Recent Articles
New version of Bet Angel released
Constantly striving to improve your trading edge, we are pleased to announce a new version of Bet Angel is available, version 1.43. You can download it from here: –
You can download it from here: –
https://www.betangel.com/download/?product=BetAngelPro
The upgrade is free for existing Bet Angel users or those currently trialling Bet Angel. If you haven’t had a trial recently you may be eligible for a new one. Bet Angel will tell you if you qualify when you try and register …
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 …
Manic Monday
It’s one of a handful of manic trading sessions you see during the year today.
There are 620 runners on the card today and 54 races. Sounds like heaven, but it can be hell. The markets are just often not strong enough to do anything with. You often get a lot of donkeys out and therefore you end up with some competitive handicaps at the lower end of the scale, but little money and little time to trade them.
If …
Will Leicester really stuff the bookies?
Lot’s of PR, sorry, I mean talk, from the bookies recently about how much they will pay out if Leicester win the title. But is that a reality?
My worst bet ever!
Here is a confession – I will lose money if, when, Leicester win the title. But I have to say it will be one of the most enjoyable losses of my career! Why, because it’s great to see a competitive season in the premiership. As a supporter of …
Good Luck to all runners today
If you are running the London marathon today then, I’m jealous! But I’d like to wish you the best of luck and hope you have a really good run.
If I can stay injury free for a few years I may try once more, but I’m getting old and decrepit; so it gets less likely each year. Nothing’s impossible though as I could always enter the wheelchair race! I was a good 1/2 marathon runner, but couldn’t transfer that form …
Betfair exchange advertising
Great news, Betfair are going to start pushing the exchange again. I can’t remember the last time I saw an exchange advert so it was a delight to discover they are going to give it a push this weekend!
Here is one of the adverts posted on their You Tube channel: –
How evening racing is different
We have now started the evening racing in earnest and it won’t stop till the end of August. So you have four months to make hay while the sun shines, not forgetting we are in the England, so it won’t shine much.
However, there are at least four different states that you see in racing during this period.
(1) Afternoon racing
This tends to me higher quality than the evening racing and will therefore trade differently.
(2) Evening racing
There …
An intriguing prospect
It wasn’t a surprise to see Newbury abandoned yesterday or today. When I went out on my mountain bike it was tough going and getting worse. I immediately felt the meeting was under threat.
It was a surprise however to see the meeting shifted to Chelmsford City! The meeting and the course seem incompatible, but I suppose racing has saved a meeting. I usually find Newbury quite nice to trade and Chelmsford horrible. Chelmsford markets are the most erratic on …
A day at the races
After many years sat behind the screen. I’ve been making a conscious effort recently, to actually get out and enjoy some of the hard earned. But also I’ve been keen to experience first hand some of the sporting venues I’ve traded.
This was another year when I declined an invite to the Cheltenham Festival, but I made up for it yesterday by attending the racing there. Judging by the weather I picked the right day! I was quite keen to …
Craven meeting
We have just started the Craven meeting at Newmarket. With deference to the TV presenter, it’s not named after him but instead an early supporter of Racing at Newmarket. Yesterday we had the Nell Gwyn an interesting character.
How the Craven trades
I prefer to know whether I’m in a good market or a poor one. But the Craven meeting at Newmarket often sits right in-between that. I know there’s quality there, but in terms of liquidity it often …
Aintree Grand National and fallers
If there is one thing Aintree is known for it is spectacular fallers. In 2011 British racing yielded to public opinion and changed the fences at Aintree. The idea was to stop more fallers and serious injuries to horses. Did that happen? Will it happen? What the key factors behind a faller in a race?
Source data
To answer all the questions I took a look at half a million horses that raced around the various jumps races over the …
US Masters – Trading Golf markets
I like the US Masters, mainly because it’s the only major played on the same course each year. This means you can collect a ton of stats on how the course plays. This gives me a good guide as to when to trade in and out of a position. You can do this on most courses, but because the Masters is at the same location every year it is much more predictable.
If you are a golf player, when …
The Flat is back
Today marks the traditional return of the flat turf season. So that means the end of the footy season is near, the Grand National is right upon us and the first Golf Major of the year is also here. Time to really start building up your activity!
The Lincoln has been going since 1859 and this complex handicap is traditional launcher for flat turf racing. There have been some two-year-olds out already, so the flat season has started but this …
Made in Meydan
Today sees the worlds richest horse race take place at Meydan, the Dubai world cup.
Over the years I’ve moved from dabbling in the Meydan markets to doing them seriously. They often make for a useful addition on a dull winters day in the UK. Therefore I’d recommend a dabble in these markets if the volume is holding up and there is no clashing with other races. The world cup stands out on it’s own as a race later in …
Always be a contrarian
I chortled with much merriment yesterday when I saw the story about how people were saying the lottery was ‘fixed’.
Twitter filled up with disgust that five numbers on the draw yesterday netted the life changing sum of just £15. But as per normal, people blamed their own issues on somebody else. Because things didn’t work out the way they wanted, it must be somebody else’s fault. It couldn’t possibly be down to them.
Flawed thinking
The fact is that …
William Hill issue profit warning
Further to my recent post, William Hill have issued a profit warning this morning. Other gambling related stocks have fallen in response.
You can read the full warning here: –
https://www.investegate.co.uk/william-hill-plc/wmh/trading-update/201603230700099669S
In a nutshell: –
- Time-outs and self exclusions are up
- Gross win margin is down due to European football results and also the worst Cheltenham results in recent history.
