Recent Articles
Gamble fail, trade win
A quiet end to Ascot week, but I’m relieved that I can now return to more ‘normal’ trading patterns.
I did OK on the day, but one trade stood out. The 17:00 at Ascot.
‘Absolutely So’ was gambled massively, more than any horses I think I’ve seen at Ascot. Widely tipped, It had a terrible race and finished 15th in the end. But it highlighted the beauty of trading. You could quite easily see it was being heavily backed, so …
Profiting from Lay the draw – before the off!
A curious episode in the annals of sports trading this week. No, not another England fail at a major tournament but an opportunity to profit, with a bit of foresight.
With Italy due to play Costa Rica and hold England hopes alive I was browsing the various scenarios in a similar manner to the way I did at the end of the EPL season.
I posted some comments on the forum where I was looking at the prospect of …
World Cup Winners – Trading returns so far
In summary the big gainers are Germany& the Netherlands. Big losers Spain and to an extent Portugal & Uruguay. But the latter two never had short odds to start. Here is the full overview though. Returns to £10 stakes: –
Postive – Germany – Started at 8 now at 5.8 – Returns £3.79
Postive – Netherlands – Started at 46 now at 14 – Returns £22.86
Postive – France – Started at 23 now at 19 – Returns £2.11
Postive …
Royal Ascot week
Thanks for the feedback on World Cup stats. Inspired, I’ve combined a general overview of Ascot with some data on previous years meetings.
Please see the embedded video further down this post.
It goes without saying that Ascot is big, but how big? What are the biggest days? That may surprise you if you are not into the detail of racing. The flow of the week is different at Ascot as well, so it’s worth being aware of that as …
Trading World Cup football
What an exciting start to the world cup so far! I was discounting a drab, dull and tight affair; but it’s not been too bad to be honest and the Spain / Netherlands match was amazing. What a special goal from Van Persie. Big winner from that match may actually turn out to be Man Utd I suspect!
I’m easing myself into the tournament from a trading perspective. After all it’s been four years since the last one. You also …
Chaos awaits!
OK, take a deep breath, we are about to descend into one the busiest periods in four years.
First up, the US Open Golf teed off this morning. A few hours later Racing starts and runs into the evening, when that’s over the World Cup starts. No pausing for breath before we delve deep into Royal Ascot then with the World Cup thick into its schedule Wimbledon upon us.
It’s going to be busy, but what great fun! What a …
US Open Golf – Interesting set up
An interesting set up seems to be on the cards for the US Open golf this week.
All majors tend to see tough course set ups, but the weather looks set to play a big part this week. Which is perfect for Golf traders. Tee times and existing scores could make this very tradable depending on how and when the weather arrives. But the current forecasts appear to point for a period of disruption throughout the week.
Check out the …
Betfair full year results in a nutshell
To save you from reading the entire report and listening to the hour long presentation here is a summary:-
Revenue up 2% to £393m, profit before tax up 61% to £61m
Sportsbook has grown as has customer acquisition to the sports book. Exchange is revenue is down. In the future guidance will not be given on the individual aspects so we will lose any insight as to how the exchange is performing vs. the sportsbook.
US business is performing well …
Derby Day
A traditionally good day for racing traders today with the Derby upon us. We had the Oaks yesterday and that proved OK, if a little tricky in places. The market was flowing over with money and that made it hard to get a decent fill at the right risk. The overall turnover was only £2m vs. £2.5m the year before so that was disappointing. Overall there were four races that exceeded £1m for a total of £7.5m traded at post …
The Oaks – 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 …
Inside the Shadowy World of Tennis Courtsiding
Interesting article on Court siding with contributions from Sporting Data, whose spotter was ejected from the Aussie open earlier this year, and also news of a book coming out about it! An interesting dialogue on the world of courtsiding.
You can read the full article on the fivethirtyfive web site.
Various quotes from various sources but in essence a summary of the courtsiding debate and some insight into what has been going on for quite a few years now.…
French open tennis – When it’s good to see red!
It’s great to see the start of the French open tennis and it’s one of those moments when the red clay surface will often mean green for traders.
Grand Slams often produce good matches and the slower surface at Roland Garros will bring shot making and athleticism to the fore.
Early rounds of grand slams often bring up very shot prices, but the odd shock. So I’m generally looking to oppose red hot favourites in the early rounds hoping for …
Monaco Grand Prix
Almost went to the Monaco Grand Prix this year., but the PGA Golf at Wentworth got in the way of it this year, so I’ll have to delayed my visit to this iconic race. I’m picking up some useful totals on Golf so the opportunity to make money rather than spend it, is still too tempting for me!
You could be forgiven for thinking that if you qualify on pole in Monaco you will win. The tight street circuit is …
Champions League Final 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.
Real Madrid will look to claim the elusive ‘Decima’ on Saturday night when they face city rivals Atletico in Lisbon. Xabi Alonso is suspended for Real with Asier Illarramendi expected to deputise and Isco on standby to play if Karim Benzema or Cristiano Ronaldo are not fit to start. Atletico, meanwhile, have …
Slacking
I’ve been a bit quiet on the blog and video front this week, but it’s not through want. It’s just been a very busy week. Even after 14 years I still get excited and motivated by getting stuck into the markets. My desire to solve problems and push forward is always at the front of my mind. Everything else can take a back seat when the desire is at its strongest.
