Archive for January, 2009
Foggy trading
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 30th, 2009
Foggy but successful
The draw
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 30th, 2009
Price movement during the game
I was going to post about Liverpool vs Everton but never got the chance to do so. So here is a reverse appraisal. As most people know a local derby is always a tight affair and perhaps a match you would expect to end in a draw, as neither team want to lose.
Unlike a lot of myths this is actually generally true. I did some research a fair time ago and realised that there was a link between distance travel and the propensity to draw. So there are many factors that make a draw but in fact the proximity to the away team does indeed increase the chance of a draw.
One feature of the match the other night that was interesting was the persistance of the draw during the match. This meant there was ages where you trade the draw with only minor risk and during the match it felt inevitable that Liverpool would equalise. You often see this, but not as stark as in this match. An interesting match all round.
Classic battle underway in Melbourne
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 30th, 2009
With the weather messing around with the horse racing again its great to see a real battle under way in the Aussie open Tennis. The two Spaniards just don’t want to give up on this one and it’s gone to a fifth set. With such a close match you will get massive swings in the final set, often for little risk so it’s worth keeping an eye on progress in between the fits and starts of the racing.
Why do Man U get more penalties?
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 29th, 2009
Celtic 11 – Dundee United 10.
Odd scoreline but this was actually just the penalty shootout. You can view all 14 minutes of it here. I was watching some tepid premier league match in comparison testing a couple of strategies. It got me thinking about what is the biggest shoot out. According to the article here it seems to be 16-17 with all but the last penalty scored. It’s quite amusing seeing goalkeepers take penalties but, by accident or not, the Celtic goalkeeper scored the best of the lot IMHO.
To answer an age old question, yes top teams do get awarded more penalties. I did a study quite a few years ago to confirm this. You will also be interested to know that lower teams concede more. While it feels like a conspiracy, it’s generally not. Putting aside the stats, it just turns out that teams at either extreme are more likely to be attacking or defending deep and a penalty is therefore more likely as a result. That’s likely to disappoint the conspiracy theorists.
Daft isn’t it
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 29th, 2009
In one of my recent posts I gave you the horror of the worst start to the day I had in six months. Oddly enough, this week has been a breeze so far.
I just made a mistake and blew a race at Towcester to register an £8 loss. In contrast to that bad run, this was my first loss in 48 races! While I can predict and model a number of things in a range of markets, one of the wonders of sports markets is that there is always an element of entropy in the market. You could see that as a negative but in fact I see it as a positive as it creates opportunity. It was also this that probably gave me that slap around the face on Saturday and pat on the back in the last few days. Daft isn’t it?
When not to cut a loss using full market depth
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 27th, 2009
Hoovering
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 27th, 2009
Nope, I’m not referring to that Queen video with Freddie Mercury. I am talking about this months edition of Racing Ahead magazine. This month I discuss this controversial tactic and its impact on how you trade in play. Racing Ahead is available at all good news agents.
I am also in Gambling on line magazine this month but with a much smaller article, a guide to the basics of horse racing.
Back behind the desk
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 26th, 2009
Rather bizarrely it seems the industry that deals with bereavement takes the weekend off. So it was a rather odd situation that occured after the events of last week. I found myself at the weekend pretty much with little to do.
With that in mind I settled down to get stuck into what looked like a decent card on Saturday. I succesfully got off to ther worst start I have had for six months! After such a rotten start I was getting distinctly worried. All of them had different reasons for the failure but it was a bit of a nerve jangling start.
Terrible start
I shouldn’t have worried though as the day turn out to be excellent and having succesfully put that rocky start behind me I smashed through the rest of the card. Highlight of the day was the Cleeve hurdle where I netted the best of a good set of results.
Recovery
My fathers funeral is arranged for next week so I’ve got a fair bit of stuff to get through between now and then, but I do anticipate I will be active on the markets, I have pretty much missed the Aussie open tennis. After the funeral I am likely to take some time off. February is usually my weakest month of the year and after a year of real heartache its as good a time as any to take a break with the family and return fresh for what promises to be another busy year.
Premium charge online
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 26th, 2009
Just been emailed this link: -
https://premiumcharge.betfair.com/PremiumPortal/portal
By the look of it it appears to generate your last premium charge statement, or at least the front page of it. Despite efforts to reduce the charge mine still makes grim reading. But I suppose in some ways I should be thankful that is the case.