The numbers & valuation
Profits for the year are forecast to fall by up to £30m. However they would …
Cheltenham Preview Day 4
Triumph Hurdle
I am not alone when I echo some of the quotations I have seen suggesting this is the probably the most competitive race of the week. I was sitting with a friend who compiles his own ratings and he had 12 of the horses within 4lbs of each other. Some will improve and others will regress but either way you will need some luck to find the winner. Ivanovich Gorbatov is trained by Aidan O’Brien who trained the …
Cheltenham Preview Day 3
Let me start by saying this is my opinion on the forthcoming racing. I am not saying this is the oracle, it is only my view and is written to help the non-racing people get a feeling for the day’s racing. If somehow you can profit from it, then it is a bonus
JLT Novices Chase
I am not sure you will find a more competitive race this week and to my eye the betting is slightly wrong. I am …
Finding a front runner – Exclusive offer & free trial
Click here to take up an exclusive free seven day trial of Pacecards
Trading in-running
One excellent strategy you can use on betting exchanges, is backing or laying before the off and trading out in-play. Many Bet Angel customers do this or a variation of this, , as part of a profitable activity in the market.
In-running tools
Bet Angel is great for this as you can do it manually or automatically using the automation. On the manual front we …
Cheltenham preview – Day two
This looks a tricky day to find horses capable of springing a surprise or horses you know will run well at a big price and offer a decent back to lay opportunity.
Neptune Hurdle
Well I guess this will fall under the headline “stating the bleedin’ obvious” but I am not sure what else you can say here. It’s all very well talking about potential and improvement because these horses are novices but we must bear in mind this is …
Cheltenham day one preview
Willie do it again?
As I wrote last year, Willie Mullins is once again looking likely to dominate the first day of the 2016 Cheltenham Festival. It does seem, according to some that he simply has to turn up on Day 1 of this year’s equine Olympics and leaves everyone quaking in their boots; especially the bookmakers! I have to say that Willie may not have it all his own way as his horses do not, in my humble opinion, …
Let’s stop exchanges going the same way as the Jitney
I’ve just been watching a TED talk and the story about the Jitney bus. It follows on with other peer to peer talks. Watch it here: –
It’s similar to a story I told about horseless carriages to an MP a few years ago. People tend to see innovations as a threat and not an opportunity. That is until such time as more liberal regime pops up and destroys them! Establised systems need not worry about cannibalising their own …
Trading Cheltenham
There is plenty to help you and get stuck into this Cheltenham if you are a Bet Angel user. Not only do you have a vast range of tools available but also the biggest set of videos you can image, a busy forum to chat to other traders and if you are looking to trading automatically a library of examples.Plenty to get stuck into on one of the biggest trading weeks of the year.
There is plenty to get stuck …
Using Bet Angel – Walkthrough videos
I’ve had quite a few requests for, a simple to view, list of videos on getting started with Bet Angel. So this week I’ve uploaded an entirely new play list for – getting started, the one click screen and the ladder interface.
These videos are not my normal videos, but instead they are shorter and designed so that newbies have a clear path to follow for getting started in trading in simple steps. This should get your trading faster than …
Preparing for Cheltenham
We are so close to Cheltenham that I’m now in that final, ‘Have I done everything I can to prepare’ mode.
Cheltenham pretty much makes or breaks March for me. A good meeting and it’s a good March a bad one and it’s a struggle to make the numbers.
Each year I go through the same sort of preparation for big weeks and in this video I explain that process and my thoughts on the run up to a big …
How bookmakers work
Bookies limiting customers has been around for some time. This was a situation I first experienced in the early 90’s, over 25 years ago. Not much has changed since then it seems. If anything, the bookies are much sharper now.
If you want a view on how they do this, read this blog post series that I posted up a little while ago. It gives you the story from very inside of a bookmakers.
My story
The story of how …
When Saturday comes…
When I first started sports trading I treated it like a 9-5 job.
I did all the usual things you would in a normal job and returned to my out of work activities after the day was over. Fairly quickly I realised that this wasn’t going to work. All the best opportunities tend to occur outside of ‘normal’ hours and therefore I had to shift my working patterns.
Shifting my workload
At first this was a little tricky, I started …
Discounted opinion in sports trading
Here is a little-discussed aspect of trading, discounted opinion. First let’s explore what it is?
Discounted opinion pre off
When a market is formed everybody has had a prod a what the odds should be. In some markets, this is obvious; in others less so. But generally, a convergence appears. Unless there is any significant change, that’s the way the market stays until the event starts.
Discounted opinion in-play
When the market gets underway, an opinion forms and the odds …
William Hill living in the stone age
It was with some amusement that I read that William Hill were complaining that the merger between Ladbrokes and Coral was anti competitive.
The main thrust of their argument was that a merger between the two was blocked in 1998 and that: –
“It is important to recognise that the structure of the market has changed relatively little since 1998,” William Hill said, adding that there were 8,983 betting shops in Britain then, compared with 8,958 last year.”
I’m guessing …
My best trade ever (so far)
Preamble
Here is a story that you should gain something from.
I spent last week in Florida at Disney world. This is linked to some meetings I did before I headed there. I was running around London with a hedge fund manager.
The reason we know each other and that so much has happened between us; is all down to few moments in a bookstore in Texas. In fact I wouldn’t have joined Betfair if I had gone through this …
Connect
Connect with us on the following social media platforms.