Archive for November, 2011
Betfair maintenance this morning
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on November 30th, 2011
Please be aware Betfair has site maintenance going on this morning around 7am UK time: -
Man City away
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on November 29th, 2011
I had a nose around the footy markets this evening and noted that Man City were around 2.30′s. Wasn’t completely sure that this was what I expected so checked back at recent Man City matches at these prices away from home. In fact I couldn’t find any this year but last year there were three. City won these 2-0, 4-1 and 3-1 respectively.
If we widen the net to include matches between 2.20-2.50 you capture a wider sample including City’s 5-1 away win at Spurs. The data hints that City don’t try really hard against teams they are expected to win against but up their game against higher profile teams.
Of course it’s the Carling cup, so a lot of what happens tonight rests on how important either team feels the competition is, but City also have strength in depth. I’ll be out watching footy tonight, so wont get the chance to trade it manually; but will keep and eye on things and doing some automated stuff while I’m out.
Good luck if you are getting involved. Carling Cup can be a bit of a gamble sometimes.
An ‘interesting’ Saturday
Posted by Peter Webb in Betdaq, Betfair on November 28th, 2011
Well that was an interesting Saturday. I sort of got the feeling that the day may not go as planned right from the off.
Went shopping with the kids to stock up the office and got back a little late which left me no time to put the stuff away. I just had to dump it on the stairs. Sat down to the early start and immediately realised there was a problem… The Internet was at a virtual standstill. I tried all the various thing you do, router reboot, PC reboot but nothing was really having the desired effect. I had backup plans in place, so I continued to use those while I rooted out the problem. It looked like general Internet issue.
So after the third race I dashed back home to trade from there, but that connection was also having issues. It seemed to a ‘local area’ issue. So back up plan three kicked in and I started trading in earnest. That was going OK until Betfair started to creak and buckle at 3pm.
Anybody who has been on the markets for anytime knows that when the feature race of the day in the winter coincides with the start of the football it creates conditions that have delivered a few Betfair crashes in the past. Saturday was no exception. I think we were lucky on Saturday as we sort of got fair warning. The site sort of fell to bits in pieces.
When I realised we had a problem on our hands I instantly switched to Betdaq, which was working well anyhow, and just focused the remainder of my time on there. As a result I had another good session on both exchanges. On quite a large number of occasions now I am ending up net net ahead on Betdaq vs Betfair, that probably wont be the case for you unless you are paying 60% I guess. I know some of the other sports are weaker in liquidity terms on Betdaq but it was the same when Betfair was growing up and eventually activity spilled out to these other sports. I guess time will tell, but conditions are improving and it’s likely, as more people arrive on Betdaq, additional strategies and sports will come into play. I’m ready and waiting!
Back on Betfair we eased back in with a non API connection mode. From the number of emails we got in support we should point out publicly that you must be on the very latest version of Bet Angel for the non API mode to work correctly. We often have to recode this and that means old versions of the software may not be able to log in via non API mode. You have two choices, use mode 0, full API mode, or download and use the very latest version. Check with support first though, so we can give you direction.
Anyhow, I managed to get through the session and headed off to the ATP world tour finals in London courtesy of Betdaq, thank you! Even that didn’t go to plan as there was a power cut on the Jubilee line and I had to find my way to North Greenwich in an indirect and roundabout way. I did manage than however, just in time to see the doubles match start. From there my day started to become a bit easier and relaxed, and I was able to reflect on a stressful, but successful day.
The fifth, five years on
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on November 26th, 2011
It’s the fighting fifth at Newcastle today. It’s often a small field and can be a bit tricky, but it usually contains some opportunities. Only five runners and Binocular is almost evens, that’s a tricky set up.
It’s also the Hennessy Gold Cup. I have fond memories of this race as five years ago today I traded it live at the IX Investor show for Betfair. Seeing a betting company at an investor show was a shock for many people and we had trouble getting people to come near the stand; so I just rolled up my sleeves and traded live for everybody. A slightly unorthodox set up, but it worked. As the profits flowed in it inevitably brought people to the stand to try and understand what market I could possibly be trading on Saturday and making money. If I remember correctly I bagged £250 on the Gold Cup in about ten minutes.
Last year I did even better, which was miraculous if you remember the difficulties we had with the weather. Last year the weather had just started to really go downhill and on the Saturday and we had a very limited card on display. Newcastle wasn’t on at all and the fighting fifth ended up at Newbury. From that point onwards the weather got colder, and colder, and colder and colder. The coldest winter for 30 years! This year is balmy by comparison, lets hope the opportunities are too!
