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£1.4m win for racing punter
Great scenes at Exeter today when a tote jackpot punter landed over £1.4m when Lupita won in the 17:00.
The Jackpot had not been won since Fontwell on February 27 and rose from £368,373 to £989,008 – the ninth-highest turnover day in Jackpot history – at Ffos Las on Monday. The biggest pool in history remains £2,308,852 at Haydock on August 5 last year.
Betfair switches to Gibraltar
Betfair released an interim management statement today detailing the following results: –
Overall Core Betfair revenue up 6.2% on Q3 FY10 to £77.0m
Core Betfair Sports revenue up 8.6% to £56.6m
Core Betfair Games revenue up 8.2% to £14.3m
Core Betfair Poker revenue down 20.5% to £5.2m
Further down the statement they slipped in the following announcement: –
Betfair announces that, with effect from 9 March 2011, its Betting Exchange will operate under a Gibraltar licence.…
Tangerine time
Interesting match this evening with Blackpool up against Chelsea. It must seem a long time since Blackpool charged up the league with some notable wins against high profile opposition. Only a couple of points above the drop zone, their focus now must be on the bottom of the league, rather than the top.
I’m not ashamed to say that Blackpool was one of my favourites to get relegated this season. Nothing against Blackpool, who have been very entertaining this season, …
The secret to good decisions
Was tipped off by somebody the other day about this key bit of scientific advice. So next time you make a bad decision you now know what to do!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/
Safety in numbers…
An overlooked strategy on betting exchanges is spreading your risk across a number of selections and / or markets. A lot of people think this involves more risk but I’d actually argue it involves less.
By doing more you increase your chance of a return and minimise the pain of a loss. This is strategy that can be applied in a number of ways but can most commonly be applied across, say, a number of football matches before the start. …
Premier league darts
I know I’ve mentioned this a few times recently but the darts markets are growing on me rapidly for a number of reasons. Generally it is because matches take place over a short period of time but display characteristics similar to other markets.
Last night we saw Phil Taylor take on RayVan Barneveld and there were two obvious trades. Taylor got off to a good start and was worth backing from the off. 6-0 up at the break and trading …
February
Last month was pretty quiet. When we are in depths of winter I often take some time off and prepare for the busy summer season and so it was last month.
Summer is so important in sports markets that time off during this busy period is tricky, in the winter much less so. It is important to have a break, so winter is when I tend to do that. That said, a good friend of mine is getting married in …
Serena williams rushed to hospital
News just coming in that Serena williams has been hospitalised with a pulmonary embolism. Puts things into perspective doesn’t it?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1362217/
Hoping for luck of the Irish
We don’t often discuss cricket, but the World Cup is on right now so it’s a good time to do so.
Just before the World Cup began I looked at England’s prices, and despite going unbeaten in their opening two group games, they have lengthened from around 6.0 to 10.0 to lift the trophy.
Next up for the Three Lions is Ireland and England will know they cannot take William Porterfield’s side lightly given their close call against another Associate …
Lift off!
After many years of trying I finally managed to see the space shuttle lift off last week. The scheduled launch of the shuttle last week coincided with a quiet time in the sports calendar and half term in the UK, so it was too good an opportunity to miss. The kids headed off to the theme parks, while Dad headed off to the coast in the hope of finally catching a shuttle launch. After a hold around T-5 the launch …
England to pack a punch for Le Crunch?
Even without Marc Lievremont’s admission that he hates the English the anticipation for Le Crunch would have been huge. The outcome looks likely to decide the Six Nations Championship and, in all probability, whether England can claim a first Grand Slam since 2003, they same year that they went on to lift the World Cup. You might have heard that there’s a Rugby World Cup later in 2011.
There’s plenty of opportunity for traders in the match. As is usually …
Doing darts
Sat here the other evening watching the premier league darts and suddenly realised what I am looking at is actually pretty similar to other sports in the way it is scored and played. The format of the premier league darts is also interesting with the introduction of the draw.
The underlying feeling and the way the odds move is fairly similar to other sports and can surely be traded in a similar manner. A huge benefit of course, is that …
Accidents and evolution (Part three)
Never one for rhetoric; I presented a similar case, to those I have described in the prior posts, at a talk I did last year. Using a similar model we followed how that can evolve from a base set of criteria and environments to something more complex. The following two snap shots are from a control where we work at random and an evolved model a few generations on.
I reckon I could replicate the performance of the two at …
Accidents and evolution (Part two)
So how did my view on evolution, natural selection and Darwin translate into market strategy?
There are many ways to apply it, but first you need to start. Your first strategy is to have no strategy, just poke around at random. This gives you a control sample to work with, a base metric from which you can build your activity. You should regularly revisit your control to ensure the base you are working from is still the same as when …
Accidents and evolution (Part one)
Some time ago, when I was young, I was accosted by somebody on the streets of Guildford. He was trying to challenge my view of the world and get me to sign up to their cult or something. He followed me down the street and asked me if I really believed the world, everything we see, was created by accident. Without hesitation I replied, YES!
When I was young I had asked myself the same question. So I went to …
Not again!