I welcomed another group of people to the office …
FA Cup Fi-nil, Some interesting statistics
So the FA Cup final is upon us and, rather predictably, the final has delivered us two premiership teams. But what will the match deliver, is that going to be as predictable as well? I’ve delved back over a number of years to see if I can unlock some prevailing trends.
At first hand you can see that the final looks uncompetitive, Arsenal are heavy favourites to lift the cup. But as history has shown us, the FA Cup is …
York Dante meeting
After a successful Chester meeting last week we roll onto York for the Dante meeting this week.
The York card looks good, but the other stuff on the card is a bit testing’. I’ve never managed to consistently pull out any massive totals from this York meeting in the past, but today has got off to a good start so maybe this is the year!
As we move through the early part of the flat turf season the early part …
Premier League Final Day Stats – last 15 years
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.
Premier League Final Day Stats – last 15 years
- Backing every home team would have given a +6.2% profit over the 150 matches
- There have been 34 matches where the home side has been a 2.0-2.5 favourite (Sunderland, West Brom) with those teams winning 56% of matches and the games averaging 3.18
Eurovision
Even if you are not watching it, you should take a look at Eurovision this evening. It’s caught my eye this year as a competitive contest with several interesting dynamics as a market. I’m out on the town this evening, so I’ve no chance to trade it unfortunately; but I’ll gather data.
I’ve done well in the past by backing outsiders that shorten during the contest and early voting patterns can often give you clear hints to the eventual outcome. …
Chester draw Bias
Chester draw bias; an unbiased view by Proform
Given its idiosyncratic nature, a low draw at Chester provides a distinct advantage and with the Chester 3 day May meeting starting today, many race goers and punters will try to outsmart the general public’s perception of the draw bias and overlook the obvious to seek value elsewhere. Nevertheless, as shown by specialist tools like Proform siding against basic physics on this occasion may as fruitless as King Canute’s efforts in holding …
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 isn’t all about sports
May bank holiday doesn’t actually scream trading on sports markets for me. It pulls me in a different direction….
Long before I started trading on sports markets I spent a lot of time and effort on financial markets and that eventually led me to the Berkshire Hathaway AGM in Omaha Nebraska.
Until I got too busy on sports markets; the first weekend in May, the Bank Holiday weekend, was traditionally the time I would hop over to the US to …
Win by backing the loser
An unusual strategy but one I documented in this recent post on the Betfair web site.
The dutching in Bet Angel contains a neat feature called the ‘margin maker’. This allows you to create a book with one price offset to a nominated value. This is useful for risk management when deploying a strategy in a market where you have some idea where the odds will go. Whether this is the time value in a football match or the price …
The first Classic of the season is here!
Jollygreen has provided an overview of this years race and you can see my own thoughts from the video I recorded earlier this week further down this post.
The racing fraternity in the UK always look forward to this day, the first of the Classics. I often find they are also pretty tricky to solve; unless Frankel is in the line up! From a trading point of view, paddock judges can have an influence on market movement. There is always …
Weekend 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.
Newcastle v Cardiff
- 8 of Newcastle’s last 10 home games against bottom-six teams have had at least 3 goals
- Newcastle have lost 5 of their last 8 home matches against bottom-six teams
- Cardiff have drawn the first half in 9 of their last 16 away matches
Stoke v Fulham
- Stoke have picked
Estimating correct score odds
In this video I discuss a simplistic approach to estimating correct score odds by deriving them from the match odds markets. You can do this automatically in Bet Angel. There are several layers and depths you can get to with pricing models and this is a fairly simple ‘top level’ model that is easy to understand but is not particularly refined.
For clarity I’ve also included a market where this model is not appropriate and where you should use a …
Easy Market Selection and Navigation
Easy Market Selection and Navigation
A common support question is market selection and navigation. It’s a generally simple process but there are many ways to do it.
Opening the market selection dialogue box is simple. If you use file and select you select a market from there or you can click on the ‘Select Market and start betting’ button in the bottom right corner of the screen Bet Angel shows when it is first opened. Or you can click on …
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.
Premier League: Liverpool v Chelsea
Liverpool have won 11 consecutive matches to take a commanding lead in the title race. With Chelsea’s chances having been all but finished last weekend with defeat to Sunderland they are now expected to rest several players ahead of next week’s Champions League second leg.
However, Chelsea’s …
Backing Liverpool
Hindsight is a wonderful thing isn’t in. But Liverpool are now into 1.19 for the title, but a controversial title awaits perhaps?
After their 0-0 draw with Athletico this week in the champions league, Chelsea are preparing for the real prospect of another champions league final. But this it seemingly going to have an effect on the title race also.
Mourinho has threatened to field a much weakened team against Liverpool, effectively handing them the title. Liverpool’s price has shortened …
Easter Bank Holiday Monday
You would think that perhaps lots of racing would be a blessing, but on day’s like this it’s a curse. I forgive racing for wanting to put on a show for punters, but it’s a mare for us on the other side. Just too much racing!
There are 705 runners today over 67 races, an average of 10 runners per race. If all races start on time, then there will be 24 clashes today. If races start on their average …
Connect
Connect with us on the following social media platforms.