Posts Tagged betdaq
Betdaq API problems
Posted by Peter Webb in Betdaq on February 2nd, 2012
Just sending this out in case anybody has any automated spreadsheets running on Betdaq Angel today.
The Beqdaq API has a problem this afternoon and things are not working as they should be. Please double check any thing you have running.
We altered Betdaq to the issue quickly and they are onto it.
[EDIT : Betdaq now have a fix for the issue and will be deploying it after today's racing]
If you want to become aware of these sorts of things the instant they happen, follow us on twitter so you get the news as it happens: -
Friday 13th unlucky for Betfair
Posted by Peter Webb in Betdaq, Betfair on January 13th, 2012
Just days after their latest ‘upgrade’, the Betfair site crashed again. How incredibly frustrating! I’ve lost count of how many times the site has been down over the last year and each time the site is upgraded it seem almost certain now that a major crash follows.
If you want to trade today, why not give Betdaq at go. BetDaqAngel is the same Bet Angel platform you are familiar with but it’s compatible with Betdaq. Best of all its 100% free. It includes a link to Excel so you can automate your activity. We gave it a major overhaul last year to bring it up to date, so if you haven’t used it recently, download it and give it a try.
Ladbrokes in talks with Betdaq
Posted by Peter Webb in Betdaq, News on January 9th, 2012
Not as dramatic as it first seems when you read the headline, but interesting nonetheless: -
For the full story click on the following URL: -
If you fancy giving Betdaq a try download BetDaqAngel. It’s top notch trading software for Betdaq and it’s free. It received a major upgrade last year. Lots of clever features including an Excel link that allows you to trade multiple markets simultaneously from a spreadsheet.
Will Betdaq take off this year?
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel, Betdaq on January 7th, 2012
What an open question that is! I’ve stuck up a poll on the right that you can give me your answer on.
For years Betdaq has been a much weaker market than Betfair. In 2008 it got a boost when Betfair increased charges. A few vendors, including Bet Angel, rushed to make their applications Betdaq compatible. But the majority didn’t however. This rush to Betdaq was short lived and things very soon, sort of, carried on as normal. I say sort of, as some people who tried Betdaq or took the time to develop stayed, me included. It was quite an easy decision for me as, through past experience, I knew that having more than one feather in my cap always paid dividends and having two companies competing for my business was better than one.
Things have been improving slowly over time and but got a big flip again last year when Betfair changed charges again. Once more people said they would do more business on Betdaq, but will it be different this time?
One thing that has changed this time is that there has been a sustained increase in business on Betdaq and that has provided more opportunity, as I have mentioned often in the blog. I think some of this has come around because some larger players have been forced to really make it work this time. We have also done our bit by completely overhauling Betdaq Angel, it received a major upgrade in the middle of last year. That brought it up to spec with the Betfair version, spreadsheets, Guardian and all. It’s been completely free since we introduced it in 2008, so if you want to see more activity on Betdaq; spread the word. Because it’s free you have no real excuse to not download and use it!
From my perspective, I was around at the very start of Betfair so I know the characteristics of a ‘young’ market. Therefore, I am getting better and better on Betdaq, I am often getting similar results on both exchanges (see below for the last race, last week). But to be ideal it just needs a bit more of the ‘right sort’ of activity to bring into play additional strategies. If that happens then I think we could hit an upward cycle.
Your individual circumstances will vary and therefore I suggest you use both exchanges, I do. It’s most important that you use something that suits your style or needs and gives you the greatest opportunity. But it will interesting to see if Betdaq really gets going this year. What do you think?
Satisfying chaos
Posted by Peter Webb in Betdaq, Betfair, Horse Racing on December 27th, 2011
OK, yesterday didn’t seem that chaotic in the end, just a bit frustrating. I had to wait ages to find races that really set themselves up nicely, but eventually I did and they were OK. But it was a little dull overall.
Kauto Star lit up the day when I took a few races off to watch the King George VI produce a bit of history. What a great horse we have been treated to and it looks like we could be seeing an interesting Cheltenham gold cup now as well. Lets hope we get a big field and a competitive race.
