Recent Articles
Betfair wins William Hill Judicial Review
In a unanimous ruling, the Court of Appeal today found in favour of Betfair in the Judicial Review brought by William Hill, which concerned the Horserace Levy Board’s treatment of betting exchange customers.
The High Court had previously ruled in favour of the position of Betfair as supported by the Levy Board in July 2012, confirming the outcome of the extensive Consultation the Board itself undertook in 2010-2011. That Consultation clearly determined that customers of betting exchanges are not liable …
What’s Messi worth to Barcelona?
I recently asked a similar question of Gareth Bale and last night made me feel a move for Mr Bale is almost certain this summer when Spurs fail to qualify for the champions league.
But back to last night.
I must admit I was anticipating that Barcelona would ‘go for it’ from the off in an attempt to get an early goal and put pressure on Bayern early on, but it never came. Bad tactics, poor motivation? It seemed something …
A fool and his money are soon parted
‘A fool and his money’ It’s a classic phrase, but it always seems to ring endlessly true and never shall it be any different it seems.
This post is about the case at Southwark Crown Court this week, involving the now infamous Elliot Short. I see others have picked up on this before I had the chance to write about it, but here is the link to the original article which was posted up on the forum at the start …
Bet Angel hints and tips – The ‘Make Market’ button
When trying to get a trade placed into the exchange then usually it is a good idea when placing a bet to ask for a better price than the one currently on offer. What do we mean by that?
GETTING A BETTER PRICE
For example, if a football team has a current back price of 5.1 then it makes sense to try and get better value and submit a BACK bet at 5.2 and vice-versa. Taking the current value of …
Betfair reject £900m takeover offer
Betfair came out this morning and rejected an offer by CVC of 880p per share. With 103m shares in issue, that values Betfair at roughly £900m. Betfair shares closed at 800p on Friday so expect another jump up today.
Mark Davis had some interesting reflections on the offer on his blog. His comments are always worth a look as he is a big shareholder and obviously an insider on the whole Betfair thing. He has often given insight to …
Bahrain Formula 1 Grand Prix
My quest to model all F1 circuits continues and its starting to yield results. It’s been a massive task, but I just love fiddling around with data to better understand a sport and look for an edge. If I don’t find anything, it makes for a nice magazine article anyway!
There is a limited data set from Bahrain so comparing this track to others is not an exact science, but when you sort the data a couple of characteristics pop …
Travelling trader
This post has been prompted by this thread in the forum. I don’t know if you remember my post of 2/3 years ago, where I kitted out a holiday cottage so I could trade.
Why? I’ve learnt from past mistakes that if you see an opportunity you take it, in full. So while I’m still in my trading prime, I’d be a fool to turn down the opportunity. Plenty of time to enjoy it later. I also love travelling …
Evening all
Tonight sees the return of the ‘I’m not interested in racing, I’m here for the concert’ season.
But seriously, flat turf evening racing starts up again tonight and as we shuffle through the weekend. We also can herald the start of Windsor in the evening, which means we things are about to step up a gear. At least in quantity.
This is a perfect time for part time traders or people who want to try trading but don’t have much …
Nadal scrapes through in Monte Carlo
Rafael Nadal prepared for his assault on the French Open by narrowly beating unfancied Russian Grigor Dimitrov today.
I love matches like this because, unless you are a value seeker, there isn’t much point in backing somebody, Nadal, at such short odds. So much risk and so little reward. So you inevitably end up laying the red hot favourite or backing the rank outsider.
Dimitrov lost, 2-6, 6-2, 4-6, Nadal using the ninth game effect to push for a break …
Private equity firm seeks Betfair buyout
Last last night SKY news broke a story about CVC approaching Betfair: –
https://news.sky.com/story/1077839/exclusive-cvc-mulls-750m-gamble-on-betfair
I think this would make a good target for a firm like CVC, but whether they can pull it off is another thing; they would require the buy in of all major shareholders. The rationale for a private equity buyout would probably be along the following lines. Betfair is cash rich and a private equity firm would probably use that cash as part of the buy …
Flat packed
Nice to see some flat turf racing underway and the weather improving. Things will get busier from here. In April the flat turf season really starts to kick in and the other meeting types decline, see the graphic. 
Aintree was the last chance of a decent total from a jumps meeting and it did oblige but in a grudging manner. I found Aintree much harder than in previous years, but that could have just been me. Markets shift subtly over …
US Masters at the cut
Well that all worked out OK in the end.
Woods threatened to spoil the party, but a bad run starting on the turn saw him slip back in the standings, but he is still favourite. He touched a low of 2.12 before finishing the day at a more realistic 3.85. In and around Woods familiar faces from day one held there out but predictable Garcia fell away.
Lots of contenders still left in the contest and quite a bit could …
Black Caviar triumphs again
Black Caviar clocked up win number 25 out of 25 this morning at Randwick racecourse in Sydney.
She strode to an easy victory in the Group One TJ Smith Stakes. Her appearance completely overshadowed the running of the $1.5 million Australian Derby. Priced at 1.18 she accounted for £1.74m of £1.76m in matched bets on the race.
More speculation around her possible appearance again at Ascot still hangs in the air, as does the prospect of her meeting up with …
US Masters movers – Day One
A full list of movers is available by clicking on this link.
Marc Leishman was the suprise mover on day one and came in from 720 to 65 returning £100.77 on a £10 stake. Plenty of other movers from the hundreds to the top of the leaderboard including David Lynn whose 2nd in the US PGA meant he was surprised to realise he had qualified for the Masters. A pretty good round for a Masters rookie. The market however …
Time to make a mess of the garden – The US Masters
We are final at the first major of the year. I’m already active in the Masters market trying to establish a position before the first player tees off.
