Alternative racing today
Posted by Peter Webb in Australian, Horse Racing on February 3rd, 2012
With the UK racing looking like it is heading for a weekend white out, it’s worth looking at other alternatives at this time.
This morning in Australia we have a meeting at Moonee Valley that usually brings half decent liquidity. Over £200k was traded on the 10:15 which, while below normal UK volumes, isn’t half bad. You also have Meydan racing on today where volumes have been picking up nicely. That comes on line a little later in the morning.
If you are looking for a complete difference but something similar to racing you also have the Greyhound racing to supplement your activity. Anyhow, lots of things to get stuck into.
Betfair API problems
Posted by Peter Webb in Betfair on February 3rd, 2012
Only fair to balance posts out with a note that Betfair experianced API problems this morning!
This was particulary a pain as there are a number of events on this morning that were disrupted.
Betdaq API problems
Posted by Peter Webb in Betdaq on February 2nd, 2012
Just sending this out in case anybody has any automated spreadsheets running on Betdaq Angel today.
The Beqdaq API has a problem this afternoon and things are not working as they should be. Please double check any thing you have running.
We altered Betdaq to the issue quickly and they are onto it.
[EDIT : Betdaq now have a fix for the issue and will be deploying it after today's racing]
If you want to become aware of these sorts of things the instant they happen, follow us on twitter so you get the news as it happens: -
(N)Ice
Posted by Peter Webb in News on February 1st, 2012
Spent a lot of last week doing the industry rounds at a couple of trade shows, one of them was ‘ICE’.
I mentioned last year that my interest was raised when speaking to the non betting exchange part of the industry. It seems that the knowledge, research and ability I have acquired over the many years I have been doing this, is in demand from other parts of the industry; so last week was a check point on that progress.
It shows you how vibrant a market can be when there is decent competition between people in an industry. The show was packed full and it was obvious that a lot of money had been spent on the stands, promotions not to mention the parties in evenings! Betting exchanges were notable for their complete absence.
Being primarily stuck in the exchange related world, its quite refreshing but also surprising at how vibrant these events are, as they show you how much money is around in the ‘conventional’ betting industry. You also realise that its the casino’s and related ‘casual gambling’ part of the industry is huge. It makes you wonder why exchanges haven’t worked harder to exploit this area by improving their technological reach. They could achieve this at realtively low cost and risk if they really wanted. They could also reach into other non sports markets, if they really wanted. I think that perhaps they are too precious about what they do or have been sidetracked on what their core proposition is. I feel that while they are looking out the front door, the back door is also open.
Anyhow, an interesting week and plenty of food for thought.
Underneath a legendary Tennis match
Posted by Peter Webb in Tennis on January 30th, 2012
Not many words can describe the fantastic Men’s final at the Australian open tennis, so I wont try. But to say it was special, would definitely be an understatement. I started the match half dressed having not risen early enough to get changed properly, broke for a full Sunday lunch and still returned for a hour of excitement. Amazing stuff.
The great thing about these matches is that pretty much any trading strategy you adopt will win. If somebody goes from being a set up to a set down, or nearly a set down, you could have backed or laid either and had the opportunity to trade out at a profit. In this match it swung backwards and forwards on a number of occasions. In total, when I was active on the market, I counted 10 breaks of serve, excluding tie breaks.
At the start of the match you could back Djokovic for 1.71 and Nadal for 2.40. From there the start of each set had odds as follows: 2.28 & 1.74, 1.60 & 2.64, 1.14 & 7.8 then the final set started around 2′s as both players struggled into the sixth hour. If you would have laid Djokovic at his start price and got out at 2′s then laid again at your entry price to repeat the trade; you would have turned a trade at least seven times. This would have returned more than double your stake. Laying both at 1.16 would have worked as well returning an 84% profit on your stake. Timing either strategy would have increased your potential significantly.
I’ve put some charts on the forum, they wouldn’t fit on here. The Betfair charts are a bit ‘squashed’ and not linear, so these charts give a clearer picture of the match. In total £46.2m in matched bets were traded on the market, £42m in-play. Amazing stuff.
FA Cup – Round four winners
Posted by Peter Webb in FA CUP, Football / Soccer on January 28th, 2012
Rather than a prediction this is a glance back. A look if the ‘romance’ of the FA Cup is still alive.
