Archive for April, 2010
Well done Fulham
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on April 29th, 2010
Dead and buried a few seasons ago and now in the Europa league final, an excellent campaign and a deserved final place. They really turned over the odds consistantly and provided a lot of entertainment and profit along the way. Well done!
Europa league
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on April 29th, 2010
Really looking forward to the Europe league this evening. There are strong cases for a goal coming from any of the four teams this evening. So a strategy oriented around this or NOT 0-0 seem sensible this evening. Come later in the game, if there are no goals, neither side will have anything to lose with a strong push in the last few minutes. It will be an interesting night.
Last night I was spot on about the Barca – Inter game and it really felt like it was unlikely to be a three goal or more game. Don’t really know where the market got that from? Tonight is less clear cut but Liverpool vs Atl Madrid is priced for near on three goals and Fulham vs. Hamburg two and a bit. I don’ t think either is unreasonable given the aggregate scores. The market is expecting at least one Liverpool goal.
Funny moments in sport
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on April 29th, 2010
You often get lots of funny things happen in sport, not often before a match has even started though. I couldn’t stop laughing when I watched this: -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/snooker/8649851.stm
Three million up
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on April 27th, 2010
Not my P&L LOL! But Betfair’s customer base, which has now just breached the 3 million mark according to various press comments.
While three million sounds impressive it’s really difficult to know if the relevance of this metric. Where are those three million, what do they bet on, sports, games, casino? One question you can try to answer is how many are active. Last year Betfair said they have 652,000 active accounts and if their active accounts are tracking actual users, then we can assume that they may have around 750,000 active accounts now. Not sure what the definition of ‘active’ is though and Betfair have declined the opportunity to clarify that for me.
If you have an old fashioned premium charge statement, have a look on it and you will know what number between 1-3,000,000 you are. As I joined Betfair just seven days after they opened for business mine is very small, but newer accounts seem to track the growth Betfair have seen.
Of those 750k active users I suspect only a small percent are regular users and only a small percent of that small percent really use it ‘seriously’. So the number of really serious users is actually probably quite small. I think one of the key areas that Betfair have struggled in is the casual punter area and it would be nice to see them expand that sector of the market. Currently I think there are too many barriers in the way of the casual user.
One thing for sure Betfair will continue to grow so it will be interesting to see where we are in another few years.
Start of season, end of season
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on April 24th, 2010
As you are probably aware from my posts, there is nothing more I like that a football match with a strong incentive behind it. At the start of a season, form is difficult to spot early on. Though promotion and relegation isnt’ so tricky. But it’s the end of the season when things really begin to happen. With many matches classed as ‘six pointers’ for one reason or another, this time of year has always been a fertile hunting ground. Wear your hunting hat now and you will benefit significantly.
In horse racing we are in the early flat turf season. This also presents opportunity, as there is often a lack of form. This lack of form means that people are looking for any clues as to how a horse will perform. If money is coming for or against a horse with little form, there is often a tendency to follow that money and re-inforce any trend. This tends to make the early turf season races, especially maidens, very ‘swingy’. Trends can be persistent and extensive at this time of year. The early part of yesterday was a spectacularly swingy day.
Keeping an eye open for either opportunities can be very rewarding.
Not again!
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on April 23rd, 2010
London marathon this weekend so I will be lending my annual support to the runners and friends that I know are running. If you are running, please let me know so I can give you a cheer as well.
Once again my feet will be itching to shuffle around the 26.2 mile course, but once again I will not be able too. My right Achilles has responded well to a new training regime, which I was hopeful would allow me to run again. Unfortunately I have now gone and torn my left Achilles and face another long period out to allow that to recover. It’s unbelievable really, but it just seems that I am very prone to injuries. I had my legs looked at again after this injury and the long and short of it is that the muscles on my legs are very toned, no doubt from all that running when I was younger, but that tone is now my nemesis as if I don’t warm up properly it’s easy to pull something. This time I did it while playing on the Wii with the kids for goodness sake! That shows you how fragile things have become.
Still, onwards and upwards. I am determined to get back running so I can at least enjoy one more moment of glory with my children before I ‘retire’ properly. Good luck if you are running this weekend.
