Recent Articles
Willie floor the bookies?
Oh, Cheltenham is here, The weather is great it’s all looking good for a great week.
The first day of the Cheltenham Festival is upon us and the excitement is building to bursting point; well it is for me!
Tuesday has become something of a bookie bashing mission for a certain Willie Mullins, the extremely shrewd and talented trainer from Ireland. The old adage “if the favourite wins the bookmaker loses” has never been more appropriate than on the opening …
Trading Cheltenham
This year I’ve decided to upload a video to narrate some of the stats and detail behind how Cheltenham trades. It seems much easier to express and emphasise points and show a number of things on a video that you can’t do in text. So I’ve created the longest video yet and uploaded it for you!
For those of you that want the text I’ve prepared a long document for you here. It should be of interest one way or …
Saturday Soccer Stats – Do refs affect goals?
With QPR having lost six of their last seven matches things are looking bad for the promoted side, especially as they only have two remaining home games against current bottom-half teams and those are
Betfair results send share price rocketing
Betfair announced a glowing set of results this morning: –
https://corporate.betfair.com/media/press-releases/2015/05-03-2015.aspx
Since Breon Corcoran came to power we have seen a shift from the exchange very much to the sportsbook on Betfair and it seems to be working, for them. I haven’t seen any advertising for the exchange for probably two years now. The rationale for this is that it’s easier to get customers onto the sportbook. Number of active customers are up 35% to 760,000, so that is true!…
Cheltenham Beckons….
OK, we are almost there now. We are just a stones throw from Cheltenham and I’m deep into research how previous years traded, all the stats, videos, charts and anything that can refresh my mind on previous years.
I’ve produced this video for you to give you my initial thoughts ahead of the Festival. Another video will follow with more detailed analysis.
Nailed on Lay Bet
I jest slightly, but there is probably a deeper message here. Rather than tip tap away for 1/2 hour to bring you this rather startling comment from a trader I thought I would do a video about it, Enjoy!
Analysis of Top 10 ATP Players
As we saw last week in the analysis of the top women players, there was a big discrepancy between the several – Serena Williams (in particular), Sharapova and Halep – and the rest. I also discussed that previous research in the ATP showed that matches featuring two elite players had slightly more breaks than the average ATP match.
I decided to do detailed analysis of the current men’s top ten players to see if the tendencies of the WTA repeated …
Automated trading on Betfair – Profiting from a steamer
When a horse starts getting backed, people will often pile into the gamble and the price will steam in. You can benefit from this, using Bet Angel’s automation tools…
One of the best trades to pick up on in a horse racing market is a jolly good ‘steamer’. That is horse racing parlance for a horse who keeps on getting backed and backed, the opposite to a ‘drifter’. There can be any number of reasons for this to happen …
Saturday Soccer Stats
These stats are brought to your by our friends over at Football Form Labs. Check out their site and the powerful software that sits behind these comments
PREVIEW: Sampdoria v Genoa (Sat, 19:45)
It’s another weekend with few high profile clashes across Europe but one game that is sure to be full of passion is the Derby della Lanterna in Genoa. Things have calmed down a bit recently between these sides, with just two red cards in the last …
Analysis of Top WTA Players
Top ten versus top ten is a facet of Tennis that is quite under-researched, and I’ve mentioned previously that generally the ATP elite players in particular have slightly more breaks of serve against each other than the Tour average.
Something I’ve also alluded to is the fact that some players are – to use a cricket phrase – a ‘flat-track bully’. According to dictionary.com, an exact definition is ‘a sportsperson who dominates inferior opposition, but who cannot beat top-level opponents.’ …
The low point
So here we are in mid February, in the depths of winter.
Australian Open tennis has just finished, Cheltenham isn’t too far away but for now the immediate outlook is a little weak for me. We have the champions league, but that’s only two matches on a Tuesday and Wednesday. Europa league looks a bit more interesting, though less volume. There is World cup cricket, but in a different time zone. So there are opportunities around but in general things …
Luck of the draw
The FA Cup fifth round is upon us and unlike previous years the competition has been very interesting so far.
A raft of premiership clubs have already been dumped out of the competition and that’s changed the shape a bit. In the fifth round this year the premier league clubs account for 96% of the market. This is lower than previous years which have been 98.76%, 98.36% and 99.30%.
So for the first time in a few years that percentage …
Why Tiger isn’t roaring anymore
You must have noticed the news this morning that Tiger Woods is taking an indefinite break from Golf to rebuild his game. He had better hurry as he is now 39 and as in other sports age is an important factor in Golf.
Typically you have to look at a sport along two lines to determine where a player is in there career. One is age, as this is defining characteristic of strength and agility. The other experience, this tells …
Saturday soccer stats – Local derby special
These stats are brought to your by our friends over at Football Form Labs. Check out their site and the powerful software that sits behind these comments
The North London Derby kicks off the Premier League weekend and both sides come into this game on the back of impressive results. Arsenal thumped Villa 5-0 at the Emirates while Spurs won convincingly away against a rejuvenated West Brom following the appointment of Tony Pulis. …
Testing times? Profit from them
Trading on Formula One racing may seem unusual and starting to trade even before the season has even started even more unusual, but it can often present some really good opportunities.
At the start of each year after a winter break, I watch preparations for the new Formula 1 season with interest. The various teams are testing new cars and configurations and it generally leads to a mixed bunch of results. But typically that’s what testing is all about. It’s …
Profit graphs – Visualising data on Bet Angel
One ‘trick’ I use with Bet Angel uses two ‘hidden’ features. It has help me improve my trading no end, especially on unfamiliar sports.