Trying to explain that this isn't a stock chart
Back the draw
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on November 24th, 2011
OK, this isn’t a strategy, it’s a demonstration. But here is a simple script that uses the new automation tool to back the draw five minutes before the start of a football match and then lays it back five minutes into the match.
You can view the video here at http//www.betangel.tv
No champions league fireworks
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on November 23rd, 2011
Not sure if it’s just me, but I’ve found the group stages of the CL this year a little dull. After my racing hiatus I sat down yesterday evening to see some exciting matches, but not a great deal of opportunity. I guessed Man Utd would be keen to win against Napoli, but didn’t bank on such a quick equaliser! I sense the last few matches in the group stages should ignite some fireworks given the way results have panned out so far.
Tonight I’m working on a pre-off trading strategy. There isn’t, generally, a great deal of movement on these matches before the start; Rooney’s omission last night being an exception. But that doesn’t mean there is opportunity. I’ll be doing my best to work the market before the off so I can put some of that to speculative use this evening.
So in the UK we move from the Mancunian challenge to the London challenge. It will be interesting to see if both come to life in the knockout stages, as they seem to have spluttered through the groups. Advantage Spain I’d say at the moment!
Poor show
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on November 21st, 2011
Fired up the racing cards this morning and watched the tumbleweed drift across the screen. Small fields, uncompetitive racing, not a lot to hang your hat on! There are some trading styles will suit the markets today, but I know it won’t really work that well for me. Especially as it’s a Monday. I had a good weekend, so I’m looking to inject some quality, not quantity, into my life today.
I’ll run some automated stuff and perhaps dip in and out of the markets but generally “it’s a no from me” for today.
I’m doing some work on the footy at the moment in a completely new area, so I could do with some quality time on that. Plenty of other things to sort out ahead of the end of the year also! Good luck if you are active today.
Why big companies die
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on November 20th, 2011
I read this article this morning in Forbes and it absolutely resonates with my former experience in the corporate world. When companies sell their soul to a spreadsheet the long term result is nearly always bad, but if they have strong competitiveness you may not notice at first. But companies that remain true to their core and focus on what made them great in the first place usually prosper and retain the drive to succeed for long periods of time. OK it’s a little more complex than this and other elements of depth should be added, but an interesting piece: -
Too early!!!
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on November 19th, 2011
I was out last night at a charity auction event, doing my own personal bit at this time of year.
The recession must be in full effect as I haven’t seen such low bids at such an charity auction event for some time. In an effort to get things going I was bidding on most items. I got a bit lucky at one point as I nearly ended up with a wedding dress, having started off the bidding, only to see no-one else bid on the item. But some lucky lady outbid me, phew!
I tried to get use of a Aston Martin DB9 for the weekend, but was outbid. I did get eight corporate hospitality tickets for a football match however, so the evening ended on the right note. Lots of money raised and a good night was had by all.
So this morning I woke up with a bit of a sore head but a warm feeling inside. Then I realised the first race of the day was at 11:40!
Having come to terms with that, I remembered that this throws up an opportunity as when the race starts early it, obviously, finishes early. Therefore, as the racing draws to a close, I can move straight onto the football at half time. This is perfect for looking at the first half stats and making some judgements on the second half.
So that’s my action plan for today! Not forgetting to get an early night as well!
'Hangover' is recommended film
Major new release of Bet Angel
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on November 18th, 2011
We are delighted to announce a new version of Bet Angel!
This morning we have released a new beta version, 1.30, which includes a brand new feature.
The new feature focuses on automating your betting or trading activity and builds on the work we have done with Guardian and the Excel spreadsheet link. In fact you can use this new feature along side any activity in your core market and / or any activity you have in a spreadsheet.
The new automation feature in Guardian allows to supplement or automate your activity by creating rules and applying them to specific markets or all of your activity. You can simply click on a market and then use a simple to understand interface to construct the automation you want to apply to that market. Once applied, Guardian will sit in the background while you get on with other activity and get busy applying the instructions you have given it. You don’t even need Guardian open on your desktop or server.
You can apply as many different rules to as many different markets as you wish in Guardian, all at the same time. Bet Angel will cycle through all these markets and apply your automation to them all. This mean you could be trading a horse racing while Guardian and the automation tool will be automatically applying or managing bets, entering markets, exiting, greening up etc. all in the background on different markets and sports.
