Recent Articles
The day somebody with £1k caused a £600m error
Three years ago today we were treated to a day of spectacular proportions. It seems to have slipped into the history books a bit so I thought I would reprise it for your enjoyment and delight.
On this this day at the Christmas hurdle at Leopardstown something went very, very wrong. Voler La Vedette ran home to take that race, but for most of the race £21m was available to back at good odds. Nobody it seemed was able to …
Boxing day
So we are at Christmas and the sports schedule in the UK thinned out into the run up to Christmas day. Everything, apart from your wallet probably, took a break. Now it’s back with a bang on Boxing day.
Last year, even with two meetings abandoned there were still a total of 11 race meetings in the UK and Ireland and a total of 720 runners over 72 races! This year we face a total of 79 races, 24 of …
Regulator gets tough on Spoofing
It would be nice if this were a statement related to Betfair, but hey, such is life.
This actually is a statement from regulators in financial markets. Spoofing there is consider a form of market manipulation and therefore is illegal. The deal in financial markets is if you manipulate a market to profit it’s wrong. The rationale behind this is that you are tricking people out of their money. This doesn’t add any value to the market and is a …
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: Roma v AC Milan (Sat, 19:45)
Roma keep grinding out results to keep the pressure on Juventus at the top of Serie A, with a 1-0 success at in-form Genoa their latest success. Milan, also, come into this came on the up after a 2-0 win over Napoli, which has brought …
Time to book your Betfair holiday
For the larger commission payers amongst you, this is a reminder to make sure you examine whether its worth booking your Betfair holiday before Sunday for the next week or two
When you generate commission you get credited with Betfair points. The more points you have the lower commission you pay. But each week Betfair decay a big chunk of your points which you would then top up with more activity.
Next week is a short week, especially if you …
Betfair Australia to focus on exchange business
Many thanks to posted on this thread on the forum for pointing out the news that is coming from Australia.
Basically Betfair sold their operations to Crown and Crown has done a deal to split off the Sportsbook business to BetEasy and retain the Exchange as a brand in its own right and to allow that to gain it’s own focus. It’s a complete volta-face from the situation in the Uk and is worth watching. You couldn’t have two more …
Carling cup quarter-finals
I put this video up on You Tube yesterday and thought it was worth documenting on the blog as well for people that haven’t seen it. But basically there are a couple of nice set-ups in the quarter finals.
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 Utd v Liverpool (Sun, 13:30)
Man Utd are up to third after a five-game winning streak while Liverpool’s season continues to fall apart after another poor European display in midweek. Despite United’s recent resurgence, however, they’ve been far from impressive as both Southampton and Arsenal outplayed them and without Angel …
Is NBA the new WTA?
During my recent travels in the US I sat down at a bar one evening and watched some Basketball. It was an entertaining experience. Fellow bar attendees proffered their opinion and curiosity overwhelmed me, so I reached into my pocket fired up the Betfair app and had a look at the market.
Here is something you may not know. You CAN’T actually log in and place a bet from the US, but you CAN actively look up a market and …
Incentive to score
Incentive to score is a key element of a football match.
This can be present in any football match, but is typically dominant in knockout tournament or where a particular result is required. So it could also apply to matches where a result is needed be to avoid relegation, to reach fourth spot in the league or qualify for the next round of a tournament or something similar.
Some teams will have a big incentive to score, others to not …
How Betfair’s new API is an opportunity
Nobody seems to like change, but I’ve learnt over many years that change tends to bring opportunity along with it. Change is a fact of life and therefore opportunity is too!
API NG
Just over a year ago Betfair announced the cut off date for API 6 and the switch over took place in early November this year. When Bet Angel was first developed there wasn’t even an API, the fact the old API was called API 6 tells you …
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
Bayern have conceded just one goal in their last 11 games and have won four of their last five home matches by at least four clear goals, so Leverkusen are facing an uphill battle as they head to the Allianz Arena.
However, Leverkusen have put …
Kaizen
Nobody is perfect
You know what, nobody is perfect. We all get emotional, we all defend our views and our patch of turf vigorous and sometimes errantly. But when I started 20 years ago I wanted to achieve something really special. So each morning I wake up, that’s my objective. I think about what I can do today to nudge my activity to a new level. I think hard about what I, not others, are doing and how I can …
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: Southampton v Man City (Sun, 13:30)
Southampton have confounded the critics this season to sit a scarcely believable second after 12 games. Man City, in contrast, have largely disappointed their fans in their attempts to defend the title. However, they kept their Champions League hopes alive in midweek and will now …
Hennessy Gold Cup – One of my favourite races
I have fond memories of the Hennessy Gold Cup. I’ve traditionally done well at this race and its the race I traded live at the IX Investor show for Betfair in 2006.
Seeing a betting company at an financial investment show was a shock for many people and lots couldn’t understand why we were there, so we had real trouble getting people to come near the stand.
This was when I rolled up my sleeves and traded live for everybody. …
Get rich slowly…..
