Archive for January, 2011
Betfair maintenance
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 31st, 2011
Unfortunately it looks like this Betfair ‘maintenance’ did not go well and the API is not working as expected. Numerous other issues have been occuring since the site came back. With Ludlow cancelled this is is a clear indication that today will be an inactive day. A frustrating end to the month.
If you still want to log into Betfair, the API is currently reported as being down. But if you are using the very latest version of Bet Angel, version 1.26.5, you will still be able to log in via non API mode. The ability to trade while the API is down is a feature unique to Bet Angel.
Extra rest will help Djokovic
Andy Murray booked his place in a second successive Australian Open final following his four set victory over David Ferrer.
While Murray has looked solid throughout the tournament, the outstanding Novak Djokovic stands in the way of the Scot’s Grand Slam dream having beaten Roger Federer in the other semi-final. The Serbian is chasing his second Aussie Open title and has had an extra days rest before Sunday’s showdown.
The head-to-head record stands at 4-3 in Djokovic’s favour, although Murray has won the last three matches. Interestingly, the pair have never played a five set match against one another. Further encouragement for Murray is that the past two victories have come in ATP finals, in Miami and Cincinnati – both on the hard court.
Murray has been fantastic at mixing up pace and spin on his way to the final and that is his best chance of success. In contrast, Djokovic will rely on his immense power that will test the Murray’s defensive prowess to the limit.
It’s sure to be an epic finale and as Murray pointed out after his semi, both players are in pretty good shape. With little to separate them, the 2.08 available for over 41.5 games looks tempting.
Outright, it’s hard to go against the world number three. Beating Federer 3-0 will have given Djokovic all the belief he needs and will likely start the stronger of the pair given his extra recuperation time. Back Djokovic at 1.74 now as I suspect he might win the first set and shorten slightly.
NH Racing
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 29th, 2011
OK I know that the NH stands for national hunt, but it may as well mean No Horse Racing. If Racing wants to know why its industry is in decline take a hard look at today.
Another big race meeting is lost to weather. Some low quality and small fields at Lingfield which are of little interest. Those races go off five minutes before Cheltenham so little time to build up to the big races, then Cheltenham clashes with Uttoexeter which clashes with Fairyhouse. And racing wonders why people are not betting as much and generating Levy revenue?
Plenty of FA Cup football this weekend however and, of course, the Aussie open Tennis final. So I will spend more time on that instead.
I guess racing may wake up at some point and realise its 2011, until it does, it will continue to be in decline IMHO. OK I know winter isn’t great but this year has been terrible!
Murray match in charts
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 28th, 2011
If you want an insight into how odds move in a Tennis match we will be posting up charts at key points of the Ferrer vs Murray Austrailian open semi final today.
To view the charts, click here to read the thread on the forum.
Press the flesh
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 27th, 2011
A half day for me today on the trading front as I went to Earls Court to ‘press the flesh’ at a gaming and betting exhibition. I’ll often go to these events as, while they are mainly trade, there are a lot people that I know there. It’s also interesting to see what’s out there and to catch up with a few people.
One surprise was to see several “Soccer Mystic / Tennis trader” type products there from software vendors to the bookmakers. The price was a pretty one, five figures required and rising to use these tools. There must be demand for this in the trade as these stands are not cheap! I couldn’t help but think I was in wrong business when I was talking to the vendors. I got the distinct impression I was underselling things.
There were actually some other interesting tools that were on offer to manage information and markets. Given the costs, I am not convinced that consumers would be willing to pay what is required to bring them to market. Food for thought anyhow.
Fireworks in Melbourne
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 26th, 2011
Happy Australia day to our antipodean users this morning!
Some decent late night / early morning activity in Melbourne this morning as an injured Nadal struggles to fight of Ferrer in his quarter final match. This could be a significant moment in the tournament, so tune in immediately to take advantage if you can. When the Australia day fireworks force a break in this game the trainer can treat Nadal and that could be a pivotal moment.
Pool lined with gold
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 25th, 2011
What a season Blackpool are having and the tactic when the tangerines are playing is really simple. If they are at large odds at home, back them.