At the start of the third round, premier league teams made up 93.69% of the market. They now make up 80% of the market, the romance of an outsider winning the cup is still alive it would seem.
However, top flight four teams met each other in round three so we will have to delete these for the purposes of what we are looking at. This deletion meant that the total book value of the remainder was 72.37%. We are now in round four and this percentage has increased to 80.27% a shift of 8% or so. If the book % increases between rounds in your selected group, this means it was sensible to back that group, this is why I deleted those other four. No point in backing a definite loser, of which there would have been two if we included those other two matches.
Basically, it didn’t make sense to lay any premier league teams, only back them to progress in aggregate. This is a fairly typically pattern for the FA Cup, especially in the earlier rounds. The only real hope for smaller clubs is if premier league teams knock each other out of contention and then a smaller club flukes a win. You have to go a looooooooong way back to find a season where a lower league team really had a chance. Millwall did well in 2003/4 thanks to a fortuitous route to the final, and in fact the chance of this increases in each round thanks to the random draw. But eventually they have to overcome much stronger opposition and the differential in strength at the top is wider than ever now. Best return to a level stake between round three and four was Leicester by the way.
While it appears to be a bit of a dream to see a lower league team reach later rounds, at least it’s more likely in the FA Cup. If you play in a seeded tournament, like the Tennis grand slams, the competition is unfairly set up to favour the strongest.
So there is a little romance left in the FA Cup, even if it’s only when you see the balls come out of the bag during the draw.
You only kiss your missis on the lips?
Bumps and ripples
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel, Tennis on January 26th, 2012
What can you tell about a Tennis match before it has started? Quite a lot actually.
The market is pretty accurate at discounting value into a match and assessing the relative strengths of different players, from that you can plot the most likely path through a match and its progression. You can also hunt for bumps and ripples in that path for odds that are most likely to be reached and how. If you do this, you will see that as a match progresses through various stages, certain odds are more likely than others. Of course this shifts as the match moves on, but if you look these values up before the start you can pick and target certain entry and exit points in advance and benefit from this foresight.
Here is a chart of today’s match between Federer and Nadal. I built it using Tennis Trader and it highlights, sometimes subtly, where some of these bumps and ripples are. On the axis you can see the frequency of occurance and on the x axis, the scoreline.
How to win at rock, paper, scissors
Posted by Peter Webb in Psychology on January 25th, 2012
I posted this on the forum some time ago.
It’s actually a good analogy for the sort of though process you need to go through when trying to out-think others and one that I think is equally applicable in any market. Sometimes people don’t choose the most logical progression in a sequence of events. Even then is seems that people peoples decisions are often forced by an ‘invisible hand’. Anyhow, an interesting article I think: -
http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/win-rock-paper-scissors-215511514.html
Two card Mondays
Posted by Peter Webb in Horse Racing on January 24th, 2012
Not a new card game, but a statement on the Racing so far this year.
By and large the racing is at levels that are normal at this time of year. A bit erratic, low quality, poor betting markets. But the transition from predominantly three cards on a Monday last year to just two this year is making things just that little more difficult this year around. In the Summer I will often take the Monday afternoons off, or do something else. It looks like that period will extend out a bit further now. Some of this is down to the way I participate on the markets, I guess it may be more suitable for others.
Things are looking up this weekend though when we head into the Cheltenham trials, that should liven things up a bit.
I tend to use my time wisely at this time of year, to experiment and to test out new ideas and strategies. It’s lower risk at this time of year and a mistake now doens’t cost you as much, in a comparative sense, to what it would at a busier time of year. Use the extra time you have now to plan ahead and think afresh.
Sometimes, two cards are not as good as three!
I lost £288k in one night spread-betting
Posted by Peter Webb in Football / Soccer, News on January 21st, 2012
On the ‘mad bomber’ thread on the forum there has been some jocular suggestions about who could be the person being such erratic and irregular betting activity. Some have joked it could be a wealthy footballer, after reading this story suddenly that doesn’t look so far fetched!
“FORMER LIVERPOOL AND Manchester City midfielder Dietmar Hamann has revealed how he slipped into problems with drinking and gambling during his final season at Eastlands.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport
Betfair exits South Africa
Posted by Peter Webb in Betfair, News on January 19th, 2012
With regulatory tangles ongoing in many territories Betfair has hit another bump in South Africa. This is a real shame as South Africa is on the same time zone as the UK. Betfair has already sent out emails to affected customers. Here is an extract of the key elements of the email: -
“We’re writing to inform you that following the recent ruling by the South African Supreme Court of Appeal, Betfair has decided that as of 00:01 GMT on February 14th 2012, its website and all associated products will no longer be accessible in South Africa, or to South African residents.