The two features I use are the Excel link and the automation. They both work in the background for me while I trade, or even on another machine to collect data on a market I may or may not be trading.
What they are doing is pulling in data from the market I am trading which …
Saturday Soccer Stats
These stats are brought to your by our friends over at Football Form Labs. Check out their site and the powerful software that sits behind these comments
PREVIEW: Chelsea v Man City (Sat, 17:30)
This week’s Saturday Night Football sees reigning champions Man City travel to league leaders Chelsea. Following their shock 4-2 defeat at home to Bradford in the FA Cup, Chelsea needed extra-time to see off Liverpool in the League Cup in midweek, but the talking-point from …
Major upgrade for BETDAQangel
We are pleased to announce a new version of Bet Angel for Betdaq.
Bet Angel for Betdaq is completely free of charge, so there is no reason why you shouldn’t download and try a copy. If you don’t have a Betdaq account we can set one up for you when you install the software.
This is a major upgrade and brings with it many features that people have previously requested and brings Betdaq up in line with features that …
Bet Angel version 1.38
We are pleased to release version 1.38 of Bet Angel Professional for Betfair. It contains a significant enhancement to Advanced Automation and also fulfills a couple of common customer requests.
You can download the latest version from – https://www.betangel.com/download/
Betfair’s new API
Since our successful transition to the new Betfair API in November we have been keen to start adding new features. The new Betfair API allows you to make more calls to the API. The previous API capped data …
Trading Relegation markets
I recently did a piece of relegation markets, concerning manager sackings which often occur at Christmas and new player arrivals / departures in the new year.
I have written a short piece for Betfair and a longer one for Racing Ahead magazine, but I think the video I did on You Tube is probably the best overall summary. You can view it here, or I have embedded it at the end of this video.
To supplement this video you may …
Not courtsiders this year, but pitchsiders
Last year we had a lot of fuss at the Australian open when a courtsider was arrested and it created a huge amount of publicity. But this year the focus seems to have turned to the Cricket.
To put the story into context you should realise that in-play betting is illegal in Australia. This seems odd, but it’s a corruption led thing. You can sort of understand how spot fixing can cause authorities to jump with alarm at in-play …
Bleak Mid winter?
So here we are in the bleak mid-winter, but you perhaps may not know it but for one sport it always feels that way.
For racing, this is a time of year when things are a little quiet. It gets worse next month traditionally, but so far we haven’t lost that many meetings to the weather. So its an opportunity to analyse, prepare and research. Cheltenham is just around the corner so that’s always at the front of my mind.…
Sunday Soccer Stats
These stats are brought to your by our friends over at Football Form Labs. Check out their site and the powerful software that sits behind these comments
PREVIEW: Man City v Arsenal (Sun, 16:00)
This week’s Super Sunday clash sees Arsenal travel to reigning champions Man City. Both teams currently sit one place behind where they finished last term and neither will be happy if they end the campaign in their respective fifth and second spots.
Sergio Aguero’s name …
Swiss squeeze busts West Ham sponsor
As I speculated yesterday, there was bound to be some companies that couldn’t absorb the losses from the decision by Swiss to suddenly free float their currency.
The first victim to come to the fore is Alpari, they posted a rather sombre statement on their web site: –
https://www.alpari.com/company-news/posts/2015/january/important-announcement/
The key part reads: –
The recent move on the Swiss franc caused by the Swiss National Bank’s unexpected policy reversal of capping the Swiss franc against the euro has resulted …
How to lose £30m in seconds
Over the last year I’ve been speaking to a lot of organisations, in sports and non sports markets, that hedge or don’t hedge their positions.
I think I can do a job for people who don’t hedge, but curiously, the general message that’s been coming back is that there is no need to hedge. Margin is lost by hedging and gained by decent management of positions. I think that the prevailing view, despite losing margin in the process, is that …
The new kid on the block
It’s not often you get a new kid on the block but this week we have.
Well sort of new. In April 2008 a new racecourse opened, the first completely new racecourse sine Taunton in 1927! It didn’t last long however and the following January it went into administration. It is now being re-incarnated as Chelmsford City and it’s first races are today.
Having another all weather course will probably help the industry, especially as this is in the south, …
Saturday Soccer Stats
These stats are brought to your by our friends over at Football Form Labs. Check out their site and the powerful software that sits behind these comments
PREVIEW: Everton v Man City (Sat, 15:00)
Everton’s injury-time equaliser against West Ham in Tuesday’s FA Cup game provided some much-needed respite following four straight league defeats. Things don’t seem to be getting any easier for Everton though, with Champions Manchester City probably close to the bottom of Roberto Martinez’s list of …
Shocking moments
The romance bit comes from a non league team coming up against a major club and beating them. But the evidence for regular giant killings is getting a little thin on the ground.
Last year we had Sheffield United getting all the way to the semi finals and of course in 2013 Wigan ensured the demise of Mancini’s tenure at Man City by winning the Cup. But since the start of the Premier League no team from outside the it …
2014
Well that was an interesting year, It always is.
2014 vs 2013
From a broad perspective I’ve just repeated last year again. I’ve ended on almost exactly the same total as 2013 on a like for like market basis (Excluding one offs like the world cup), I’m slightly lower by a small percentage but that’s not bad considering I’ve cut back the amount of markets I’ve traded. This is a concious decision to add some balance back into my life.…
Ghost of Christmas past
One thing I’ve always been very good at is keeping records, I’d recommend it. You can look back and recall what you did previously and improve on it. Or just use it as a point of reference. I tend to archive a lot of trading records and make notes against them so I can remember how the markets traded, what I did and what I was thinking.
I was browsing my records from previous years this evening and came across …
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