This may sound obvious but if you want to understand the full subtly of this tactic then fire up Soccer Mystic point it to any match where a team is large odds at home and look at what happens to the projected odds in the first half.
You wouldn’t have needed to do this much this season to have netted a heathly profit with not a great deal of downside. If it’s 0-0 at half time you can trade out and if you are clever you, have a look at some of the other stats and you can quickly work out how to hedge the position.
I would have backed Blackpool for relegation at many points this season, but each year one of the promoted clubs benefit from the ‘shock of the new’. This year appears to be Blackpool’s turn. Typically this fades in season two in the top flight so it would be surprise to see it happen. As it is, tonight Blackpool have a real chance to destroy Man Utd’s dream of an unbeaten season. Never would have bet on that either!
2010
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 24th, 2011
Already near the end of January and I realise I haven’t talked about what happened last year.
2010 was very satisfactory and I evolved further during the year. Each year that passes I learn more and more how the markets work and why they are priced the way they are. I think this is the thing that I enjoy most, the discovery. Whatever I am doing, I will often have a pen and paper handy in case some amazing thought comes into my head. I would still be happy doing this if there was no monetary value attached. I am just lucky there is a payoff with some of this information. Note the use of the word, some.
I’ve already decided that my aspirations for 2011 will change. I’ve always been of the belief you don’t move forward by standing still. It’s over a decade since I signed up to Betfair and I need to start thinking seriously about where I want to be in another ten years time. I feel the urge to appraise things, and I trust my instinct. So I’m taking some extended time off in the quieter months to look at things.
I did look at some things late last year and there are some simple facts that stand out. I can reduce my activity by 40% while only being 20% less effective and I can easily identify where to do this. It’s these sorts of things I am looking at. I’ve achieved a lot and work very hard, not just in what I am currently doing, so I think I should treat myself a bit better and be there more for my family. I’ll post up more thoughts next month, I’ve given myself till Cheltenham to rationalise them, before the busy flat season kicks in.
Things I did last year: -
Finally completed my Tennis model!
Had a record year
Had a record month
Managed to back a winner at odds of 1000 before the off
Did more events that ever
Did something nobody would ever believe!
Had a really nice break in the summer (Sort of)
Things I didn’t do: -
Have a record week
Have a record race
Have a record winning run
Have a record losing run
Get fit enough
Take enough time off
Spend enough time looking at new sports / areas
Your outlook
Before the year really gets going, take some time out and have a think about what you want to achieve in 2011 and how you will get there. As soon as you do that, you will start moving towards that goal. Too often people try and achieve something without a clearly defined path. As that business phrase says, if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail! Good luck in 2011.
Will Bent leave it late again?
Gerard Houllier will be praying that capturing Darren Bent will help Aston Villa turn a corner on what has been an incredibly disappointing season to date.
Bent left Wearside with an impressive scoring record after bagging 32 league goals in his 58 appearances – which is why Steve Bruce was so upset to see his main striker depart. Even though many football fans will recall Bent’s time at White Hart Lane as a failure, he still managed to score 25 goals in 70 matches across all competitions. Harry Redknapp once remarked he missed chance so easy that his missus could have tucked it away.
Before transferring to Spurs, Bent was part of the Charlton side that punched above their weight in the Premier League under Alan Curbishley. During his time with the Addicks he scored 31 times in 68 league games.
Manchester City are this weekend’s opponent, who have once again been busy in the January transfer window. Roberto Mancini was able to acquire the services of Wolfsburg’s Edin Dzeko. The Bosnian impressed on his home debut with an assist against Wolves and it’ll be a good battle between the two high-profile signings.
The movement of the over / under goals markets will therefore be fascinating – at time of writing it’s evens for over 2.5 goals on Betfair – and it might be worth initially laying off before backing a little later in the match. Interestingly, Bent scored a 90th minute winner when Sunderland met Man City at the Stadium of Light in August. Bent has made a habit of scoring late goals this campaign, with three of his eight league strikes arriving in the final minute. He has also scored on debut for two of his four clubs. Traders might do well to consider laying the draw if it remains close late on or even backing Villa as the game approaches the final whistle.