As of the above time, all existing accounts will be suspended, therefore we ask that you ensure that all funds are withdrawn from your account before then. If your account is currently suspended the issues relating to that suspension must be resolved before any withdrawals can be made”
It’s another to add to the long list of complex, messy, regulatory, most likely protectionist, issues. Currently the number of territories where it’s OK to use Betfair is in the minority and the list is getting smaller. While the US is looking more positive recently, it’s likely that will only be a beachhead in a much longer battle. Till then other territories, even in Europe, are proving a prickly problem. It seems the anti-exchange proponents are currently winning their argument.
Ultimately I believe that the will of people will decided the very long term outcome of these sorts of things and it’s difficult to go against the value proposition that exchanges offer over traditional gambling. So if you want to benefit from that, move to the UK!
Caught-siding
Posted by Peter Webb in Tennis on January 18th, 2012
Courtsiding is the method used by people betting on Tennis to beat the in-play delay. The in-play delay is put on matches, such as the Australian open tennis, to stop people from placing bets before other people get to see what happened. It doesn’t work!
Because of the incentive of low risk profit, people will go to great lengths to beat the clock and this has become a feature of many in-play markets, not just Tennis. Like Biff in back to the future, if you can bet on a sure thing, you are bound to end up ahead. I am pretty sure this is one of the key reasons Betfair introduce higher levels of premium charge. My guess is that the clock beaters are some of the biggest earners at the lowest risk on exchanges and suck a lot of money out of the ‘ecosystem’. But even then, competition amongst them has worked to reduce the opportunity somewhat on an individual basis.
The ATP has a very dim view of courtsiding, as can be witnessed by this press story: -
http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-sport/6238956/Suspected-illegal-betting-at-Open
I spotted this story a few days ago but I see others have picked up on it also. This isn’t the first or last time people will be ejected for coursiding.
When the world tour finals came to London I thought it would be fun to do a bit of investigation myself. During a quiet doubles match I scanned the audience for activity. I soon found something and during the break I switched positions and sat right behind somebody courtsiding. They didn’t seem very careful about what they were doing, so if you were there I’d advise being less obvious in future; or at least looking behind yourself now and again!
Having watched for some time, I went off to return later for the singles match. This time I was armed myself to see if I was able to beat the clock beaters. I thought that an event staged in London may prove trickier than one elsewhere in the world. But to my surprise I was able to nip in ahead of others in the market and courtside. It just took a bit of intelligence and technology to figure out how to do it. But it was still pretty tight, which shows that courtsiders are no longer exploiting things that have happened, but are anticipating things that will happen. If betting exchanges think the existing delays are adequate then I would have to conclude that they are very wrong, as action leading up to a odds changing event is where the inplay delay should be targeted. Not the time difference from the venue to the TV screen of an event happening. I bet you that some very succesfull exchange users would suddenly hit a brick wall if the delay was increased.
So, as I have advised before, if you are trading Tennis try and open positions when courtsiders don’t have an advantage. To try and trade during a point or just before one starts will mean some of your hard earned cash will almost certainly end up in somewhen else’s pockets. I don’t think that’s fair.
I saw this a long time before you ever did!
Murray Matrix
Posted by Peter Webb in Tennis on January 16th, 2012
Looking forward to seeing Andy Murray in action tonight.
Last night I bagged 25 decent winning trades from the overnight matches. I use Tennis Trader to work out key points in a match and what odds are likely to be traded around key points. By looking up these key points in advance I can set up a trade that will trigger at or around those points and offset to a value that will lock in a profit. All markets exhibit a ‘harmonic mean’ around which all volatility gravitates. Understanding that allows you to put trades inside this envelope of volatility and get a decent trade away automatically. I’ll be doing the same again tonight and all the early round matches. I’ll be picking and choosing matches that I want to actively get involved in. Even if you mess around with the former strategy, you will learn a great deal about the market. I set up my trades early in the evening then turn them into keep bets to get matched when the game is underway. Doing this gets me to the front of the queue as well!
