Category: Alternative markets
Seeded vs non-Seeded tournaments
We have a couple of classic divergences being display in full glory in the markets at the moment.
In Melbourne we have the Australian open Tennis where, in a seeded tournament, the semi finals look like they will be played out amongst the top four seeds. Seeded tournaments are basically there to ensure the top competitors have every chance of meeting in the latter stages.
In the UK, I just watched Bradford City complete a remarkable cup run to make …
SPOTY
I’m enjoying watching sports personality of the year this evening. A self congratulatory indulgence, but justifiably so after a wonderful year for sport in the UK. Difficult to pick an outright winner from a general perspective, so many valid candidates, but Bradley Wiggins has been the short priced favourite for ages.
A point of note however, public based voting competitions can often throw up some really unexpected results. Voting patterns are difficult to predict and campaigns, deliberate or well intentioned …
Next US president is……
US Presidential markets are surprisingly good trading fodder.
OK, I know we have some European football on this evening and the Melbourne cup just passed, but once in four years means I will devote this post today to draw your attention to this market.
The last market in 2008 drew total traded volume of £13m. This was actually down on the previous election in 2004 where a lot of uncertainty created a wild swing in the market. At one point it seemed …
Trading the Olympics
Wow, what a busy few weeks it has been!
For me the School holidays and the Olympics on home soil has been too much temptation to miss. There are not many chances in life to do what I have done over the last couple of weeks, so I’ve jumped at the chance to do it. It has been really great experiance.
Doing that has meant putting trading on the back burner recently. But that’s no problem really, a couple of …
Betfair create Olympic market without winner
I’ve been interested in what the Olympics couldn’t bring on the trading front for Bet Angel users. Athletics markets are pretty quiet in general, but are often full of surprises. Nothing is guaranteed in sport, especially where markets are tricky to price.
I watched the Men’s Cycling race today with half a eye on whether Mark Cavendish was to get his just reward, alas it was not to be. As the competitors re-entered the streets of London I started collecting …
Home advantage when trading the Olympics
So it’s here, never thought it would be possible but I’ll be going to the Olympics on home soil. At 08:12 this morning bells rang out across the country, which woke me up, and announced that the Olympics games has officially started.
When I was young, I was very sporty and dreamt of being in the Olympics. That never happened but I did join at Athletics club when I was older where some of the members were Olympians and we …
Will Eurovision get the hump?
Over the years I’ve had a good play on the Eurovision song contest. In 2006, after boring myself with the entrants, my evening was lit up by the performance of Lordi which was hilarious to see in a straight laced contest such as the Eurovision. Soon after the voting started it was clear the voters were sending a signal to the contest and the rest, as they say, is history. As soon as I saw the voting patterns I had …
Next manager markets
Not so long ago I asked for more next manager markets. We now have three in play at once!
We have managerial vacanies at West Brom, Liverpool and Aston Villa . The interesting this about these markets is that there are a number of mutually exclusive outcomes. For example, Roberto Martinez can not be manager of all three, so two of his prices in the other markets must be false; but which ones?
I don’t actually try and make special …
London Marathon
Good luck to all those running the London Marathon today. I still harbour ambitions to do one more marathon, but for the moment I will remain on the side of the road encouraging support. Not a big trading market but it can throw up the unexpected. In 2005 you could have backed the women’s runner in running at 1.50 at 22 miles while firmly in the lead thanks to an unusual situation. It’s worth laying low or backing high …
Punting on the Thames
My first rule for getting involved in the market is liquidity. If there is enough liquidity in a market, it’s usually worth getting involved. So on Saturday I thought I would give the Boat Race a go.
Liquidity wasn’t great at only around £50k when I joined the market, but rose to £300k at the completion of the event. I managed to put a fair amount of money through the market but ended up with a paltry total really in …
Have you got the X-Factor?
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 …
Full tilt poker was a Ponzi scheme
I’ve been following this story for a while and listening to the rumours but now US authorities have come out and mentioned the P word.
“US authorities have accused the owners of online gambling site Full Tilt Poker of operating a huge Ponzi scheme that defrauded players out of $440m (£289m).”
Full story: -
A sea of red
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 …
Half price sale underway
When Betfair floated I got some stick for saying they were overvalued and they were not a buy. This wasn’t a statement on Betfair’s business or business model, more the price it was selling at.
I first started taking an interest in the stock market in the mid 80′s and five or so years later I started investing. One thing I learnt is that if a company IPO’s and sells some of it’s stock it will do so at the …
Eurovision
Even if you are not watching it, you should take a look at Eurovision this evening.
I’ve done well backing outsiders that shorten during the contest in the past and early voting patterns can often give you the ability to dutch a range of long odds into shorter prices. Don’t leave it too late to get out though, as winners can become apparent very quickly and will shorten fast.
