Recent Articles
Trick or treat?
Last night the clocks went back and today we have racing that starts at midday(ish) and finishes at four. This signals the slide into a quieter period for racing.
There is still plenty of other sport to do and some decent feature races coming up, but some of the other stuff is less appealing. We also have the weather potentially posing a threat. So it’s time to hunker down and reset expectations and styles, to adapt to the winter.
If …
Arsenal vs West Ham
Compiled some premier league ratings today but didn’t get time to put them up this morning.
Anyhow, top of expected list of goals was Arsenal vs West Ham at nearly 3.5 goals. Given that this match is now at 0-0 at half time, but there has been plenty of goal mouth action. I think there is a lot of value here in terms of backing an Arsenal win or laying a low goal tally. Counter arguments are that is …
Winner at odds of 1000 at Wetherby
Big shock in the 16:00 at Wetherby where the complete and utter rank outsider, Maoi Chinn Tire, won the race. I didn’t get this one but have bagged some before. £912 matched at 1000 before the off!!!
New communications tool
I’ve created some new videos to highlight some of the new features in the latest version of Bet Angel. I will record some more in the coming week, but you can find a list of the current selection here. I have uploaded them to You Tube as well.
For some time we have allowed a lot of flexibility on how Bet Angel communicates with Betfair. This extends beyond the unique connection mode feature, to other areas of the software. …
Derby day
Isn’t the Derby in June? Yes and no, if you are in Australia, early tomorrow morning (UK Time) is Derby Day in Victoria. This kicks off the Melbourne Cup carnival and a week of top class Australian action. On Tuesday we have the race that stops a nation, the Melbourne Cup.
As I have leant more and more about this carnival of racing, the more I realise it’s significance and I’m actually quite excited about it this year. I don’t …
How bizarre was that?
17:10 at Haydock and Drill Sergeant gets off to a flyer. Gee thanks, I got stuffed by the start. But he is well in the lead as he goes around the first corner. The suddenly he stops and starts to have a casual stroll around the course. Price rockets out from heavy odds to to 120 and confusion reigns as the field catch him up and somehow pass him without an accident. Mc Coy somehow gets the horse moving again …
No false start for Betfair float
Betfair shares got off to a good start last Friday on the London stock exchange. I am sure there will be plenty of excitement and speculation around the shares for some time. Betfair is a ‘new’ business, has good competitive aspects and is one that has seen rapid growth. Surely a ‘hot’ stock.
As you may be aware, I have been brought up on a diet of long term investing on the stock market and not speculation. My focus has …
Bet Angel 1.26 released
We are pleased to announce a new beta release of Bet Angel is now available. There are a number of changes in the latest version, some of them significant.
We will post some new videos up in the next few days which will better describe the changes we have made and allow you to confidentally use the new features, but here is a summary: –
Screen Layouts – the size and position of each of Bet Angel’s windows can now …
Trade of the season (so far)
I mentioned in another post about the Portsmouth saga and it turns out I was correct in my interpretation. This turned out to be the trade of the season so far. Portsmouth relegation markets have been a nice earner in the last couple of years!! I’ll have to wait till May to get paid out but I can now green out and look for the next opportunity.
Betfair’s LMAX up and running
It looks like Betfiar’s financial markets operation, LMAX, is up and running. I am on their mailing list but haven’t received anything yet. However, if you visit the following site you can read about LMAX and sign up for an account and browse the site.
The first thing I tried to find was charges. It appears Betfair are going to adopt a normal financial market model of charging for a buy and sell, there are some example trades here: …
Fat fingers crucify punter
I see lots of strange things in the markets but few stranger than what happened just a moment ago at Newbury. While I realise we all, in some way, take money of each other now and again. I feel a great deal of sympathy for what they did, we all screw up from time to time. I can’t imagine how they felt after this error.
The long and short of it is that they backed a 400/1 shot down to …
Pompey likely to close down
Portsmouth say they are likely to fold after talks with former owner and key creditor Sacha Gaydamak broke down. Full story here: –
https://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/p/portsmouth/9120108.stm
Odds on Betfair for relegation have plunged from 11’s to heavy odds on. In settlement terms Betfair count going out of business as relegation, hence the change in odds. I suspect this could be a wake up call from the administrator to the only creditor holding up the process. Lets wait and see….
Rooney signs five-year deal with…
What a saga and seemingly for nothing, Rooney has signed for…… Man Utd. Was this just one big bluff? It will be interesting to understand what exactly happened here.
https://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/m/man_utd/9118602.stm
Is £113m too much?
I see this enormous lottery jackpot has now been claimed.
I do wonder what is the point of gifting somebody so much money, especially in times of such austerity? I find it a little crass. I am sure the money could be put to excellent use in a number of ways, but gifting it to one person?!? I know there has to be an incentive to do the lottery, but I am sure most people would be very happy with …
Europa league ratings
Great night of Champions league football last night and an evening that pretty much went as expected. We came out with 20 goals versus the 23 I forecast.
