Archive for August, 2011
Marmite Monday
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on August 29th, 2011
It’s that day of the year that you either love or hate. The August bank holiday in the UK brings a whole bunch of racing, all on the same day.
In total there will be ten cards todays and about a billion races. This may seem like heaven for some, but it’s a nightmare for others. Quite a few races will attract little liquidity, a lot isn’t of great quality and many races will clash meaning that you can’t do much on them. The day usually does through up the odd opportunity though.
As the evening comes into play we now also have the US Open tennis. I guess you should expect some weather disruption though.
Whether you choose to enjoy the sun or the racing, good luck whatever your choice!
Back the draw
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on August 27th, 2011
I’m going to put up some information on Saturday’s about football / soccer. Some of it may seem contradictory for some of you and some logical, but it’s all based on years worth of research and application in the market.
For starters: -
If you backed the draw, pretty much at random, last weekend; you would have have netted a cool profit. I know, because I did exactly that and suffered a 60% thumping as a result! I was doing some work on how diversification affects your net P&L if you are backing varying numbers of events and wanted to test something.
It drew me back to a spreadsheet I did in 2005 based around the efficiency of the market. I came up with a back the draw strategy that squeaked around a 1% margin on average out of the market. I brushed down the spreadsheet and updated it and had another look at the efficiency of the market.
I looked at 15935 recent matches and discounted the implied probability the market was giving on the draw. I then compared that to what happened. On average the market was only about 0.66% out. The chance of a draw occurring versus what the market offered at the time was pretty much spot on. It also highlighted that you could come up with some crazy system based on the draw and still end up with only a small slice of luck. A lot of filtered selections could still end up and fool you into thinking that you had discovered some edge. Check out a few e-books for some examples of this.
The main problem was not an edge though. I worked out, with a simplistic calculation, that using £10 stakes I would have lost £8686 to commission. If you imagine somebody staking in a sequential manner, their £10 per match turned into nearly -£9k. This also highlights the difference between commission on outright betting versus trading on the price movements. It is much more favourable for the latter.
If you think hard enough though, even with that commission paid is possible to overcome. It ‘only’ represents 3.9% of the total amount bet at the worst rate of 5%. Pay above 5% though and it becomes very hard indeed.
So there you have if. The market is still as efficient as ever, but this means you will need a fair chunk of data to ensure you have an edge. You will also need to ensure that edge is quite large to overcome commission. By trading you reduce some of the liability and that will help you overcome that 0.66%.
The right connections
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on August 26th, 2011
First a history lesson.
A long time ago Betfair offered unfettered access to their servers. You could smash into their servers by requesting price information at will. Back then there was no API and you could only screen scrape information from Betfair. Because of this an arms race developed and Betfair considered banning the bots, but thankfully that never happened. What actually happened was an API was born and Betfair started slowly but surely changing the way their site works. From that simple start the process of connecting to Betfair now involves many hoops through which you need to jump to stay under the strict limits Betfair impose. Everybody has to conform to these limits so that no new arms race develops and Betfair can better control the IT on their side of the fence. Basically this means that Betfair limit the number of calls that API software makes so that nobody gets an unfair advantage, everything operates at the same speed. However there are things you can do to specifically tailor your exchange connection to your trading style to maximise your experiance.
To ensure you get the best connection using Bet Angel we provide you with a raw feed and allow you to tweak connection settings that are most important to you. You can save these settings and quick switch between them for maximum flexibility. For example, if you are trading pre-off you may want to increase the speed at which Bet Angel calls full market depth or reduce it when in-play and increase others, when that call it is less important. Even different locations can ‘feel’ different, so you can modify settings on that basis. Bet Angel buffers calls to avoid you running into horrendous charges, so if you accidentally, or purposefully, have the wrong set up it may feel a bit slow as the buffered calls back up. To avoid this make sure you are familiar with all the settings you can use so you can avoid this happening.
