. While it may …
Great end to Wimbledon
What a fantastic tournament that was. Opportunities seemed to pop out of the tennis court all over the place and we finished with an epic final. £53m was traded on the final, £49m on Federer!
There were several opportunities to lay Federer at short odds and as the match wore on your could easily see it heading for a fifth set. During that fifth set it was very even, but as we strayed into the final stages of that titanic …
Opinion
Thank you for reading this blog. I trust you get something out of reading it and based on the tons of emails I receive, a lot of you do. That’s pleasing to know.
You should always welcome opinion and whether you agree with it or not, its important if it provokes thought or debate. Asking “why?” is a great human gift. However, if opinion isn’t voiced for constructive debate, it serves nobody. Let me tell you where my opinions are …
Look over your shoulder
When trading it’s easy to get carried away with a move in the market. The prices is rising and you instinctively want to follow it as it charges off in one direction or another. You sit there and ponder your move then make the decision to jump in. Just as you do it goes the other way and you sit there waiting for it to rebound into profit, it continues to fall and then you can’t stand it any more …
What has worked at Wimbledon?
Laying short priced favourites has worked well this in the tournament. Also, several matches have thrown up some wonderful trading opportunities to do this not just once but many times over. Hewitt and Roddick yesterday was another great trading match.
Putting that aside, one of the best tricks this tournament has been to listen to the ex-legends of the game. It’s remarkable how well they have called a lot of the matches. Today is potentially another example of this. Navratilova …
Tennis trading for dummies
Thanks to the unusual scoring system, tennis matches experience some of the wildest swings you will see in any inplay market and are worth a dabble even if you have never done it before. It can be pretty low risk as well.
I’ve worked for ages to model Tennis matches accurately. I’ve got to the point wehre I now have the ability to look ahead to see where the odds should be given any scenario. While this is useful, it’s …
Would rats be good at trading?
Saw this article recently and wondered if this experiment would translate into the trading elements of the markets?
https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8105963.stm
But seriously, psychology has a big part to pay the way you approach any market but more specifically how you deal with losses, which is effectively what the rats are doing in this experiment. Losses create a pang of negative emotion and dealing with it is a often a critical key to success. Losses are normal, to be expected and part …
Day off
With the racing looking pretty dreadful, the weather fantastic and my wife celebrating her birthday, a day behind the screen was a remote possibility today. Till August 24th, each Monday and Tuesday have only two cards on in the afternoon, excluding bank holidays. Often these are poorer quality affairs.
My advise, don’t kill yourself doing all races unless you feel you need to, there are plenty around in the summer. Try to strike the right balance and take the opportunitity …
Outstanding
Could be another great trade but it’s not, its about your health.
Last year I suffered with my back. It was due to my posture, sitting down for very long periods of time. As a result I changed my lifestyle and also signed up to a posh gym with my own trainer. That has done wonders for my general well being and my back problems are a thing of the past.
Recently I started to notice was that my calf …
Another English masterclass
At throwing away a match. It looks like the England U21 players have learnt a thing or two from their elder brethren. I’ve been switching frantically between the Tennis, the football and racing all afternoon. The Tennis hasn’t thrown up many clear cut opportunities today but in between races I saw England were 3-0 and cruising it. I immediately thought, well they are surely in the final. So I put in a small lay at 1.01.
I think the only …
Is this a first?
Just traded the 14:30 at Folkstone and the favourite was George Baker, ridden by, George Baker! George is a good jockey he just can’t get enough rides due to his height and therefore weight.
Curiously the race was won by another name, Huygens, no namesake jockey there though. The famous Huygens died in 1695. That would have been a first!
Huygens is reckoned to have written the first book on probability theory in 1657 but also is credited with discovering …
Suspect betting at Wimbledon
Yesterday’s game in question featured Austria’s Jürgen Melzer, 28, who is ranked 30th in the world, and Wayne Odesnik, 23, a South African-born American ranked 109th. Melzer was the favourite and always should have been, but bookmakers reported “extraordinary” sums on him winning by three sets to love. He won 6-1, 6-4, 6-2.
The most astonishing figure is that £350,000 was traded on Melzer to win 3-0 on Betfair alone, at odds as short as 1-9. A …
Setanta goes into administration
Not a surprise really but it it’s a pain in the proverbial for Racing UK. A quick interview on the channel this evening confirmed that things will continue but Racing UK will revert to their £20 a month model. Short term there seems to be a bit of confusion over how the broadcasting will continue without funding but the CEO looked confident that it would remain in its current format. I hope so, as the coverage on Racing UK is …
Wimbledon
Two weeks of excellent Tennis liquidity and trading await us. Take your chance to have a try at trading Tennis while it’s here, as the liquidity and range of opportunities are usually pretty big.
Please don’t forget that matches can last days if you are unlucky. So bear that in mind when you first get involved in a trade. You don’t want to get involved in something for a small profit that could trample over other opportunities. Likewise, you don’t …
What’s the price of a good start?
Thought this may be of interest to you ahead of this weeks British Grand Prix. With the right tactics any market can be traded. I don’t know how to price up a Formula one market but I have made some good trades on it this year. My best trade was laying Lewis Hamilton to win the drivers championship, have a search for that if you wish to read why I did that.
At Monaco, the notoriously tight circuit where overtaking …
Is not just about Ascot
While these big racing weeks bring lots of activity in the market you could be forgiven for thinking that everybody is just focused on the big races. I know some people prefer volatility while others hate it, some do well on the big races and others don’t. I tend to never pre-judge what is infront of me or set targets. I just try the best I can using all the tools available to me.
As a case in point, on …
Nadal out!
Big news from SW19. With Nadal out that dramatically opens up the draw for Murray at Wimbledon. There is a good summary on the official Wimbledon site.
https://www.wimbledon.org/en_GB/news/articles/2009-06-19/200906191245412912140.html
Nadal out of Wimbledon?
See the following article: –
https://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/8085394.stm
This would open up the draw for Murray and create quite an interesting tournament. Nadal’s price has drifted already. The draw is out today and whether Nadal takes part or not is going to have a huge impact. Turn’s out Wimbledon is exciting, even before it’s started!
Ffos flop
Frustrating to see Tipperary trampling over the debut of Ffos Las this evening. I was hoping to get a better look at the markets at this new course but Tipperary is clashing with the start of each race at Ffos Las. I’ve carried on and traded the races any way, but I haven’t been able to get much out of them. Mainly wins but one Ffos loss!
I guess I will have to wait for the next fixture to see …
Ffos Las
Well done to the management of Ffos Las on getting a new racecourse on the cards without too much fuss. Apparantly it is built on the site of what used to be one of the biggest open cast mines in Europe. The more the merrier, Racecourses that is, not open cast mines! Hopefully it will bring us some better quality racing than Great Leighs saw in its short time in the limelight.
Anticipating Ascot
Well the biggest week of year for flat racing is almost upon us and I can’t wait. Some friends and I took all the children to Legoland yesterday so we passed by Ascot on the way, the racecourse is only just up the road from me. I couldn’t resist popping in for a quick peak. I could practically hear the roar of the crowd and the thunder of hooves when I looked across the racecourse.
Excitement is high, but also …
Connect
Connect with us on the following social media platforms.