Half way if my memory serves me correctly
Three’s a crowd
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on April 22nd, 2010
With another general election TV debate tonight I’ll be keeping an eye on the markets. After the last debate it seemed clear that Clegg won but I was surprised at how that translated into market movements. I am a big sceptic on polls during an election. Telling somebody how you will vote is an anathema to most people, so I don’t believe that a stranger asking how you are going to vote generates a valid opinion. As always, my preference is to go against the crowd as this often produces the biggest and most value ridden rewards so I’ll be constantly looking to pick up some short or long prices. It’s difficult to model something like the general election so this is one market where instinct will count for a lot.
The thing I do hope, is that there is a definite result in the election. The financial markets have been favourable on the UK despite it’s record deficit. It is relying upon the new government to take some really tough measures to reign in the massive and increasing national debt. If we elect a lame duck government the financial markets will not like it and that could spell trouble for the economy, big time. Anyhow, I’ll attempt to stay away while I watch the debate this evening to see if there are any opportunities.
Make cash from ash
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on April 20th, 2010
I hope you are not one of many being inconvenienced by the erupting volcano in Iceland, or the national air bodies, depending on how you see it. The office is quieter this Monday thanks to the failure of quite a few people failing to return from overseas after the school Easter holidays. My wife spoke to a friend last night, still stuck in the US with little hope of return this week. Scheduled ETA at least two weeks away, I think the airline industry and the economy needs this like a hole in the head. I live under very busy airspace so it’s been very novel seeing no planes in the sky aside from the occasional paraglider or small light aircraft, I will enjoy it while I can. But I think the paranoia may have spread a little too far as the local RAF helicopter base doesn’t appear to be flying either and the last time I looked helicopters didn’t go past 20,000 feet.
Still, where ever there is something major going on, there is always opportunity on the flip side somewhere. I think the same could be the case in the sports markets too. I am currently looking at the sports that involve travel to see how they could be affected. Formula 1 cars are currently parked a long way from Spain at the moment and may not get the chance to be refitted for the next race if they can’t travel soon. European football matches could also experiance some interesting additional shapes, given that air travel could be ruled out. I am sure there are many more but these are just a couple of examples of things you should be looking at right now. It’s often the unusual things that deliver some great opportunties at these moments.
I notice the BBC have summarised some of the problems on this page.
It's not just ash that drifts
Getting burnt
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on April 19th, 2010
This title could be a reflection on the weather in the UK at the moment, which is fantastic. Lots of us took advantage in the last couple of weeks to head out with the children during the Easter holidays. As a result, quite a few have a bit of burnt skin thanks to the less than common, warm and persistent sunshine. It’s not unheard of though, as I remember running the London marathon in 1996 when the temperature was 20c, what a slog that was!
The main reason for the title is to reflect on how people got caught out by the abnormal number of big spikes in prices last week on the horse racing markets. There was a long discussion on the forum about the spikes, which were causing a lot of people to get burnt. These sorts of things are difficult to predict and can be damaging to a position, but once it was obvious that they were happening very frequently, I decided to change style slightly and put orders in the market to try and take advantage of any unusual spikes. It didn’t work all the time, but it was obvious that I needed to do something to counter the activity. Once I had adapted, I actually ended up having my best week of the year so far. It wasn’t just purely down to this adaptation though, there were a lot more races last week and that obviously helped significantly.
Unfortunately you don’t get the transparency on Betfair that you get in financial markets, so it’s difficult to speculate on what caused the spikes. It will be interesting to see if the activity returns this week or whether it was just somebody experimenting or something else completely different, who knows.
- Spikes can hurt if you step on one
Bit of a Kop out
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on April 17th, 2010
No surprise to see Tom Hicks and George Gillett exit stage left at Liverpool. Struggling to refinance their debt they have to find a viable exit, but it’s a terrible time to sell. Liverpool are heading for a poor season and the attractiveness of the club must have been dented by their lack of success, not only this season but in prior seasons also. For the amount of wages they pay they really should be performing better, but I am sure that the constant chatter in the background about everything other than football hasn’t helped.