In the image you can see I am looking at a particular point in the market where Murray would trade and examing how many sets or games he would need be down / up to achieve that price. It’s possible to work out all combinations of scores and how they can be reached and pitch your trade at a common point by doing this.
Aussie open – open!
Posted by Peter Webb in Tennis on January 15th, 2012
Just about to head off to bed, but in half an hour the Australian open tennis will kick into gear. It’s a great opportunity to get stuck into the Tennis, even if you are not into Tennis, as a lot of matches will appear in the UK early in the morning when not much else is going on.
I have set up Bet Angel to do some simple automation in the early rounds of the tournament as I know where the most volatile matches are likely to be. Bet Angel will be out on watch for me tonight to trade these matches if they reach a critical point. I’ll wake up tomorrow morning to see how it’s got on.
I’m looking forward to the first grand slam of 2012, let’s hope it’s a vintage year.
Rafa added some venom to the build-up
BDO Darts final tonight
Posted by Peter Webb in Darts on January 15th, 2012
Dart’s is a good trading sport and tonight sees the world final live on the BBC. This and previous tournaments have thrown up some great opportunties and matches: -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/darts/8425631.stm
You sense that the future of darts in the UK is sliding towards the more regular, better funded PDC. If that means more coverage then great! I quite like darts, as it is a ‘pure’ sport. You against an opponent, it’s difficult to cheat and you win or lose on merit. No artistic interpretation or strange rules or judgements. That is why it will never make it into the Olympics!
Anyhow, worth a look tonight.
Could it finally be his year?
In the wrong Kompany!
Posted by Peter Webb in FA CUP, Football / Soccer on January 14th, 2012
There are many cases for backing or laying at 1.02. But last Sunday we had a great example of why you just wouldn’t back at such short odds.
First off lets look at the odds: -
At 1.02 you would return £2 for every £100 staked. If you laid, then the opposing situation is true; you would earn £100 for every £2 lost. At odds of 1.02 the market is telling you there is a 98% of this situation occurring. To get value from this situation you have to know that the event you are betting on will occur over 98% of the time. If you lay then you could concur that the opposing situation should be true, you would only stand a 2% chance of possibly winning anything. But that’s not actually true, thanks to volatility.
Therefore the trick to doing a successful trade is to expose yourself to potential upside at the lowest risk, then wait.
At half time in this match Man Utd were 3-0 up, away from home, in the FA Cup, a player up, in a local Derby. If you were in the dressing room at half time what would you recommend to your players? With a three goal lead and more players you could push on to try and finish the match and risk conceding, but at 3-0 up the match is all but lost by your opponents. Probably best then to try and limit your opponents opportunities, i.e. defend.
If you were Man City would you would probably feel aggrieved with that red card and would be desperate to avoid the sort of humiliation they dished out to their opponents at their ground, but also you would want to get things sorted out pretty sharpish in the second half.
If you backed Man Utd, you would have exposed yourself to 45 minutes of angst. OK they were likely to win but with the normal distribution of a goal well below 45 minutes, especially for the home team, a goal from City was quite likely and the odds would respond. You can use Soccer Mystic to work out upside you have, or how much time you have before your downside completes. If you laid, then it would take some time for the price on Man Utd to sink to 1.01 to Lay, but in that time your would expose yourself to plenty of upside.
Last Sunday it made sense to lay.
Red card, for the ref?
Friday 13th unlucky for Betfair
Posted by Peter Webb in Betdaq, Betfair on January 13th, 2012
Just days after their latest ‘upgrade’, the Betfair site crashed again. How incredibly frustrating! I’ve lost count of how many times the site has been down over the last year and each time the site is upgraded it seem almost certain now that a major crash follows.
If you want to trade today, why not give Betdaq at go. BetDaqAngel is the same Bet Angel platform you are familiar with but it’s compatible with Betdaq. Best of all its 100% free. It includes a link to Excel so you can automate your activity. We gave it a major overhaul last year to bring it up to date, so if you haven’t used it recently, download it and give it a try.
Betfair market anomalies
Posted by Peter Webb in Betfair, Horse Racing on January 12th, 2012
An interesting couple of days so far this week in the markets. Interesting for an anomaly that we have seen. It’s only a couple of days old, so I can’t draw any conclusions just yet, but it is unusual so I thought I’d post about it.
We monitor the markets cloesly and ‘felt’ that matched bet volume on occasion was much higher than we would expect. We noticed this because, in the latter stages of a racing market just before the off, we were suddendly seeing very high per second volume. So this morning I had a nose at the data from this year so far.