I like the masters because over the years I have collected a ton of stats on the course. This gives me a good guide as to when to trade out of a position. You can do this on most courses, but because the Masters is at the same course every year it …
My favourite football trading set up
We had a couple of wonderful matches in the champions league last night, I am hoping for some more tonight.
If you want to qualify the comments on this post, simply browse the football related posts I’ve made over the years on here and you will see why last night was a really nice set up for a possible bumper result.
Both matches last night were good trading fodder as they had a really strong incentive to score in both …
How much is Gareth Bale worth?
Quite a lot I would reckon. So the inevitable summer debate will be will who will Spurs sell him to?
Never quite seems to work out though does it? I don’t know how many star players I have seen sold, only to see them not fit into their new set up. But there is one thing that is in no doubt, just how much Gareth Bale is worth for Spurs not just in monetary terms, but on the pitch.
If …
Betfair charts from the Grand National
For your interest, here is the front of the field from the Grand National today. Hopefully this will give some insight into where you went wrong / right today. I flagged up on one of the most likely main moves during an interview I did on Radio early this morning. I’ll post up the interview early next week. Off for a well deserved rest now!
Aintree grand national meeting
This is a curious meeting for me each year. It’s not on the scale of some of the really large meetings, but is still a decent meeting in it’s own right. The problem I have here, is that I never seem to pull off anything spectacular from it. On a race by race basis I do now and again, just not consistantly.
That feels odd to me because it’s a decent enough meeting to shoot for some big totals. But …
Nasty security issue with text betting?
I’ve been messing around with SMS recently.
When you are running automation you can’t help but think, as you are guzzling down that drink at a party, how did I do on the 20:50? So I thought it may be neat to look at SMS as a solution. I thought it may technically difficult to do, but it turns out SMS is a quite easy, if not an inexpensive option. That was when I discovered something else.
I quickly realised, …
Betdaq go commission free on the Grand National
Betdaq continued their act of throwing down the Gauntlet today, by making the bold move of offering the highest profile betting race of the year completely free of commission. That’s right you heard it here first, the Grand National will be offered at 0%!
I’ve always been an advocate for a competitive market and this sort of thing is a direct result of a more competitive market. This can only be benefical for exchange end users. Whatever your objection for …
Betfair acquires customer database of Blue Square
Full the full press release visit here: –
https://corporate.betfair.com/media/press-releases/2013/02-04-2013.aspx
Text reads: –
Betfair Group plc (“Betfair”) today announces that it has acquired certain assets, including the customer database, of online bookmaker Blue Square Bet for £5m. From today, all Blue Square customers will be automatically redirected to Betfair where they can access a full suite of sports betting and gaming products and receive a promotional welcome offer.
The acquisition is consistent with Betfair’s strategy of focusing on regulated markets and …
Easter Bank holiday moanday
The easter bank holiday is a funny day. 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!
In total there are 66 races today of which 20 have the same starting time. Of those not clashing they generally start five minutes apart and will clash from that perspective. That means very few races will reach ‘critical mass’ at any point and be suitable …
World #2 status awaits Murray
The semi final went pretty much the way we expected. Gasquet put up a lot of resistance but Murray eventually won out. It may for a nice trading set up, you can see the charts here.
No Tennis match can have a certain outcome but the case for a Murray win against Ferrer looks compelling and this will set up Murray in prime position for a massive seedings boost.
Ferrer has the better of Murray 4-0 on Clay, …
Nice finish to a tricky day
Wasn’t sure what to expect from today as it’s the first time the Lincoln has been shifted by a week since I have been trading it.
Last week we had virtually no racing at all and today we ended up with the chaos of 50 races, even excluding the big meeting at Meydan. To be honest I’d prefer neither. A nice progression from one race to another, no clashes, but lots of racing is my ideal set up. Didn’t really …
Houston Open Golf – Best trades
This is proving a very useful warm up event for me this year, ahead of my first major effort at the US Masters in Augusta.
The main feature of the tournament so far is the continued stuttering start to 2013, of Rory McIlory. He only just made the cut and his priced has slipped from 10’s at the off to 46’s. Thanks in part to McIlroy’s loss of form and some great performances further down the field this has been …
Gasquet vs Murray – Sony Open Tennis – Miami
This is an intruiging match.
Murray will be keen to win this tournament as he will move up to world number two and that will result in some decent seedings, so a big incentive to win.
Gasquet has been playing well so far and will fancy taking the game to Murray at some point you would think. He was at a short price against Rochus, bigger odds against Youzhy, came through a competitive match against Alamgro but sailed through when …
My Sports trading journey – Part four
Links to Part one, Part two & part three
The leap into the unknown
So I was in my early 30’s, had a desire to work for myself, but was in a well-paid job and travelling all over the place; which I quite enjoyed. Some things had always niggled me though.
If you work for somebody else, you feel you never truly control your own destiny. As you rise to more senior roles, you realise you are pretty much …
Warming up
That’s me, not the weather. Though it is a sunny day outside, so I would imagine that will give a range of sports a decent chance of going ahead this weekend.
Now we are in the, alleged, spring of the northern hemisphere I’ve started looking at events that I will trade in the coming months. This involves brushing up my research data on them to make sure I am prepared. When the evening racing starts I’ll be trading all the …
More confusing exchange legislation, this time in Italy
News last week that legislation has been tabled in Italy to legalise the use of Betfair from an exchange perspective. But the legislation looks horrible.
For about two years Betfair have not been accepting new registrations from Italian customers, so an update on legislation has been long awaited. From what I can make out at the moment the Italian exchange will only be open to Italian residents betting on a very restricted range of markets. For example there would be …
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