My biggest ever success came from backing Lordi a few years …
Just say no
Should be change to an alternative vote system in the UK? Well, the betting market seems to give a pretty clear answer to the likely result.
…
Royal wedding tip
Fontwell 17:30, Current favourite to shorten even further? Why? The favourite is called ‘Royal Wedding’.
My youngest daughter is fastinated by the spectacle, my son said ‘What wedding?’. Have a great day William and Kate!
…
Royal wedding bets
Yes, you can punt on the Royal wedding as well!
I doubt this market will interest me much, but I do like the idea of ‘your sex is on fire’ being the first song the couple dance to.
Good luck today
If you are running the London marathon today then, I’m jealous! But I’d like to wish you the best of luck and hope you have a really good run. When I last ran it in 1996 the weather was warm like today and it was tough going, so take it easy.
If I can stay injury free for a few years I may try once more, but I’m getting old and decrepit; so it gets less likely each year. Nothings …
Snooker loopy
Although we rarely do much on snooker, in the outright markets the same rules as normal apply. Find a couple of guys at longish odds who, while they might not win, are likely to do well in the first couple of rounds and back-to-lay their championship odds. If we can plot the likely winners at each stage of the draw, there are profits to be made by trading in and trading out before the next round starts.
Current World Champ …
Snooze to lose
I quite like novelty bets as they are difficult to price, but I missed this one yesterday. In hindsight an opportunity missed!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/
Ken Clarke netted a punter a decent return at 16/1 by officially / unofficially falling asleep during the budget speech yesterday. Some of these other more esoteric bets didn’t come in.…
Super Bowl off to a slow start?
It’s not often we trade on the NFL, but amid all the hype, how could we not mention it? Super Bowl XLV kicks off on Sunday evening in what promises to be a fascinating contest between the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The total points market is always one of interest and this year promises to be no different with Aaron Rodgers and Ben Roethlisberger occupying the quarterback positions. The over/under points total is set at 45.5 (I …
McCoy is sports personality of the year
Well done AP, well deserved. Looks like racing’s campaign to raise awareness, and votes, has paid off. I’ve got a lot of respect for jump jockey’s and especially for AP. So it’s great to see it the sport getting recognised.…
And the winner is?
‘Reality’ TV is reaching it’s year end climax and I’m looking forward to a boost to my December totals.
Despite their nature, there are sometimes some very intuitive trades to be made on reality shows. Not always, but quite often, opportunities jump out of these contests. So while I don’t tend to watch this sort of stuff, some logic will point you in the direction of a clear opportunity.
On the X-Factor I have had up to £4.5k green on …
Next NUFC manager
Newcastle United FC’s sacking of Chris Hughton – apart from being one of the most stupid backroom decisions in the ludicrous world of Premier League football – opened us up to a few smart trades over the last couple of days.
The favourite usually chops and changes based on nothing more than speculation and is directly affected by what the potential new managers say in the media. Martin O’Neill was installed as the immediate favourite, then Alan Pardew quickly moved …
Don’t pay till May
It was only when my favourite football club got relegated that I started playing around in the relegation and promotion markets. Since then it has become a regular stamping ground for me during the season, especially at the start or end. People seem to have this wonderful propensity to put too much emphasis on recent results or events. Either that or they carry hopes that are just clearly out of whack with reality.
So far this year I have made …
2012 all over again?
Been keeping an eye on the winner of the 2018 world cup bid market. England are shortening up quite quickly and are now favourites to win the tournament. I hope they do, or else I will be a very old man by the time the World Cup tournament eventually comes, if it does at all, to England.
It’s very reminiscent of the London 2012 Olympic bid. Paris were in the lead for ages are looked nailed on to win the …
95% of traders lose?
95% of traders lose is a very common statistic quoted, but I’ve never seen any data on it. Somebody recently sent this to me about forex traders, which I thought made interesting reading. Obviously this is limited to the scope and definition of the survey but I think it’s an interesting article and discussion. It also shows the importance of money management and low transaction costs.
As they say, 47.3% of statistics are made up on the spot!
http://forexmagnates.com/us-forex-brokers-account-profitability-comparison/…
Betfair’s LMAX up and running
It looks like Betfiar’s financial markets operation, LMAX, is up and running. I am on their mailing list but haven’t received anything yet. However, if you visit the following site you can read about LMAX and sign up for an account and browse the site.
The first thing I tried to find was charges. It appears Betfair are going to adopt a normal financial market model of charging for a buy and sell, there are some example trades here: …
X Factor alert
OK, I know you are thinking, what’s Peter doing talking about the X Factor! But, for anybody that has been on my course, the news that a new contestant is likely to be added to the market on Saturday should be a signal to get involved in the market.
As with all things, there is a bit of uncertaintly here. But you could get some good upside if the 13th contestant does arrive. For once in my life I will …
Connect
Connect with us on the following social media platforms.