The problem Liverpool face is that money talks big time in football now and if they can’t get any success this season they will have less to spend next year, unless they find a massive benefactor. If they spend less, the correlation of money to success is so high in this division that they will continue to struggle. When I did some research on the funding of clubs the correlation of wage bill to league position was staggering. It has proved a very reliable predictor this year in the promotion and relegation markets. It’s a sad fact, but unless Liverpool find success or a billionaire with loose pockets , they could find themselves slipping out of the big four bracket for some time. The only solace is that thanks to the recession and tighter FIFA rules it’s unlikely that many new Chelsea’s or Man City’s will appear in the next few years to supplant the incumbents. It’s going to be an interesting end to the season, one which start to determine next season before it’s even started.
I appear to have forgotten my wallet
The politics of betting
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on April 16th, 2010
I think this general election could turn out to be quite a good trading opportunity.
When trading you ideally want uncertainty and I think we have plenty around at the moment. Last nights debate added some more to mix as well. I thought it was funny to follow the coverage then this morning see all the new polls coming in. I’d be surprised if the election is decided on one debate, especially the one I saw last night. But there was a general feeling this morning that, after years of fighting off the credibility of letting a third party into an open debate, the genie was out of the bottle. Whether that is the case will remain to be seen, but the polls will no doubt reflect some changing sentiment.
Rather than discus things in infinite detail I suggest you have a look here. It’s a very good summary of all things betting and political related and is a good starting point for your research and for incisive commentary, worth a look.
Charting how you want it
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on April 14th, 2010
I recently put this video up of how to connect to the Bet Angel charting spreadsheet that is supplied with Bet Angel. We put this spreadsheet in the product as a demonstration of not only the spreadsheet capabilities in Bet Angel, but also to give you some additional tools to play around with. I often use this spreadsheet to play with a variety of charts and technical indicators. Some are really interesting but others that prove useful in traditional financial markets, just clearly don’t cut the mustard in sports markets. Using this spreadsheet there is nothing stopping you from re-creating any one of the hundreds of technical indicators that are out there. If you google for spreadsheets there are a lot available which won’t take much modification to plug into Bet Angel.
You can run the spreadsheet in parallel with Bet Angel and it won’t incur any additional API calls or charges as it shares its feed directly from Bet Angel. You can use it to signal, trigger bets or display information that will help you trade. If you have never used it before, give it a try as it can be really useful and interesting to experiment with.
Italian end of season matches
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on April 13th, 2010
Since my first posting some time ago there have been plenty more Italian matches with strange prices. However, not all have ended up with the predicted result. There appears to be a process of reversion to mean going on! I was lucky on this one, as rather than backing the draw I opted to back Lazio, who went on to win. Because of the propensity for these matches to be unpredictable I wonder whether an element of this unusual pricing is the madness of crowds and / or the net effect of lots of arbing with naive bookmakers. Having done some research these things appear to be more common place in Italian football than I suspected. Whatever, it’s a curious phenomena but one that is proving profitable if you are aware of where that all important next goal is likely to come from.
A grand grand
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on April 12th, 2010
Well that is one Grand National that will stick in the memory for a while. McCoy finally landed the one race that had eluded him and I tipped it up! There’s a first and it will probably be the last national tip I’ll ever land. As it is, I think I just created a problem for next year, when all those I told this year return for next years winner. Despite warning them, I am sure they will think there is some skill in it!
I traded the race well and was suprised just how much movement there was on it. There was quite a fuss over the SP returned by the industry which was apparantly the worst for 20 years. A lot of this was put down to the movement in prices just before race, apparantly. But I am sure it was still a massive betting race, I’ve seen a number of estimates as to the amount wagered but it’s safe to say it’s in the hundreds of millions. Betfair achieved turnover of £7.2m which was down on last years £7.8m.
I think I got the tactics just about right for the race and pulled in the decent result, though I think I could have done better. There were a few movers on the day, but that’s not surprising given the opening prices of some of them! I couldn’t quite understand why Mom Mome was at such a short price? It did drift nicely in the end.
With all the fun over, we now enter the start of the evening racing and peak season. Once again I failed to do as much as I wanted in the winter, so I think that this year may be the last where I am full on all the time. Hopefully I will hit some of the few remaining milestones I want this year and next year will be the time when I finally take some long overdue time off. It’s nearly been ten years since I first logged into Betfair so I think I am long overdue a personal reward for my efforts!