I woke up to another negative gambling story the other morning: –
I’ve almost given up trying to champion the more positive aspects of what I’ve and others achieved over the last 14 years. Because everytime I try, something like this gets thrown into the ring. I seem to be commenting far too frequently on these sorts of things, but it’s …
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: Arsenal v Man Utd (Sat, 17:30)
The past few years have seen Arsenal fail to perform against the best teams in the league time and again, and their record against Man Utd is no exception. Arsene Wenger’s men have won just one of their last 14 games in all competitions against …
Trading Schadenfreude
Once a year we are treated to the bug ridden spectacle that is ‘I’m a celebrity get me out of here’ or IACGMOOH for short!
I used to be a bit of a sceptical whether you could reliably trade reality TV shows but slowly and surely I’ve come to learn that they actually make good trading fodder. Typically, reality TV shows are very volatile. We have already seen this on the show this year with Gemma Collins freaked out by …
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
Scotland v Ireland (Fri 19:45):
Scotland have drawn the first half in six of their last nine matches
Seven of Scotland’s last eight home games have had fewer than three goals
Six of Scotland’s last seven wins have been to nil and five were 1-0 scores
Ireland have lost only two of …
Cheltenham Open meeting
At last, some quality comes back into the jumps season!
With the Cheltenham open this weekend we can look forward to the fact that the festival is only four months away! Hey, you need something to look forward to during the, often bleak, winter season.
The Open is a useful meeting and volumes will be higher than normal so it’s an opportunity to get tucked into some decent markets. This isn’t like the Festival though so you shouldn’t get wildly …
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: Liverpool v Chelsea (Sat, 12:45)
You could argue Liverpool lost the title last season in their games against Chelsea, as the Blues did the double over the Reds having previously failed to beat them in six matches since another double in 2009/10.
Liverpool’s form has been poor this season, with the …
Melbourne Cup meeting – Day three
I was going to post up a breakdown of the big day, but the unfortunate circumstances surrounding the post race period put paid to that. Couldn’t bring myself to post enthusiastically about proceedings given that. In case you don’t know what happened the BBC has detailed the unfortunate set of circumstances.
From a trading perspective things went pretty well. I don’t expect to set records on every major race meeting now, due to the time I’ve been in the …
Melbourne Cup Meeting
Me and the Melbourne cup go back a few years now. Many moons ago I got interested in the ‘race that stops a nation’ and learned that it really did stop the nation, they have a national holiday today.
So, intrigued, I got up at 4am one dark winter Tuesday to see what all the fuss was about. Nothing really happened apart from a lack of sleep and I returned to bed disappointed. Back then I had converted have the …
Mexico 1 – 0 USA
I’ve written about this sort of stuff before on the blog, but given my location at the moment it’s worth visiting it again. I’ve added a video at the bottom to bring home the point a bit more this time.
I would like to trade this week, but I’m going to move location to do it. I’ve shifted out of LA and down the coast to cross the border. It’s only a couple of hours from LA and from San …
Betfair US – California HQ
As you know I’m in la la land at the moment and it’s not the first time I’ve been here. Having worked for a couple of US companies in my time and thanks to my interest in Warren Buffet et al, I’ve often popped over here to do something or another most years since the early 90’s.
When Betfair started taking off in the UK I was quite interested in seeing how legislation would play out over here. To give …
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.
Man City’s run of wins came to an abrupt end last weekend as they lost at West Ham while Man Utd salvaged a point at the death against leaders Chelsea. That late Robin van Persie equaliser did City a huge favour as they avoided …
Laying in the sand – Part two – Santa Anita
So, following on from my trip to Ireland to see Laytown races, I’m now in California and literally laying in the sand.
There are a range of reasons for that, but Santa Anita was another item off the bucket list. I’ve put a load of photos on our Facebook page if you want to see Santa Anita without the crowds.
I always enjoy California. Plenty to do for everybody, the weather is always fantastic and LA bay has miles of …
Holiday booked
Having worked hard during the summer I’ve been using the time since the end of peak season to catch up on a few must have moments. So this week, until Saturday at least, you wont have me in the markets. I’ve taken care to book my Betfair holiday or else its going to cost me 15,000 points or so!
I hopped on a plane on Sunday and headed out of the country for a short while. I’ll be back trading …
How extrapolation trips people up when trading
A trend is your friend, until the end.
One of the most common mistakes I see in newbies is trend following. Trend following is when you latch on to a pattern and extrapolate it. It could be a horse that is heavily drifting or coming in, perhaps a football team on a great run or form, or a poor one. Perhaps a team has had 20 games under 2.5 goals. Is there a trend, why, or this a natural aberration?…
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 Utd v Chelsea (Sun, 17:00)
Chelsea remain unbeaten in all competitions this season as their impressive form has seen them move five points clear at the top of the table. Man Utd, meanwhile, are still adapting to life under Louis van Gaal and this is only the second time in …
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