Not my best result of the day, but a decent result came out of this market on Betdaq. I’ve been doing more work on Betdaq recently and will publish more information on the blog. Market conditions are improving all the time and I recommend using both exchanges where possible and for your own benefit and needs but also to increase competitiveness in the exchange market. If we have people fighting over our business maybe we can get a fairer deal. But obviously for me every £100 on Betdaq is worth the equivalent of £250 on Betfair, so it’s really worth me pushing hard for a result and sacrificing time on Betfair. As my activity is net accretive to the exchange I am also creating opportunities for others. As I get better at managing my risk I am probably creating some value for others. Today I had to exit a position that I made a mess off, I was still in profit but wanted to dump it and start again. I offered it many ticks higher on Betdaq than the best available price on Betfair. Any body active on both would have seen this and could get value from it or arbed it. The opportunity is there if you look, quite a few hundred quid as well!
This week looks pretty reasonble with the holiday cards increasing the scope and capacity of the racing. I reckon it should be a good week.
It’s jungle out there
Posted by Peter Webb in News on December 2nd, 2011
Another week and another amazing betting system drops into my inbox.
Each one is similar to the last, as for only a few quid, limited to just a few people; you can have a system that requires little work yet prints money. Sounds fantastic, but as we all know it’s just not true. Why sell something for a fraction of the profit it allegedly generates? Just doesn’t make any sense.
In the past I have noticed that most of these systems are simply ebooks or manuals of one sort or another, but increasingly you are now seeing software being touted with these systems.
When you receive these new mailers it’s difficult to believe any of the claims. But furthermore, when you dig deeper, you often find the individuals involved have done their best to hide their identities. Doing a ‘who is’ on the domain reveals nothing. Asking, enquiring or trying to dig for a contact equally draws up a blank. So, my point….
There has been a lot of talk and incidences where betting accounts are being actively de-frauded. We were all alarmed to learn that Betfair will not refund in these cases as they are not taking counter party risk, yet. Therefore, could you realistically use software where you can’t see it has been approved by an exchange, has no track record and you can’t even find out who made it? Coupled with extravagant claims, it’s not really worth the risk is it?
I know most readers of the blog will not be in the group of people that could be suckered by these things, but if you know somebody that could be drawn in. Give them a gentle reminder and save a lot of possible heartache. At best we may move to a situation when everybody understands the risks involved and maybe get some formal involvement from the exchanges themselves.
Given the risks, he is probably a better bet.
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.
Bombs away
Posted by Peter Webb in Horse Racing 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!
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.
United vs City
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on October 23rd, 2011
One of the big matches of the season is up today, the Manchester Derby. I’m really intrigued.
This is the real acid test of who is going to be in the ascendancy over the season. Both have thrown down the gauntlet with very good early season performances and matching each other stride for stride so far. So this match is the first opportunity to throw both in the mix and see what comes out of the melting pot.
You have to feel there is a good chance of a draw. Either side will not want to lose and that will cause either side to really chase down a goal if they go behind. Local matches always throw up more draws than non local matches anyhow. I’d love to watch it but unfortunately I will be on a plane at kick off so I wont get to see it at all. I’ll have to fire up my laptop to view the highlights when I land.
Good luck if you are getting involved. You may be interested in taking up Betdaq’s offer of your commission back if either team come from behind to win. Click here to learn more about the offer. Just how often would this happen? On average the away team scores first 44% of the time. 32% of the time they will score first but not win, so it’s a definite possibility. But, Manchester City have only won once at Old Trafford since 1974 – a 2-1 victory for Sven-Goran Eriksson’s side in 2008. It’s going to be an interesting battle.
Click here to learn more about the offer
That’ll do nicely
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on October 17th, 2011
I had a feeling Saturday would turn out to be an interesting day, so I pulled out all stops to take advantage. I did well and it was a real pleasure to net my best day ever (At least before commission).