The ball went that way
Kauto can’t
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 21st, 2011
Last week I asked if Kauto can, but it seems he can’t. With no racing of note on today I thought I’d review this race for you.
The 11 year old isn’t the same horse as previous years, no surprise there. But it was disappointing to not have another historic moment in racing. There haven’t been many over the last year and it’s nice to hang a news story on these things. I think racing has missed out as a result. Too often good horses are retired to stud too quickly IMHO, no chance here of course!
As predicted the price on Kauto came in during the morning and I was sitting pretty but a blip out evaporated a lot of that. I waded in again when the price moved in, confirming what I had suspected, but I was really caught out by the erratic moments before the off. I ended up closing out for what felt a disappointing total on such a big race.
I can’t really explain why the market destabilised like that and it is unusual. Ultimately I was just a bit slow spotting it or else I would have done much better. I did pretty well on other races and overall Saturday was a good day. This was pleasing being the first day that cross matching was switched on. Any change will always leave you in some doubt on the impact so it was reassuring to put in a decent day. When the race was underway I laid Kauto for the Gold Cup and have now traded out so I already have a profit on the ante post market. Just looking forward to March now!
Overnight success
Posted by Peter Webb in Tennis on January 20th, 2011
How would you like to go to bed only to wake up in the morning to a successful trade?
While I’m enjoying doing the Austrailian open, a lot of the early round matches take place at hours I just can’t cover. Judging by the liquidity, this is the case for a lot of people in this market. So, why not take a different angle on things and place some trades to get matched overnight in-play?
Using Tennis trader, I can look up a match due to take place early tomorrow morning and place a trade to take advantage of movements that could take place. By laying a couple of prices into the market and keeping those bets through to the in-play period you can profit.
Say I lay two bets at 1.50 for £10, if both are matched I will profit by £5 on my £10 stake. How could both get matched? That is where the predictive capacity of Tennis trader comes in. By looking at the strength of both players and their propensity to break serve or take a set I can look at scenarios where either player could reach odds of 1.50. If I feel that scenario is likely or could be common given the scores I see, then the trade is on.
Try it yourself for small stakes.
Levy debate starts in parliament
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 20th, 2011
Three hours of debate has just started in Parliament about the future of the Horse Racing levy. Tune into BBC Parliament to hear the MP’s debate: -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/tv/bbc_parliament/watchlive
Betfair crash
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 19th, 2011
Quite a serious outage this evening, or outrage as some will nickname it. The site has been offline for nearly two hours now. We hope you are not too badly affected by the crash.
We do have some clever things built into Bet Angel such as connection modes that can help during certain types of crash, but this seems to be a complete outage on Betfair’s behalf. We look forward to learning what the cause was.
Conversations on the forum highlight the problems a crash like this cause, but also how often they occur. What is needed is some action by Betfair to clarity a number of points when the site crashes and perhaps adopt a fairer approach to all participants in the market. Returns for traders are very small and when the site crashes they can be left with a mountain to climb to get it back. There are many plus and minus points for both sides of the argument, if you have one why not debate it on the forum while we wait for the site to return.
I won’t do anything on the site this evening and have phoned up a friend. So we are going out for a curry in 1/2 hour or so.
Curiously, according to the thread, there was a big outage on the 25th Jan last year. A curious coincidence.
Bookmakers still alive and well
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 19th, 2011
William Hill came out with a year end statement today and the headline results were pretty good. Net revenue is expected to come in up 7% on the year delivering EBITDA of around £275m up from £258m in the prior year. Online revenue has grown 24% with sportsbook turnover up 57%.
One other note from the statement was that 47% of scheduled UK racing meetings were cancelled in December.
Full results will be out in late February. It seems traditional bookmakers are coping quite well in the modern marketplace.
Aussie open tennis
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 18th, 2011
Looking forward to getting stuck into the Tennis this morning. I’ve had a delayed start to the Open as I was unable to do anything on the first day due to other commitments. Plenty of opportunity abounds in the tournament. The good thing about this grand slam is that you can trade it first thing in the morning, leaving the rest of the day for other sports.