Till then my attention is firmly fixed on the summer season ahead.
Grand National
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on April 10th, 2010
It’s that once day a year when everybody, even if they don’t like horse racing, has a little flutter on it.
Before I started my career on betting exchanges the Grand National was the only race I really knew anything about. I was aware of the Derby and the St Leger and some of the big meetings, but it was always the Grand National that caught everybody’s attention, including mine. I distinctly remember several successful bets that my mum placed. It was in the usual manner, i.e., liked the name, the colours or whatever. I think it’s interesting that the most bet on race is nothing more than a lottery. I can’t work out whether that is good or bad for racing, but It’s nice to see racing get some decent coverage though. The BBC also did their bit for point to point racing today I see.
If you would have said to me many years ago that I would defintaly win money on the national each year for years, I would have thought you had gone a bit weird. But many years into my journey on exchanges, I would be really surprised if I couldn’t pull something out of it today. Despite telling people I have no idea who will win, I will no doubt still be pestered for a tip. Not surprising that people can’t correlate those two statements.
FWIW, I will have an EW on the McCoy mount today. Purely a sentimental punt, as it would be nice to see McCoy finally land a win.
Anniversary
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on April 10th, 2010
It’s was a year ago today that thanks to an unfortunate accident I couldn’t sleep and rose early. In an early morning blur I thought I would give Aussie racing a hack and in one of those great twists of fate, I discovered another new market to trade.
While it’s not as rewarding as UK racing and involves an early rise if you want to participate, it has certainly produced rewards over the last year. I had tried Aussie racing before but really just limited myself to the Melbourne cup and never strayed far from that. Even then I hadn’t been able to make that meeting work. From that seed exactly a year ago I managed to build out a strategy and in November last year finally achieved a thumping total on the Melbourne cup.
A year on and I now have a detailed understanding of Aussie racing and of the country itself. My quest has led me down a path of exploring venues, horses, trainers and just a generally better understanding of all things Australian. So much so, that I am a sure a visit is almost certain at some point in the future.
Often things require a little luck and that was certainly the case last year, but if you don’t keep looking you will never find anything and as the old adage says, the harder you work, the luckier you get. in fact, luck is where opportunity meets ability.
A busy day
Posted by Peter Webb in Golf on April 9th, 2010
I haven’t chosen a good week to get the flu, it was such a busy day today. I really only performed at a fraction of my true capacity. The football was good last night and the golf but I watched little of either. My golf position will not mature till the end of today’s round so I will have to rise on Saturday morning to close that out. Fantastic to see Tom Watson move from odds of 1000 to just 100 on the first day. Surely we won’t see Turnberry again, it would be amazing; especially on such a tricky course. Tiger has picked up where he left off so his odds now reflect that.
The first day of Aintree was a bit of a let down. There is something weird happening in these markets so we capture a ton of data yesterday and will analyse it today. Hopefully we can learn from yesterday and move forward today, we have to nail it ahead of the Grand national on Saturday.
I’ve cancelled my appointments of today and will take the morning off to try and build up some energy for this afternoon.
Europa league
Posted by Peter Webb in Football / Soccer, Golf on April 8th, 2010
I am suffering from ‘man flu’ this week so it will be an early night for me.
A tricky start to Aintree left me feeling I needed an early night rather than work through the Europe league this evening, but here are some thoughts for you. This competition has provided plenty of decent opportunities this year and both ties with the English teams involved are set up nicely. Given Fulham’s performances so far in the competition you really feel the wind is behind them and I would fancy playing in this game if it wasn’t for my thumping head. Both Liverpool and Wolfsburg are priced in a similar manner but you have to fancy Fulham to pull something out of tie against Wolfsburg.
Liverpool continue to be an enimga and really need to do well, but I just don’t feel confidence ouzing out of Anfield. Given Man Utd’s exit last night it would be nice to have at least one English team left in a European competition. I think Liverpools odds of winning the competition are a fair reflection on their performances so far but I am sure Benfica will fancy their chances. Good luck if you are playing, I’ll be in bed watching the masters golf.
US Masters
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on April 8th, 2010
Picking a winner in any major golf tournament is a very, very tricky task. There are only a few strokes between the top of the leader-board and being out of contention. Any body who has played golf will know that a few strokes difference is only a hook, slice or shank away.