We monitor performance all the time as it is very important for everybody. But the key thing on this, is that I’d be trading toast if we didn’t have it humming. So make sure you take the time to familiarise yourself with this feature: -
http://www.betangel.tv/video/using-bet-angel/setting-up-bet-angel/147-bestconnection
Eye Watering
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on August 25th, 2011
I’ve been playing around with spreadsheets and a number of other strategies recently. With the increase in commission charges levied against me, I figured it would make sense to look outside my normal activity. While it’s flattering to know you are better than 99.9% of market participants have ever been, it’s less flattering to give away the majority of your profit! By ‘normal activity’ I am talking ‘active’ participation. I now have a very big incentive to find less manual ways of participating in the market.
One area I have been re-examining is that of value. The reason I am examining this area is that the market on Betfair is remarkable efficient now. In fact it is too efficient, I’m struggling to see how layers can make anything at some of the prices on offer! You can often get a pretty competitive big field handicap where the outcome on the race is very uncertain, yet the market is priced very close to 100% for a lot of the time. At this level, due to the variability in returns and more normal commission rates, I think it’s possible to overturn the margin lost to the other side of the book. This is actually what brought me to exchanges in the first place.
So I blundered in last week with a neat idea that would probably overturn this negligible percentage. I got lucky as, to my surprise, I managed to not only overturn that small percentage but pick a LOT of winners. This was unfortunate as you expect this now and again with a value strategy, not just right at the start. This is the second time this has happened to me.
The net upshot is that I now find myself back at square one. Because of the higher rate commission paid, I have to take a theoretical eye watering massive loss on these positions. I could wait for things to even out, but I am not sure that I can overcome the difference between normal commission and the super premium charge. I have quickly shuffled this strategy off to Betdaq. I tried this on Betfair because I though generating commission would help lower my charges. But when you look at the detail it seems you actually need to win and lose a huge amount of money to stand any chance of paying much lower commission. So much, it looks impossible to me.
I could be wrong, if any body has done the maths, please send me a spreadsheet!
Champions league qualifiers
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on August 24th, 2011
An intruiging bunch of matches this evening. Several are priced for a great deal of uncertainty and that can create some good opportunities. I reckon we should be in for another 13/14 goals in the matches this evening. The matches are much more complex this evening, so after my tip last night, I’ll duck a tip this evening!
Arsenal can win in Udinese but it’s not going to be straight forward. I’ll be monitoring the first half and making a few decisions from there.
Champions league qualifiers
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on August 23rd, 2011
I reckon there will be around 14/15 goals this evening. The least number of goals this evening is likely to be in the match between APOEL & Wisla Krakow.
Free morning workshop
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on August 22nd, 2011
This summer we have been holding a series of morning workshops, we are currently conducting another one this morning. These have been aimed to improve your ability to use Bet Angel and your participation in the markets. Because of the small class sizes we do have a waiting list, but if you are interested in attending future courses, please register your interest now.
EBore & the sack race
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on August 21st, 2011
The York EBOR moved this year to a Saturday and as a consequence it killed it from a trading perspective. Chester races were only five minutes in front of York and Chester did it’s best to ruin York all day saving the best for the feature race by going off only 38 seconds before the big race at York. Racing UK got in about five seconds of coverage and most of that was covered with a graphic of the odds. Thanks racing, another own goal.
I think I may change my mind on the sack race, the first manager to get sacked this year. Leicester failed to win again yesterday and Sven didn’t sound very ethusiastic in the post match interview, but better than Paul Jewell who appears to be a completely beaten man at Ipswich. Twelve goals conceded in two games and a humiliation at Peterborough yesterday. I don’t think I have ever seen statistics so one sided in a competitive high level football match. I’m struggling to work out if I have ever seen a match where a team scores first but goes on to them concede seven goals, must be some sort of record at this level. For a match report visit the following link: -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/14514657.stm
Hitting the panic button
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on August 20th, 2011
The football season is only a few matches old and yet some fans are hitting the panic button already. Hot favourites for the championship Leicester City have already lost two games at home. Not the form of a championship winning team! Teams at the top of the table rarely lose home games, let alone two in a row. Could Sven be on his way out again?