Got back to my desk on Sunday evening to see that Betfair had been offline again on Sunday afternoon. My commiserations for anybody that was caught out. I had some spreadsheets running but, fortunately, they were not completely caught out; only a minor hit. I am relatively inactive at the moment as the February is a good period to take time out with the family. I work very hard in the Summer, so this time of the year is when …
FA Cup
Most of this weekends ties look to have a certain amount of inevitability about them. You would expect to see most of the favourites see off the weaker teams, but I do fancy the look of Stoke vs Brighton.
It has a nice set up to it with Stoke doing ‘OK’ in the Premiership but Brighton going great guns in league one. I reckon the seagulls will really be up for this match and will have the belief they can …
Ladbrokes results
There is a summary here: –
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12490900
Or the full detail here: –
https://www.ladbrokesplc.com/media-centre/press-releases/releases-2011/2011-02-17.aspx
A mixed bag of results, but pretty good given the underlying weakness in core markets. Labrokes is still 3-4 times the size of Betfair depending on how you measure it.
Champions league
Well that was a cracking start to the champions league knock out stages!
The cat has been well and truly put amongst the pigeons with Spurs win in Milan. Harry’s steps towards legendary status are getting quite common now. Can Arsenal over turn Barcelona this evening? It would be a memorable night if they could and this match has my attention. Arsenal can’t afford to concede but must really win to have any chance in Barcelona. Barca will have no …
This evenings European football
The two key champions league matches don’t look exciting prospects from my viewpoint. Two home wins on the card and two away teams that will be trying to avoid defeat. The first leg in these cases don’t throw up many clear opportunities usually. It’s the second leg that is often more interesting given what happens in the first.
The match that has caught my eye today is the Aris vs Man City match. Man City are quite short but should …
Dubai far from a failure for Woods
OK, Woods may have flunked the last round in Dubai but it seems other ventures in Dubai worked out quite nicely, even though they didn’t!
Another difficult day for racing
Racing hasn’t had it easy this winter. Over half the meetings lost in December, November wasn’t a bundle of joy and the start of the year hasn’t really gone to plan.I am struggling to remember when we last had a normal week.
Lots of good thoroughbreds need a decent run out ahead of Cheltenham, but few are getting one. Just when you think you have seen it all; we see, on what was going to be a great days racing, …
Late winner in the Manchester derby?
Traders will be arguing among themselves about whether there will be a goal-fest on Saturday when Manchester United and Manchester City do battle. The game at Eastlands earlier in the season produced a goalless draw, which was arguably one of the worst games of the year. However, who can forget last year’s seven goal thriller when Michael Owen scored a 94th minute winner to shatter the Citizen’s hearts.
Since August Roberto Mancini’s side have built up a reputation of …
Dubai desert classic
Received a useful tip earlier in the week about Thomas Aiken. Six of the last seven tournaments he has finished in the top 20 and was available at 120’s. After the first round he is five under par, in second place and in to 25’s. I’ve also backed Sterne at 440 to 50’s, Martin 450 to 75 and a fair few others.
No trading out for me until they finish the second round. All I need now is a …
Football rich list
It is always interesting to read the Deloitte reports. They seem to highlight the significant, and growing, gap between footballs elite clubs and the rest.
Seven of the top ten clubs come from the English premiership. The top clubs even in this elite division are pulling away from the others.
https://www.deloitte.com/view/en_GB/uk/press-release/0966fd0057101210VgnVCM100000ba42f00aRCRD.htm
But there are still a large number of structural issues in the game.
Dogs
Had a quick go at the televised Greyhound racing last night. Nothing special but a satisfactory result. There are lots of greyhound races on each day and if you have never tried it, it is worth giving it a go. Volumes can reach £10-20k per race and the markets are a little illiquid, but they are a decent supplement to horse racing for smaller users.
Where Angel’s don’t fear to tread
Just over a week ago we had the Betfair upgrade and first outage.
Betfair has a chequered history of outage’s, but have been much better in recent years. Because Bet Angel was around before the API was created, we have always maintained a dual mode of operation. You can connect to Betfair via non API (The website) or API modes.
I tend to connect by the API but I have both available at all times, just in case there is …
Super Bowl off to a slow start?
It’s not often we trade on the NFL, but amid all the hype, how could we not mention it? Super Bowl XLV kicks off on Sunday evening in what promises to be a fascinating contest between the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The total points market is always one of interest and this year promises to be no different with Aaron Rodgers and Ben Roethlisberger occupying the quarterback positions. The over/under points total is set at 45.5 (I …
Down, Down
I would like to give you an update as to how February is going, I’ll let you know when I can log into Betfair!
It’s been the worst week for Betfair for some time. If Betfair would like to offer up some more detailed explanation I am sure we can all make a better judgement as to why the site is less stable than ever recently. In the absence of that we will have to speculate why a company that …
The impact of transfers
Back before the start of the season I tipped a number of teams to struggle and managers likely to leave their jobs, by and large I have been spot on. A couple of surprises, but come the end of the season I’d should be well up on the deal over the course of the season. So, how did I find these opportunities? Just one word, money!
That money makes the world go around is true and none more so in …
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