For more information click here, or to view some videos click here.
Bombs away
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on November 14th, 2011
Every now and again in the racing market an individual arrives that doesn’t make much sense. From a trading perspective at least!
The come into the market and back a selection for a large amount of money, then back again and again and again! I’m not sure the oft quoted description of ‘mad bomber’ is accurate, maybe there is a better description. But what is certain is the impact they have on the market. You could view this as a negative, but if you know the way they work then it’s a big positive.
If somebody is backing in large amounts repeatedly then you should seek a speculative open order on the back side first. If you are on another selection then you need to lay first. It could also be possible to catch a bounce when the price gets backed in heavily, but you never know how aggressive this individual is going to be, so I prefer catching the top.
Why they are doing it is another discussion altogether!
Have you got the X-Factor?
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on November 12th, 2011
Last year I made a killing on X-Factor, but I’ve been a bit quieter this year. Mainly thanks to not being able to get the risk/reward mix right.
The interesting thing about reality TV shows is that there are no rules or models that you can apply to the market. The unexpected can and will happen, often. Therefore I am always looking for outliers, things that are seem certain or very un-certain but that any producer or editor can catapult into the limelight. Since public voting became commonplace in these shows you can’t rule out that influence either.
This year we have had the ‘scandal’ that has brought some real outliers into contention. The big one being Amelia Lily who was out of the competition and laid at 1000 only to brought back into the mix and now trades at 6.80. You need very, very few of these to get a long term payoff. Always be thinking out the unthinkable.
Quietly moving ahead..
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on November 11th, 2011
It’s interesting to see that liquidity and market conditions continue to improve on Betdaq. It’s quite possible to sqeeze someting out of most races now and thanks to the favourable commission rate it’s proving a good use of my time. We appear to have gone from waiting for perfect market conditions to a wider range of acceptable reasons to participate, which is encouraging.
I’d honestly recommend using both major exchanges as competition is good in all markets, but some of this will be subject to what you are trying to do. While horse racing is working well and very liquid now on Betdaq, its not so great on some other sports; but generally improving. Basically use both where you can, but not at the expense of your net results!
As you may be aware we have had a Betdaq equivalent of Bet Angel for some time, around three years now. It contains all the features you expect and best of all it’s free! It got a major upgrade in July, so there is little reason not to download it and give it a try.
Should Betfair be more secure?
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on November 10th, 2011
I’ve put a poll up on whether Betfair should be more secure, read on and vote.
As you may / or not be aware, Betfair suffered a security breach not so long ago but choose not to inform customers after consulting on the risks involved in the breach. Personally I feel, whether there was a risk or not, people should have been informed.
The following was recently pointed out to me in the Betfair terms and conditions under the “limitations of liability” section: -
“We will not be liable to you for any loss that you may incur as a result of misuse of your password, or in the case of the Telephone Service, of your telephone access number, and we accept no liability resulting from its unauthorised use, whether fraudulent or otherwise.”
Restrictions in liability are quite common and I fully understand why they are there. But I was surprised recently by reports of people who have had their accounts defrauded on Betfair and who where subsequently quoted the above sections when asking about what happens next. The answer was “nothing” based on the above terms, the money was gone and that was it.
The net upshot is that if you are defrauded or if there is a system or operator error, it seems Betfair will not re-imburse your funds. Basically any money you have deposited is at real risk of total loss in the event of fraud or error. The people who have been affected and come forward to me explained in detail the cause of the loss and the fact that from the evidence they gave, it was obviously not a transaction taken by them. But that didn’t seem to matter.
This begs the question of if security protocols need beefing up at Betfair. Surely if your money is at such risk you should have the ability to restrict or limit your activity? Restricting to certain IP addresses or sports, or territories, or values would make perfect sense? It would make fraudulent activity much harder and re-assure people who have decent sums of money on deposit.
I’m not comfortable with the risks involved in the current process despite having been unaffected. I’m worried about what could happen and would like to see some changes. If you agree vote appropriately!
In the meantime, make sure you take sensible security precautions to limit any potential issues. Keeping as small balance as possible and regularly changing your password are two of the key elements. Ensuring your have valid anti-virus software etc is another. There are others, but don’t wait till its too late to take action. I’m not saying there is any increased risk in the system , but it’s better to be safe than sorry!