Anybody who has been on my course recently should know the angle I will be taking on this event. But the great unknown here is how Woods will perform? This will complicate matters significantly. Typically Woods would have been at much shorter odds if this was a ‘normal’ tournament but with all this stuff going in his personal life he opened at around fives and has drifted to 7′s. If he gets off to a good start then I think the market will shorten him up quickly, but if he doesn’t then his odds will slowly drift to ‘Mickelson’ type odds. I think a lot will depend on how relaxed he is at Augusta and how the crowd take to him. I’ll be watching the first round to try and get a feel for that. As people know I’m likely to avoid the front of the field but there is bound to be a lot hinging on how Woods plays so whether you want to or not, you won’t be able to avoid how his odds affect the rest of the market. I was sort of hoping he wouldn’t play, but it will be interesting to see how things unfold. I feel the fact he has returned so soon shows you his true personality and intent, he wants to win.
I have included a graph for this years US masters. for how the odds moved on Woods in previous masters, please view the thread on the forum.
Tiger woods 2010 US Master before the start
April fools day at Folkstone
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on April 3rd, 2010
Ahh, you can tell the flat season is back. How? Well, when you get days like the one we had this week at Folkstone!
As flat races are over shorter distances all horses have to be loaded into stalls. Well I say all horses, sometimes a horse just wont go into that big metal thing in front of them. Typically it is a small percentage of races, maybe about 1 in 20 where a horse refuses to load and gets withdrawn. On some days however it seems that the nervousness of horses seems to spread through the field and you end up with some unlikely chain of events unfolding. That’s what happened at Folkstone.
We had the unusual situation where three of the previous five races at Folkstone had horses that failed to run. However that couldn’t happen in the last as the stalls were taken out of use with a previous incident and there was a flagged start. I commented to the guys that at least we couldn’t have a withdrawn runner in the next race as they didn’t have to load. A few minutes later I was completely eating my words when the fourth horse in six races was withdrawn, this time for planting itself at the start and refusing to race. I couldn’t believe it!
It’s pretty rare to see this, but I think the accolade of bizarre must go to Leicester last May when five runners were withdrawn from just one race! According to the stats, five in one race as independent events, is somewhere in the 320m-1 range. It was this race that convinced me that horses obviously infect each other with their own sentiment just before the off. Another angle to understand in this fascinating game.
Cheltenham – Post-mortem
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on April 1st, 2010
OK, it’s been a little while since Cheltenham finished, but I’ve been very busy on other projects and I have also been having a bit of a break before the start of the flat season proper.
Lets start from a top level. Measuring the activity to post time in the markets, a total of 26 races generated matched bet turnover on Betfair of £84.3m this year. In 2009 it generated £83m, so overall the matched bet turnover was up about 1.5% on the year. 49% of this turnover was matched on the 26 favourite’s. The remaining 51% was matched on the remaining 463 runners. Last year 53% of the money was matched on the favourites. £41.4m was traded on the favourites this year vs. £44.5m last year, so matched bets on favourites was down.
While there was top line growth of 1.5%, you have to take account for the types of races that were involved. This year there were four races where the favourite went of at odds on, last year there were just two. These races get a significant boost in turnover due to their pricing. So you could say that you would have expected this year to generate more in turnover. There are many ways to cut this data but the long and short of it is that turnover hasn’t risen much, if at all, this year. It felt like that in the market. I imagine there are more people doing similar things to me, especially as I talk openly about it, so it’s no surprise that some markets felt weak.
From a personal perspective I did OK, but not as well as last year. But it was better than the prior year so I can’t be dissatisfied with that. It was my 12th best week overall since I started all this, so I expect to get better weeks during the year. The biggest problem I had was getting orders filled, a lot of the time it was quite tricky to get orders filled in a reasonable time and that adds to the risk you take in a market. At some points it felt like I could have got changed, run around the block, had a shower and still returned to see an unmatched bet.
I didn’t really learn anything this year which is disappointing, but it was noteworthy that a strategy that I would have recommended a few years ago failed miserably this year. Just goes to show you how the market is constantly adapting and changing shape. Next up, the Grand National!