In the last two days there have been three races each where volume was over one million. But since the start of the year, ten days, we have seen 20 in total. So that doesn’t seem stand out on it’s own, 20 vs. perhaps an expectation of 30.
But the the overall average volume has been much higher than normal, 123% of average on the 9th and 143% yesterday. I have deliberately rebased the volume to take account of different pricing that may distort the overall volume.
It’s difficult to know if this is a trend or some else is happening, but something changed over these two days. It could be temporary of there could be some other explanation, but we will be keeping an eye on it.
Betfair to compensate Leopardstown losers
Posted by Peter Webb in Betfair, Horse Racing on January 11th, 2012
Hot off the press, just received this email from Betfair: -
“Dear Peter,
Since the 2.00pm race at Leopardstown on 28 December 2011, we’ve looked in detail at all the circumstances surrounding the technology failure and the anomaly it created. In addition, we provided our Gibraltar regulator, the Gibraltar Gambling Commissioner (GGC), with a detailed technical and operational report on the incident and the GGC made a number of recommendations. We have also consulted with customers and taken their feedback on board.
Accordingly, we have reviewed our decision to void all in-running bets matched on the race and, in the interests of fairness, certain categories of voided bets will be compensated by way of ex gratia payments from Betfair. This compensation complies with, and goes beyond, the GGC’s recommendations.
The categories of bets that will be compensated are:
- In-play winning positions in both the ‘win’ and the ‘to be placed’ markets which were achieved before the technology failure; and
- In-play winning positions in the ‘to be placed’ market achieved at any time through to the completion of the race.
Bets matched in the ‘win’ market after the technology failure will remain void.
As your bets were placed in one of the two categories described above, a payment reflecting your winnings had the relevant bets not been voided, will be made to your Betfair account today.
Once again we would like to apologise for the inconvenience caused, and the time taken to reach this outcome. We do thank you for your continued support and remain committed to providing you with the best betting proposition possible.
Regards,
The Betfair Racing team”
Massive winner at Taunton
Posted by Peter Webb in Horse Racing on January 9th, 2012
One of those great racing moments today when ‘Lights of Broadway’ romped home at Taunton at odds of 810-1000 depending on when you backed it. It SP’d at 810!! Second and third placed horses came in at big odds too meaning it was a monster forecast, but I can’t imagine anybody got it?
Ladbrokes in talks with Betdaq
Posted by Peter Webb in Betdaq, News on January 9th, 2012
Not as dramatic as it first seems when you read the headline, but interesting nonetheless: -
For the full story click on the following URL: -
If you fancy giving Betdaq a try download BetDaqAngel. It’s top notch trading software for Betdaq and it’s free. It received a major upgrade last year. Lots of clever features including an Excel link that allows you to trade multiple markets simultaneously from a spreadsheet.
Shocking news
Posted by Peter Webb in FA CUP, Football / Soccer on January 7th, 2012
That’s what the lower league clubs will be hoping for today when they step out for the FA Cup third round today.
I quite like the FA CUP as it means more to teams. This means motivation is at a high and it is also non seeded. This means that the big guys can meet in the early rounds and knock each other out leaving some minion to an improbable appearance in the latter stages. It feels like the days of compete shocks and lower league teams winning are over. Man City and Utd are 7.6 & 10.5 respectively, but one of those will not be in the fourth round. So 10% of the market will end up having to back in another selection. If you looking in the middle section of the ‘winner’ market there are some crunchy odds.
However I am mainly on the look out for “shocks” in the early rounds. Whether through injury, illness or apathy a much higher ranked side can get dumped out of the competition. I have my head down this morning looking for probables. At first pass Brighton vs Wrexham and MK Dons vs QPR look promising, though the latter is the much more favourable as they are at home.
Good luck today!
No meeting in the final this year!
Will Betdaq take off this year?
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel, Betdaq on January 7th, 2012
What an open question that is! I’ve stuck up a poll on the right that you can give me your answer on.
For years Betdaq has been a much weaker market than Betfair. In 2008 it got a boost when Betfair increased charges. A few vendors, including Bet Angel, rushed to make their applications Betdaq compatible. But the majority didn’t however. This rush to Betdaq was short lived and things very soon, sort of, carried on as normal. I say sort of, as some people who tried Betdaq or took the time to develop stayed, me included. It was quite an easy decision for me as, through past experience, I knew that having more than one feather in my cap always paid dividends and having two companies competing for my business was better than one.