I recently did some work on managerial changes and their impact on teams. On average, in the top two leagues in England, teams only gained just over one league place after sacking their manager. You could argue that they may have lost places if they didn’t sack, but it seems the biggest negative impact is when a popular manager leaves. The biggest positive impact is when an unpopular manager leaves. Outside of that it has a negligible effect. I guess this can be explained by the fact that teams have inherent skill that just does or doesn’t blossom given the ‘right’ manager. The other thing I noticed is that sacking a manager has more effect at the start of the season.
So, there are a few hints as to when to back or lay a team for promotion or relegation. Given the common merry go round, I think you will have a few chances to try your hand at this. In the four years I went into real depth there were an average of 24 changes a year across the top two leagues!
Look, no hands…
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on August 19th, 2011
One upshot of Betfair’s recently decision to increase their rake from more successful users like myself is that I have revisited my love of interacting on the exchanges with spreadsheets.
I have taken some time out from ‘normal’ trading to work on spreadsheets a bit more. This is to see if I can create something that works fully automatically for me where the payoff will now be particularly high as it takes none of my time to execute. When something takes up none of your time but its profitable, then that’s a pretty good payoff. Personally I think Betfair may have accidentally created a huge incentive for bot writers and in the process converted a lot of previous manual only users to start in this area.
Even if you don’t fully automate stuff, at worst, automation is something that can make your life a bit easier . The wonder of working this way is that spreadsheets can show you more information and you can interact with the market in a form that’s easy to understand than staring at a screen full of numbers. You can in effect create your own custom view of the markets.
I’ve refreshed the spreadsheet section on Bet Angel TV so you can join in the fun too!
http://www.betangel.tv/video/using-bet-angel/using-spreadsheets
York Ebor meeting
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on August 17th, 2011
Summer racing isn’t over quite yet and today kicks of the Ebor meeting at York. I’ve traditionally done OK at this festival each year so I am looking for something above average this week. I’m going to give Betdaq a good go this week at York as liquidity is rising and I suspect I can get something decent out of some of these races. I’m keen to get some decent practice in. If you look at my Ebor result from last year I only need to get just over £100 on Betdaq to match the Betfair total after charges. I reckon I can easily achieve that, I should be able to get more. As I am a net liquidity provider to the markets, I still find it odd that I am incentivised to move my business in this manner. It’s all a bit strange.
Anyhow, Good luck with the Ebor meeting this week.
That thin line…
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on August 16th, 2011
Early season football is the most interesting time of the year for me.
Some teams play well but lose, some play poorly but win and in the early season that gives a lift or shock to the team. Teams can easily build or lose momentum early in the season so its key to see how things are playing out. Short term momentum is critical and can lead to early season over performance but to keep it going over the whole season requires plenty of skill and a deep squad. In the premier league there really is a massive gulf between the top teams and the rest. Elsewhere there is a thinner line in skill levels between teams and this makes momentum and the psychological benefits it brings, critically important.
Keep your eye open for teams heading in either direction and that will give you some clues to short term value seeking in football matches.
Betfair’s LMAX loses £13.2m in first year
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on August 15th, 2011
Betfair’s majority owned financial trading product LMAX recorded pre-tax losses of £13.2m for the year ended 30 April, Betfair’s annual report has shown. Full story: -
http://www.egrmagazine.com/news/
I think LMAX is going to continue to be a burden for Betfair. There are already very good solutions in place in this market and despite the suggestion it’s a new way, most new users have found that the markets are heavily seeded and the fill rates poor. It’s got a long way to go to get to viability. The morphing of Betfair’s core sports exchange model away from its origins isn’t helping either I suspect. Some of the big financial traders I have spoken to have expressed concern with this and are sticking to their well established providers in financials where they feel they know and understand their relationship with their provider.
From a markets view point I am aware that activity is always higher in buoyant markets as people are net long in general. When the market is in turmoil, as recently, people become overtly risk averse and less enthusiastic for this sort of medium. Overall not an ideal environment for a new venture.
The apprentice
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on August 14th, 2011
I saw this article in last weekend’s financial times about Ryan Clarke and thought it was a really nice piece. Outside of the elite clubs it was a really nice story of somebody who has worked hard to get through the system from the bottom up. It gives you a good perspective of the difference between the elite clubs how football used to be. Worth a read…
It’s all kicking off!