It was this time last year that I used the Aussie Open for final testing on Tennis Trader. It was an important time, because it was the first time that we used decent sums of money to put our money where our mouth was.
This was important, as the only time I feel comfortable trading is if I know roughly where the odds are going to go. Using that methodology you can ‘frame’ your up and downside risk and take more risk overall. This will lead to more confidence and better results. I admit that I find it difficult to actively participate in a market where I am not confident of knowing the market like this, so Tennis trader was an important step achieving the things I need to in these markets.
If you haven’t participated in Tennis before the Aussie open is a good chance to do so without interfering with other markets. So dust off your mouses and give it a try.
Adopt Arsenal business model
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 16th, 2011
If you remember this post where I was commenting on how impressed I was with Arsenal’s business model. Well it seems FIFA is as well.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/9358589.stm
I think, for the long term future of the game, it makes sense to engage on sensible terms.
I remember when I was young. I would pay £1.50 to stand on the terraces, stuffing my face with a hot dog, getting smoke wafted in my face, BUT you really could believe that your team could win any game. You also could relate to the striker who grew up just down the road from you and who was banging in goals for your team. You could easily be on the end of that ball!
Now you pay £300 to sit, down, in a plastic chair and watch opposing players reluctantly pass to somebody on £150k a week who can’t speak English very well. Home grown players are a rare sight and loyalty is a thing of the past. OK, times move on, but one thing I like about some sports is that you can still live the dream. It’s never easy to get to the top of a sport, but I can play at Belfry and hole the same putt that a Ryder Cup golfer can. If I play golf well enough, it’s not unrealistic that I could get into a tournament. I don’t think you can say the same for football any longer. It’s lost it’s soul, from there its a slippery path IMHO.
Making clubs thing more realistically is a step in the right direction and levels the playing field a bit. Maybe there is hope left.
O’Neill new manager of West Ham?
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 15th, 2011
BBC report O’Neill to take over at West Ham after the match today: -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/w/west_ham_utd/9362709.stm
Lay West Ham to be relegated I reckon, if its true.
Can Kauto?
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 15th, 2011
Easy to spot the key interest today on the horse racing front when Kauto Star will try to make history at Kempton park. Such is the interest in this and the sentiment I suspect his price will shorten through the day so for once I am on early on this. It should be an interesting market and an interesting race, so I hope it turns out that way.
Betfair widen cross matching net
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 15th, 2011
Today will see the launch of cross matching on pre-off horse racing markets. Having studied the markets for a long, long, time, I think I can guess the impact that this will have, but I am open minded. Change will occur though, so keep your eyes out.
In-play cross matching produced a curiosity which we hadn’t thought of, so it may be that pre-off does as well. We have collated data over very long time frames and can see at least one strategy that will suffer because of the change. But we will be actively monitoring the data to see what actually occurs. I’ll report back one we have some decent data under our belt.
I must admit to preferring a freely traded exchange market, warts and all; rather than tweaks, changes, modification and new rules. It’s obvious that Betfair are now likely only to adopt things that benefit them financially, but it would be nice to stick with some firm ground rules. It would always have been nice to see an exchange only vendor out there, but that’s not going to happen now as we are too far down the bookie path on all fronts. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still better than what went before and I’m not being negative here, just philosophical. Even small increments in change can produce quite large long term differences and that’s what we have seen.
Anyhow, I will report back anything interesting on the blog in due course.
This weekend promises to be a really good sporting one, so best of luck whatever you are doing!
Backing a definite loser to win
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 14th, 2011
Bizarre start to the racing at Huntingdon. Nine out of eleven horses took the wrong course, the chase instead of the hurdle course. The end result is that all horses on the chase course were disqualified. One jockey went back to complete the correct course though and netted third place. So only three out of the starting line up qualified as finishers.
You could still back the real winner for large odds as he approached the line and it seemed pretty clear that the rest would go. So I can only speculate why there was still so much being traded on the others.
Anyhow, as it turned out you could back the horse loser that ‘finished’ fifth successfully as the ‘winner’. A bizarre start to the day.
Normal service resumed..