The Europa league is much more open and I reckon there could be as many as 62 goals this evening. With the Europa league spilt across two start times this presents quite a few opportunities and I am sure a few quality positions will occur this evening. I expect there to be …
Champions league ratings
A successful night last night. The ratings plumped for 46 goals in all matches last night, including the champions league, and the matches delivered 43. For the champions league I was looking for 23 goals and got 25. The matches pretty much turned out as expected, though Basel’s win at Roma wasn’t on the radar. I reckon there will be around 23 goals tonight. Bear in mind there could be more or less but over the long term we will …
Champions league ratings
Here is my assessment of this evenings matches. This evenings matches are not that inspiring to be honest, so I am looking for some clear cut positions on what will probably be a quiet night for me. You can see from the ratings that the Chelsea match clearly stands out from this evenings offerings.
Least goals to most: –
Spartak Moscow v Chelsea
Braga v Partizan Belgrade
Ajax v Auxerre
Real Madrid v AC Milan
Arsenal v Shakhtar
Marseille v …
Benoit Mandelbrot
It was sad to hear of the passing of Mandelbrot last week. But that we should be blessed with his insight is a great thing. He also lived into his eighties, which is a good innings.
Mandelbrot is best know for his work on Fractals. The beauty of fractals is that, while not predictive, they can describe very complicated objects from very simple constructs and that, I believe, is the key to life universe and everything. Whether is subatomic particles, …
Merseyside Derby
How tantalising is this match!
I’m not sure if I have seen a better set up for this Derby in all my years of following football. Passions will be high and both teams will be desperate for a win. Neither team can really afford to lose, but recent stats favour the home team. Everton have won 9/13 home fixtures while Liverpool have won just 1/12 away fixtures. Given various circumstances I suspect this will be a draw. This is much …
Shocking
Good volume on the Caulfield cup in Melbourne this morning, £1.25m was traded on this high profile race and it produced some nice moves. The favourite, shocking, was defeated on heavy ground by Descarado trained by the colourful Gai Waterhouse. I had no idea she was Scottish!!
Shocking is also in key contention for the Melbourne cup, maybe the ground will be more suitable there. It’s been a good session this morning and ideal practice for the Melbourne Cup.…
The aching transition
It’s that time of year in horse racing where the flat gives way to the jumps.
Some good flat races left, but a lot of lower quality and end of season stuff too. On the other side, the jumps now also have a number of novice races. So you end up with some really thin betting markets around at this time of year and things get tougher. However, it’s not new it’s been the same for years, it just a …
Early bird
With the Melbourne cup just around the corner and a breakfast meeting in London this morning, I thought I would take the opportunity to get up a bit earlier and trade the 1000 Guineas at Caulfield racecourse, Melbourne, Australia. I posted the result on the forum. The more I dabble in Australian sports the more I get the urge to visit this antipodean land.
It was good practice for some of the bigger races coming around the corner. I …
Stunning Scottish goal
Currently preparing for this evenings slew of International matches and reviewed what little action there was last night. This included a stunning goal by the Scottish under 21 team against Iceland. Have a look at this: –
Liverpool could face points deduction
Liverpool need to agree a sale by the 15th October or else they could be put into administration. This is significant if you remember my post last year about a similar situation with premiership club Portsmouth. Full story here: –
https://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/l/liverpool/9074311.stm
X Factor alert
OK, I know you are thinking, what’s Peter doing talking about the X Factor! But, for anybody that has been on my course, the news that a new contestant is likely to be added to the market on Saturday should be a signal to get involved in the market.
As with all things, there is a bit of uncertaintly here. But you could get some good upside if the 13th contestant does arrive. For once in my life I will …
Betfair set float price
Full news release here: –
https://corporate.betfair.com/media/press-releases/2010/2010-10-07.aspx
But here is the important bit: –
“The indicative price range of the Offer has been set at between £11.00 and £14.00 per Share, which is equivalent to an equity value for Betfair of between approximately £1.16 billion and £1.48 billion based on its issued share capital2. This indicative price range is expected to make Betfair eligible for inclusion in the FTSE 250 Index in due course.”
Death of a strategy
If you read the ‘birth of a strategy‘ one thing you can see how is long it takes for a new idea to fade, but why?
Well, people were in this market before I was, so my arrival no doubt had an impact on them. It must have or else I couldn’t have made any money. So was their response to sit there and let it happen? No, they would have tweaked their strategy to take account of …
September
September was pretty much spot on where I thought it would be, which is encouraging. I got off to an indifferent start but picked up speed as I went along and finished on a high. Nothing amazing stood out in September and I completed a quiet transition away from the evening racing. The only notable thing was that my strike rate slipped year on year for the first time in a while. I have tweaked a few things recently, so …
TV rights to do a Bosman?
An important case taking place this week in the European courts of justice. If successful the case could led to a deterioration of the money coming into UK football. I suspect there will be many battles to follow if the ruling goes against the premier league.
You can’t help but feel sympathy for people in one territory who are forced to pay much higher costs just because of a line drawn on a map. Given the mobility of information in …
Eight day week
A long week this week on the racing markets. I know a lot of traders who work seven days a week, but I tend not to; this week being an exception.
It’s really the last chance this year to smash in a big week. The Cambridgeshire meeting at Newmarket, more group racing on Saturday and Sunday in Australia and of course the pièce de résistance, the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe on Sunday.
It’s tiring but its a nice way …
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