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on August 13th, 2011
Yes the premier league is back. Twenty teams, OK maybe four, well maybe three battle it out for the greatest honour in football…. Who will sack their manager first!
As I have mentioned in previous posts the market tends to inefficient at the start of the season. I looked back over the two months at the start of last season to see what happened last year.
The first thing to note is that the market got the number of goals scored pretty much spot on. On average there were 2.72 goals scored per match over this period, this was against a forecast of 2.72 goals. So little value was created there. Home wins were forecast at 48% and came in at 47%, so not much there after commission (especially 60%). However, the predominant characteristic at the start of last season surround away teams.
Away wins were forecast by the market to arrive 26.6% of the time in the first two months but only occurred 20.7% of the time. Draws were forecast 25.5% of the time but occured a whopping 32.3% of the time. So if you were looking for value last season, that was were to find it. To qualify that and to see if it will repeat this season, you also need to answer the ‘why’ question.
New Videos
Don’t forget to fire up Soccer Mystic (see video) to have a look at matches you are likely to trade. While it can’t be 100% accurate it will give you plenty of ideas on where odds are likely to be and should fire up your imagination for some strategies.
You may not have considered a couple of unique ways in which you can use Bet Angel to trade, analyse or bet on football matches. So watch the following videos to see: -
How to connect multiple markets to one workbook on your spreadsheet
How to connect multiple football matches to one spreadsheet for trading simultaneously
Use the subscribe button on the channel home page to automatically get updated when new videos are uploaded.
US PGA Golf
Posted by Peter Webb in Golf on August 12th, 2011
Positive movers from the US PGA from open to the close of day one. Some big movers in there delivered a lot of profit on day one. It’s been a busy day in Atlanta:-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/golf/14499302.stm
Steve Stricker – 27 to 3.7
Adam Scott – 29 to 23
Bill Haas – 150 to 48
Simon Dyson – 170 to 65
Jerry Kelly – 1000 to 65
Matteo Manassero – 250 to 65
Davis Love III – 190 to 65
Trevor Immelman – 270 to 85
Scott Verplank – 460 to 80
Brendon De Jonge – 240 to 75
Robert Karlsson – 120 to 110
Anders Hansen – 280 to 75
Stewart Cink – 150 to 95
John Senden – 290 to 90
Alexander Noren – 260 to 210
Ricky Barnes – 280 to 120
Mark Wilson – 310 to 110
Shaun Micheel – 1000 to 95
Brandt Jobe – 320 to 110
D.A. Points – 420 to 170
Miguel Angel Jimenez – 440 to 220
Brian Davis – 420 to 230
Brendan Steele – 910 to 330
Camilo Villegas – 320 to 230
Jhonattan Vegas – 670 to 450
Johnson Wagner – 800 to 520
Harrison Frazar – 940 to 710
David Horsey – 900 to 810
Pablo Larrazabal – 730 to 500
Johan Edfors – 770 to 610
How to win the lottery
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on August 10th, 2011
Caught this article the other day and it tickled me. I think we all dream of finding a way to make money from things like this. When I was young I dreamt that maybe, just maybe, there was a way to make money from betting on sport, never dreamt it would actually come true!
If you are into this sort of thing then read the book the Newtonian Casino, or watch the film “21“.
A sea of red
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on August 9th, 2011
Fortunately this doesn’t reflect my betting exchange activity, tepid though it is this week. The title refers to the chaos in financial markets. As a lot of your know I am heavily invested in financials and it’s part of my grander plan to eventually sit on my bottom each day doing nothing. I’ve been actively investing since 1990 and messing around for longer than that. It was gambling that lead me to the great casino of the lot, the stock market.
The recent market falls illustrate a nice point about the difference between financial markets and betting markets. At the moment financial markets are swooning in unison, everything is getting marked down with little exception. All the good stuff is getting beaten up and dragged down along with the dross. On betting markets it’s impossible for prices to move up or down in unison, impossible. So this leads them to be bounded by strict upper and lower limits. Both markets however, do have a wonderful propensity to overshoot in either direction dragging prices up or down (individually) beyond their ‘true’ value. If you can learn to be contrary in manner you will have no problem finding opportunities.