Flying winner
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 26th, 2009
Price crash
If you are looking for some new trading ideas you may want to look at Greyhound racing. Most meetings are bags meeting and attract little volume, but the televised meetings seem to pull in decent turnover. Last week I stumbled across an evening card at Perry Barr and had a dabble.
You can put through reasonable volumes through these markets, in one race alone I accounted for just over 7% of the the entire market! It was a curious market also, the favourite plunged into 1.04 at some point, possibly a case of fat fingers or a similar error but the backer got away with it as the dog won comfortably.
Despite my turnover, I only managed to get just over £80 in total from the two races I did. Not a great return on turnover but a useful result none the less
Cheltenham volume
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 24th, 2009
Just traded the 13:30 at Cheltenham and I have to say it had some of the worst volume for a Cheltenham race I have ever seen on Betfair. Hopefully it will improve during the day but the total was worse than some of the poorer quality fare I have seen and nothing near what it should be for a quality race. Not sure what to interpret on that count.
EH Webb 1935 – 2009
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 24th, 2009
Sad news, my father died at 17:38 last night after a year of deteriorating health. We were very fortunate that he had not suffered any major illnesses during his life, that he awoke recently to say goodbye and died peacefully.
It was my father that inadvertantly shaped by career. When I was young he gave me a football pools coupon to fill out. I quickly became driven to solve the problem of what makes a draw in a football match. Something odd to do for the son of a carpenter. I now have one of the most accurate forecasting models for that very same problem. The thing I didn’t realise was how that simple process kicked off such a journey.
When my Dad gave me that coupon, I obvioulsy wanted to work out how to win the pools. With some effort and thought I acheived that and key pinnacle of winning a first dividend on Littlewoods. That lead me to look at the gambling markets. With such huge margin lost to the other side of the book I quickly realised it was a mugs game so I decided to move onto the biggest casino of the lot, the stock market.
Despite starting with the out and out trading and statistics end of the market, a chance encounter in Houston airport radically shaped my thinking. This led me on a path that resulted in me meeting some of the wealthist people in the world and the most succesfull investor of all time. These experiances significantly changed my perspective not only on wealth and wealth creation, but life itself. During this period betting exchanges also emerged. With margins on the sports books now close to zero, this opened up work I had done years prior to their birth and set me off on another journey.
I wouldn’t have guessed when my Dad handed me that coupon where it would lead. While the passing of a loved one is a sad moment, I still have the rest of my life to look forward to. I can’t wait to live it.
At moments like this you reflect on things you have learnt, so here a few words. Don’t listen to people who are unfairly critical, it says more about them than you. Always use the word impossible with the greatest of caution. Trust your instinct more, pursue happiness and finally, carpe diem!
Murray at the aussie open
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 22nd, 2009
I haven’t been able to do much on the open for obvious reasons but have been following it as best I can. It’s a real shame as I have continued working on Tennis for some time now and I planned to let rip on the open. That will have to wait for now.
At the start of the tournament I wrote down the rankings of the players Murray was likely to play. So far it’s spot on, here is the list: -
R1 1140
R2 84
R3 31
R4 14
QF 5
SF 1
TF 2
He was pretty much 1.01 to win the first, 1.02 for the second and now 1.07 for the third round. From here on in, things get a bit more tricky. He would likely end up playing Nadal in the semis and Federer in the final.
For the full draw, click here.
Million dollar traders
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 22nd, 2009
Watched the second part in this series and I’m still not sure what these guys have been taught but it’s not the sort of trading room I know.
I started messing around with the stock market in the mid eighties and eventually set off properly in the 90′s. By then the Internet was picking up speed and I remember using Compuserve to place an order via Etrade! Things have moved on a lot since then and ECN’s and a proliferation of platforms has made all manner of transaction available at the click of a mouse.
There is my point, I don’t know of a modern trading room where you phone instead of clicking a few buttons. Yes, you have a relationship with a broker and may have to phone certain instructions through. But you don’t do it for a couple of hundred shares. That’s only one of many issues with the way they are going about their business. Apart from the Bloomberg terminals ,I don’t recognise much else in that room. I think they will struggle to even turnover a million dollars at this rate! An excellent peice of timing it has to be said, in the middle of unprecdented market turmoil. On a wider basis I guess the point is, it makes good TV.
I guess I’ll just have to watch it next week.