Poppycock
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on November 9th, 2011
You wouldn’t think such a widely accepted charity symbol could possibly be a controversial figure, but I am sure that FIFA are determined to make it so. You would think a largely political organisation would be able to successfully brush aside any possible controversy about remembering the sacrifice people make during wars in a calm and reasoned manner before anything controversial came of it. But FIFA appear to have fowled up again on this one.
You can see the logic of stopping national teams making statements on their shirt, but I’m not sure this is the case on this occasion. If I were the FA I would stop the arguing and give every supporter in the stadium a poppy before the match starts, send a Lancaster over the pitch with a belly full of poppies and put one prominently in the background at the start of the match. Something to show FIFA why they need to rethink future similar decisions.
My eldest daughter is just discovering, through her history lessons, at high school just what happened during the war and the incredible waste of life that took place. Nobody should ever forget that.
Bet Angel on TV
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on November 7th, 2011
OK, not as glamorous as it seems, we have just sponsored a few races at Southwell today. I’m not available to attend the event but one of my guys will be there. I’ve offered him a bonus if he streaks in front of the winning post!
Never going to be great quality conditions on a Monday, but we hope we have done our bit for racing today.
Stay caffeinated
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on November 6th, 2011
With the end of the summer racing I’ve been on my travels recently. I’ve skipped a few days, but on bigger days I’ve still needed to do some work on key markets.
Therein comes the problem of how and where. Whether you are staying with friends or in a hotel you also need to have a back up plan, just in case. My solution is to use coffee as my back up plan.
Where ever you are, there is usually a coffee or snack shop somewhere nearby. I carry an app on my iPhone to tell me how near I am to a location that offers internet access. When I arrive at a destination I quickly check how far away the back up location is and what sort of connection they have.
On Saturday I was busy trading away when BOOOOOM all the power went at my current location. I immediately switched to my iPad and mobile broadband connection, but for some strange reason that was working either. So backup three was in motion. I headed around the corner to Starbucks when I ordered a coffee and started up again. Starbucks saves the day!
So, there you have it, stay caffeinated!
The long day…………..
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on November 4th, 2011
Today we have an interesting session. UK racing trundles on from afternoon to evening racing, then the Breeders Cup meeting comes on line in the US. As the Breeders cup meeting on the Friday draws to a close, we then morph to Australian racing and the final day at the Melbourne cup meeting. The remarkable Black Caviar runs again tomorrow and is a incredible 1.06 to win it’s group one race. I think that’s untradeable, but I am tempted to watch the race and hype surrounding this horse.
In previous years I’ve had mixed results in the Breeders cup meeting so I’m not sure if I will hang on till late into the night to give it a go. The Saturday is the better day so that should be your focus but you may be able to squeak something out of the Friday as well. Anyhow, if you choose to all available it will be a looooong day. But hopefully a very rewarding one!
Muddled
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on November 3rd, 2011
It’s a bit difficult to disect European vs English form in the Europa league. But we have some clear clues on at least one match this evening.
Rubin Kazan play a much depleted Spurs side this evening and you would have to favour the Russian side given Harry Redknapp’s preference for player his second string in this competition. With the news that Harry will miss the match due to surgery you get the feeling that following a strategy that relies on Rubin Kazan being in the lead at some point is a sensible move. You can’t help but feel the muddling of the Spurs team will work against them this evening.
Here’s hoping Harry has a quick and full recovery from the surgery.
R&R
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on November 2nd, 2011
The Melbourne cup went pretty well and I’m looking forward to finishing off the whole carnival in style if I can. I’ve put a few other things on the back burner this week to focus on the meeting. I’m feeling too old to burn the candle at both ends and get away with it! It was interesting to note that matched bet turnover on the Melbourne cup was lower this year than last. It reached about £3.6m vs. £4.4m last year, therefore my turnover was lower as a result. I had expected turnover to be up.
I’m skipping the Champions league tonight so I can get some rest and relaxation, though I am intrigued by the Villareal vs Man City match this evening. I think most of the other matches can be read reasonably well, but in this one I’m looking for clues City can translate their UK success into a credible European campaign. They certainly have the players to do it, but don’t seem to be firing on all cylinders at the moment in europe. This match will be an interesting test.
Later this morning UK time I’ll be returning to Flemington for more Melbourne action. Today isn’t the best day of racing so it’s a bit ‘hardcore’ to suffer the effort required to do today. So if you didn’t get on with the big race, I wouldn’t recommend getting up early to do today. It’s usually been pretty weak in the past. However, I’m pretty confident I can earn more on this than the football, so that’s what I will be focusing on today.