At times like this I’m actively buying carefully selected stocks. To understand why have a read of the following, which I think is one of the best summaries I have seen on what I believe are the core ‘keys’ to successful investing: -
http://www.franklintempleton.co.uk/ft/max?page=maximsPublic
Pity City
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on August 8th, 2011
That was an intruiguing and exciting start to the the elite football season. This charity shiled final highlights where a lot of people go wrong in trading football matches. At half time a 2-0 lead flattered city according to the stats and Man Utd were still in it. Add in their propensity to score late goals and a back on Man United or the draw screamed value.
Unfortunatley I was not in a position to trade on Sunday, but got the data during half time and echoed back to those who asked, what I would do. Ultimately it took a horror error from City to gift the game to United, but they were never really totally out of the game at that point anyhow. It was a good start to the season and late goals elsewhere made it quite a day for football traders.
If you are interested in trading on football matches, check out the unique Soccer Mystic profiling tool in Bet Angel.
City or United?
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on August 7th, 2011
Tricky, neutral ground, key players out, non-descript match, revenge for an FA Cup exit. Many factors in play.
I did a cut of data this morning against similar looking matches. I say similar because I analyse matches on a much deeper level than just look at odds and other top line levels or form. I open up the match and examine what the market is discounting on a number of levels and then recompile it. The neutral aspect of this match makes this a little harder and I’ll admit that most of my data contains the function of home advantage, which is not on display today. I don’t think this is a match I can really get involved in TBH.
However, here is what I found in my database.
95 matches fitted a similar profile to the one we are looking at today. The average score was 1.26 goals to 1.34 for a total of 2.60 goals. The market is discounting 2.47 goals today.
Win and draw rates from the database worked out at cumulative odds of Home (City) 2.94, Draw 3.45 and Away (Utd) of 2.70. As there is no home advantage you should discount the chance of Man City winning. So the market doesn’t seem that far out. Because it’s a bit of a grude match you may see some action on the bookings market I suggest.
Kick off
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on August 6th, 2011
The English football season kicked off in earnest last night with Blackpool nudging a 1-0 win against Hull. Today league football gets underway properly and the hopes and aspirations of many will re-ignite across the nation. How appropriate that the financial markets are crashing under the weight of false hopes and huge amounts of debt just as the football season starts up! If you are looking for excess then there is plenty to find on and off the football field, not just in financial institutions.
If you are interested in the crossover of the finances of football clubs and the betting markets, then have a read of http://www.theexchangemagazine.com/ this month. This includes an article where I discuss the how club finances affect their chances over the course of the season.
I really enjoy the start of the season as this is where value is created in the markets in abundance. At this precise moment in time I can’t tell you where, but in a couple of weeks it should be a bit clearer. Good luck with your football this season.
Getting better at Golf
Posted by Peter Webb in Golf on August 5th, 2011
In real life and on the markets!
Out with my son again this morning who got his first par today and I managed to get round the whole nine holes on par. Haven’t done that for a few years, one birdie, one bogey. I’m also getting better at understanding the golf markets. It’s taken a few years but I am finally getting under the skin on the markets. It’s proved pretty interesting and it’s also been a bit of a learning curve as I am trying to predict things on a very broad basis rather than a narrow one and that has proved the key to getting to the bottom of the markets. I’ve drifted outside the majors into other competitions now I am confident in what I am doing. I don’t know whether these will work as well, but there is only one way to find out! Anyhow, day one movers from the Bridgestone Invitational, returns to a £10 back bet: -
Adam Scott – 55 to 5.5 – £90
Jason Day – 40 to 6.8 – £48.82
Nick Watney – 28 to 11 – £15.45
Tiger Woods – 19 to 15 – £2.67
Martin Laird – 130 to 42 – £20.95
Ryan Moore – 90 to 44 – £10.45
Rory Sabbatini – 120 to 44 – £17.27
Stewart Cink – 100 to 48 – £10.83
Brandt Snedeker – 110 to 42 – £16.19
Kyung-Tae Kim – 210 to 120 – £7.5
Thomas Bjorn – 310 to 95 – £22.63
Jonathan Byrd – 240 to 150 – £6
D.A. Points – 380 to 100 – £28
Keegan Bradley – 250 to 180 – £3.89
Pablo Larrazabal – 460 to 170 – £17.06
Ryo Ishikawa – 410 to 200 – £10.5
Arjun Atwal – 810 to 510 – £5.88
Another new strategy
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on August 4th, 2011
Sat the in bath the other night pondering a number of things. Of all the things I do, looking for new things and trying to solve the puzzles that any market throws at me is the thing I find most interesting.