Things have been improving slowly over time and but got a big flip again last year when Betfair changed charges again. Once more people said they would do more business on Betdaq, but will it be different this time?
One thing that has changed this time is that there has been a sustained increase in business on Betdaq and that has provided more opportunity, as I have mentioned often in the blog. I think some of this has come around because some larger players have been forced to really make it work this time. We have also done our bit by completely overhauling Betdaq Angel, it received a major upgrade in the middle of last year. That brought it up to spec with the Betfair version, spreadsheets, Guardian and all. It’s been completely free since we introduced it in 2008, so if you want to see more activity on Betdaq; spread the word. Because it’s free you have no real excuse to not download and use it!
From my perspective, I was around at the very start of Betfair so I know the characteristics of a ‘young’ market. Therefore, I am getting better and better on Betdaq, I am often getting similar results on both exchanges (see below for the last race, last week). But to be ideal it just needs a bit more of the ‘right sort’ of activity to bring into play additional strategies. If that happens then I think we could hit an upward cycle.
Your individual circumstances will vary and therefore I suggest you use both exchanges, I do. It’s most important that you use something that suits your style or needs and gives you the greatest opportunity. But it will interesting to see if Betdaq really gets going this year. What do you think?
Losers needed!
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel, News on January 6th, 2012
Over the years I’ve studied the markets and a number of strategies, but all of these have been focused on winning.
Late last year I turned my attention to why people lose, the psychology behind that, but also what fundamental flaws they have with their approaches in the market.
If you mess around at random you should, over long periods, break even less the spread or commission that you pay to the service provider. However, when I look at a lot of people that lose money, they seem to constantly exceed that.
So if you have an approach, preferably a systematic approach, that constantly loses money. I’m quite interested in hearing about it. Football is a nice sport for this as it contains only a few variables and can be pigeon holed into something simple. Back before the off, lay off if this happens, sort of thing. You don’t need to go public if you don’t want to, or if you want to suggest something I am sure people wont attribute that to yourself. But good suggestions are invited, however sourced. I’ve seen some real bum systems over the years so I imagine there must be some decent suggestions out there.
I’ve put a thread on the forum, which is a little off at a tangent at the moment. But I’m happy to look at any suggestions or approaches. I’m interested in not only what you did but why. I can’t promise to respond or comment on anything immediately, just trying to see some commonalities across losing approaches. The idea is to identify the most common errors and come up with some useful ways of avoiding them!
Big over-reaction
Posted by Peter Webb in Tennis on January 5th, 2012
Sometimes I just want to roll Gael Monfils up in a bundle and kiss him.
One of my biggest ever wins came on a match with Monfils in it. He overstretched himself and called for the trainer. I had just backed his opponent and his priced rocketed in and netted me a very lucky big profit, so I greened up. After a brief spell with the trainer Monfils carried on and looked like he had never been trouble and went on to win the match.
It was at this point that I learnt Monfils tended to be a bit elaborate in his play, often plays in a way that could lead to potential injury and tends to make a meal of it. That paid off last night.
I was watching the Monfils vs Becker match at the Qatar open. Monfils collapsed on the ground and everybody laid. I rewound the sky+ put it in slow motion and you can see all he did was whack himself on the knee as he tried to play the shot. Quickly backed him at what ever price I could get and laid it off a few minutes later. He went on to win anyway.
You can see the massive over reaction on the graph. A decent, low risk trade.
Is Darts the new Tennis?
Posted by Peter Webb in Darts, Tennis on January 2nd, 2012
Some great matches again at the PDC world darts championship this week. Dramatic comebacks from impossible positions, turnarounds, low odds turned over, high odds coming in, big matched bet turnover. Darts certainly has the characteristics of a great trading market. It’s popularity is picking up now as well.
Its scoring and ‘feel’ is similar to Tennis, you also have familiar concepts such as a break of throw / serve. But a big advantage of Darts is that the games are finite and occur over a much faster time period. This give Darts the edge in terms of suitability.
The PDC championships and about to come to an end but the BDO’s are about to start up. Plenty of time to play around in this interesting sport.