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 12th, 2011
It’s been a good few days on the horses. Excellent when compared to the period we have just had to endure. It’s so much better having something to get stuck into each day rather than the intermittent and erratic markets we recently had. Plenty of markets can give you a bit more confidence and allow you to average out any mistakes you make on the day. Lack of them only exacerbates the pressure to perform and that can be counter productive.
Saturday was an upbeat day and with some quality finally on the table, I managed to pull in a decent result. There were a few races where I didn’t really do much, but those were I did I managed to do OK. I also managed to call some FA Cup shocks on Saturday. Cup competitions can give you the opportunity to back at big odds, or lay at shorter odds with some good results. If you spread your selections across a few markets you can mitigate bad results for a decent result overall and this is what I did on Saturday.
The start of this week has been solid, so I am hoping to build on that as the week progresses. I am watching / practicing on some of the minor Tennis tournaments this week ahead of the Aussie open. Let’s hope it doesn’t suffer too many rain interruptions! I hope things are bearing up for you if you are affected by the poor weather in Australia. It can’t rain forever, so hopefully the worst is behind you already.
Late goals expected in FA Cup
Manchester United and Liverpool commence battle on Sunday afternoon in the tie of the FA Cup third round. If the match earlier in the season is anything to go by this could well be a Cup classic. From a pure betting standpoint Liverpool’s away form this season gives plenty of reason to back a home win. Roy Hodgson’s men have won only once away from Anfield in the league and have lost six of their nine games.
However, traders might like to take more notice of the over/under goals markets. Games between these two fierce northwest rivals have often produced late goals. In four of the last five meetings there have been five goals scored later than the 70th minute. It might also pay therefore to let the game develop and if it remains level until fairly late on, consider laying the draw or backing United to win late on.
Sack race
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 7th, 2011
A rather predictable scenario if you ask me. At least three managers in the firing line and you could add Holliuer to the mix as well, despite getting the ‘backing’ of his board. If we do get a flurry of sackings it could provide a useful mid-season trading opportunity. I’m keeping my eyes open.
Good start to Tennis season
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 6th, 2011
In preparation for the Aussie open Tennis later this month I have been warming up on the Qatar open this week.
Best of three tournaments mean that the swings you can get can be very large and quick. If a heavy odds on favourite slips up or stutters, the response in the market will often be significant.
One of my favourite tactics, that I detailed here, is to lay a very short priced favourite in the hope that they slip up and the price starts to move out. This happened twice yesterday when very short odds on Federer and Nadal caused their price to jump out in response to some lacklustre displays. Nadal imploded at one point to lose a set 6-0, the first time in a couple of years. At least he has a fever to blame.
Of course laying at short odds willy nilly will not produce a profit in the long term. So I use Tennis trader, before the match has started, to work out what score will cause the odds to move and I nip in ahead of this potential. This allows me to maximise the upside while minimising the potential for loss. If it looks like it will not come off, I simply scratch the position or take a small loss. Because the odds are so short you can quite easily scratch when money buyers come in at very short odds to snap up ‘value’.
It’s been a good start, lets hope it continues.
December
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 3rd, 2011
It is quite easy to guess how December went.
With all the weather disruption only a minor miracle could get me near last years December. That didn’t happen and it felt like December could be a write off at one point. But a few decent days near the end of the month salvaged something out of the month but it was still over 50% down on the prior year. Last year did go exceptionally well though, so that decline masks a good time last December. On a normalised basis it was still down a fair bit but not a complete disaster.
It’s a bit unlucky to have such a weather affected December as January wasn’t great, so that’s 1/6th of the year disrupted by weather. You can see why I will work hard during the good times to maximise potential as much as possible. If you do that, you can just shrug your shoulders when things are taken out of your hands. I’m interested in managing things I can control than those I can’t. I actually really enjoyed a Christmas with the family without many interruptions. I even had boxing day off! I think my experience was a lesson for 2011.
Talking of comparisons, the weather was pretty poor at the start of last year, so you can take a positive from that by getting stuck in at the start of the year. It’s easy to beat last year when there was so little racing on. So, there you go, a good start to 2011 is on the cards!
Happy New Year
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 1st, 2011
Just a short note to wish you a happy new year. I hope 2011 brings you all the things you hope for!