I came up with a way off thought based upon what I had seen from recent market data. Basically that the market has been tightening and less money than ever is lost to one side of the book or the other.
It’s too early to judge whether I’ve found something new but I put it into practice this week and the results are encouraging. The graph is just from the first two days of operation. Typically I use a spreadsheet to run some simple tests to see if I am on the right track and from there I can refine what I find. Using spreadsheets with Bet Angel are a great way of testing a market or ideal with minimal effort. The market never seems still despite it’s age so always keep looking at new ideas.
I’ll keep you in touch with my progress, or lack of it! For some background behind that last sentence, read these posts from last year.
http://www.betangel.com/blog_wp/2010/10/07/death-of-a-strategy/
http://www.betangel.com/blog_wp/2010/03/13/the-birth-of-a-strategy/
Good approach
Posted by Peter Webb in Golf on August 3rd, 2011
Looks like it will be the last day before the glorious weather breaks in the UK so went out to play some Golf with my son this morning.
A good approach on the seventh left me in the middle of the green but with a tricky put for an birdie. Almost the perfect put, but the ball stopped just short of falling in the cup. No amount of stomping on the green would make it fall in, so I had to settle for some appreciative comments from the group in front of me.
Got back to my desk to see Betfair had deducted the super premium charge. I experimented last week to see if value seeking, straight betting and/or arbing may help offset some of the charge. I just messed around with small stakes to experiment. Unfortunately last week the ‘wrong’ things won and Betfair stung me for a total of 65% of my profits! The problem I now face is that I am in deficit and the same could happen again this week, leaving me further behind. I am sure there is a better way than this Betfair? Hmm, back to the drawing board.
The good thing is that I am still finding it fairly easy to find opportunities in all markets and on both exchanges. The recent increase in liquidity on Betdaq has brought a number of new strategies to the fore that were not there before so I’m quite fascinated by that at the moment. I am currently measuring and collecting a whole range of data at the moment and I am revisiting data that I collected back in 2004 from Betfair as that is proving useful on Betdaq. Onwards and upwards!
You don't need to be this clever to uncover opportunities
Horses and hay don’t work
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on August 2nd, 2011
Having exclaimed yesterday that you should make hay while the sun shines it seems that today at least, there is a dearth of hay to be made in the racing markets. Two low quality cards, on a Tuesday and only one race has ten runners or more. Hay doesn’t spring to mind but slurry does. With the sun beating down and the kids on holiday it’s part of afternoon off. I’ll do some work in other areas as well. Racing should really give up on some of these cards and put more prize money into better quality meetings or more runners. The fare on offer this afternoon is just miserable.
I will return the racing this evening as there are three cards and while it doesn’t look great, especially Ffos lloss, I should put in a bit of effort and will be at home then.
Make hay while the sun shines
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on August 1st, 2011
You may remember this post from last year: -
http://www.betangel.com/blog_wp/2010/08/16/working-holiday/
With regard to the title, never has there been a more apt phrase for sports traders.
In the Summer there is wall to wall sport and opportunties appear at will. In the winter you are digging around for every penny, but pon top of that you also don’t know what the future will bring. So making the most of it while available is always a sensible move, I hope my excursion last Summer has highlighted this for you. As long as you have a supportive family you should also take an opportunity when it is presented to you. I’ve learnt the hard way that this should be my default modus operandi.
While it’s nice to plan for the future, the problem is that is hasn’t happened yet; so always focus on the task at hand while setting down future paths.