Hello 2012
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel, News on January 1st, 2012
Greetings to the year 2012, or if you are Assyrian the year 6762 or if you are 2556 in Buddism or…, well you catch my drift.
2012 is going to be a very busy year on the sports front, if the Mayan apocalypse doesn’t mature, so I look forward to what should be a very interesting year. I spent a lot of the second half of last year looking at new things so I look forward to doing some of that in 2012.
Happy new year!
Farewell 2011
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel, News on December 31st, 2011
No time to summarise the year on this post, hopefully I’ll get the chance in the new year. But just wanted to say goodbye 2011 and thanks for everybody’s support and custom through out the year. It turned out to be a really interesting year, right to the final days!
I managed to bag a four figure race yesterday and did well on the darts in the evening so it’s likely to be a nice sign off for the year.
Here’s looking ahead to what is going to be a fascinating 2012.
£1k account caused £600m Betfair error
Posted by Peter Webb in Betfair on December 30th, 2011
Betfair have issued a statement this afternoon outlining the error that caused the exchange to misfire. The full statement is here: -
But here are some bullet points:-
“This bet was placed by one of our UK customers trading the race via our API or Application Programming Interface (bdp.betfair.com/) using an automated program (a “bot”). Their bot had developed a fault causing it to try and place a very large number of bets on the Exchange. These bets were large in size and mispriced…… However, due to a technical glitch within the core exchange database, one of the bets evaded the prevention system and was shown on the site. This was an issue that was triggered because of a unique sequence of events that had never happened before.” – “In this case, the customer had less than £1,000 in their account so none of these bets should have been accepted.”
“The Betfair technical teams continued to investigate the details of the fault and, having identified the issue, worked on putting a fix in place which was applied at 10.15pm on December 28th.”
“Following extensive testing, we can confirm that there have been no subsequent occurrences of this fault and we’ve taken steps to prevent its reoccurrence in the future.”
“Again, I would like to clarify that the account in question has no commercial relationship with Betfair other than being a customer. Our reputation has been built on integrity and we have been pioneers in the industry in ensuring that betting is carried out in a fair and transparent manner. By making the voiding decision, I can assure you that this decision was not taken lightly and that we have implemented what we believe to be the fairest solution in these truly exceptional circumstances.”
How to lay £600m worth of bets on Betfair?
Posted by Peter Webb in Betfair on December 29th, 2011
That has to be the #1 question after yesterdays debacle in one of the feature races at Leopardstown.
To summarise, a mysterious lay bet appeared and stayed on the winning favourite at 29′s right up to the finish of the race. The ‘layer’ offered up £21m at 29′s creating a £600m liability. Betfair voided the in-running market.
Betfair have come out officially and ruled out that it was them or any account controlled by them or that they had a commercial interest in it. So it would appear it was just a common lay that created the error. But the question now shifts to who was this layer and how did they create the error? Nobody on the planet has £600m to gamble on a single runner in a race, so that points to some system quirk. There are checks in place that stop you exceeding your account balance or exposure limit, so what could jump over both those hurdles?
The amount of the Lay was curiously near the value of a 32bit binary number, slightly over if you add in additional stakes. The range of values of a 32bit binary is -2147483648 to +2147483647 which fits with the stake amount displayed on Betfair. You can create an error by forcing overflow or underflow with a calculation involving an integer, so it’s not impossible that this could be the source of the error. There is a good explanation on this link, curiously to do with customer balances: -
http://weblogs.asp.net/dvravikanth/archive/2008/03/10/integer-overflow-amp-underflow-revisited.aspx
I can’t comment authoritatively on the way that Betfair have coded their back-end, but lets just say that it’s not impossible that something like this could be the cause of the error. It could be that the exposure calculation is done using an integer and this layer just fluked it somehow. If it is something like this, then I am pretty sure an arms race is already underway to exploit it. The ability to force a voided market is potentially quite valuable, so Betfair should announce what the error is and what they are going to do to solve it, immediately. The person who placed the bets knows what created it, so that layer is hot property at the moment!
By quoting terms and conditions to void the market, people were quick to spot contradictory terms that stated that in the event of a bet exceeding agreed exposure all bets will stand, whoops! You can find the clause under section 9. Has Betfair has possibly opened themselves up to a legal issue?
I get the feeling this story is going to rumble on for a fair bit. But I sense we are nearer an explanation.
Leonhard Euler proved in 1772 that 2,147,483,647 was a prime number