I managed to pick up a lot of decent results from a wide spectrum of events on both exchanges. Thanks to favourable commission rates and favourable liquidity conditions on Betdaq, it meant I found it pretty easy to beat my post commission Betfair totals on a lot of events. Overall I’m really chuffed with how it went. I’m picking and choosing my targets nowadays, so I’m glad I got Saturday just about right.
I’d happily recommend using both exchanges now, as I think both are perfectly tradable. I may not have said that a couple of years ago. It’s a big positive that we have two viable exchanges now. Yes, liquidity is lower on Betdaq, but it’s growing and there are fewer strange things going on over there, which makes it a bit easier. That also means the actual fill rate is higher in a lot of cases and that reduces overall risk. I note that different sports are at different levels of liquidity at the moment. But if history is anything to go by I think that may change. I guess either may suit different people and styles, so I suggest you try both. However, if you run both versions of Bet Angel next to each other you can see that both exchanges more or less track each other, but sometimes they do slip apart.
Betdaq is used by the vast majority of on-course bookmakers so you can possibly see some late hedging going on now and again. But more or less they are similar. A price held up on Betfair very often does the same thing on Betdaq, but at that point Betdaq often shows a ‘cleaner’ path forward. In short I think it’s worth having both up now as you can get an extra dimension to the markets.
The market is an ever ebbing and flowing tide so I’m always on the look out for anything that is changing shape or form. I’ll keep you informed. Something curious happened to me recently, I’ll see if I can post up later this week.
Anyhow here are a couple of highlights from Saturday. I’m going to talk about these at my next course on the 17th November. These were NOT the biggest results of the day, but there were two of the most satisfying:-
Book%
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on October 13th, 2011
I fielded a question from somebody recently about the book% and what information does that contain?
I’ve seen quite a few theories about what the book% can actually tell you, but here is what it tells me.
At it’s most basic level the book percentage is merely a broad measure of the market. A big number of selections will equate to a big book% and small field a small one. This is due to the spread between back and lay prices. For example two selections priced at 1.99 would create a book of 100.5% on the back side and 100% on the lay side. If you expanded the selections to ten runners priced at 10′s, the best book you could get on the lay side would be 95.2%.
Early on in a market the book% will be higher than near the start of an event and this contraction is caused by more and more competitive prices being offered to the market. This process produces a subtle drift in prices on the back side of the market.
Back in the early days the book% was higher than it is now. Overtime it has shrunk and that has meant that outright backing or laying strategies have become a lot more viable. But whatever you do, you can’t avoid giving something to the house in the form of commission. However, in highly variable markets its quite possible to get a back or lay price matched above or below the VWAP price. This makes backing or laying for value quite possible. A side effect of the shrinking of the book% over the years is that less money has been lost and this, I suspect, is one of the reasons that Betfair have felt uncomfortable with the lack of losers. But it’s an exchanges biggest USP as well.
From a trading perspective the book% doesn’t hold much value for me as it is a re-active measure. When the price on a highly liquid runner is shortening, this will increase the % and when it is drifting it will decrease it. You could argue it pinpoints the turn of a trend but that is very reliant on what is happening elsewhere in the book. You may as well look at a chart at that point!
Book% isn't an open book
Dilemma
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on October 12th, 2011
It’s just gone 08:30 on Wednesday morning and I’m up over £700 on the day already. On Saturday, I sat down to do a decent days work on the exchanges. Across both I earned somewhere between £3.5-4k which was similar to last year, slightly higher as Betdaq is contributing more than it did in prior years. What’s my point?
As you are probably aware I’ve been doing this for over a decade now, have collected a ton of data and experience and know the markets in infinite detail now. I can tell you what is likely to happen in the next few milliseconds and the next few hours. Despite this, thanks to new charges, you can earn more than me at this now; it’s an odd situation. I am effectively at a disadvantage in the market. This causes a dilemma, two in fact. The second I will explain on a future post.
The upshot is that I am currently pondering what I should do about this. I have loads of great ideas around the software which I can spend more time on, we also have a nice office here kitted out with excellent training facilities which is relatively underused. But the bottom line is that, even with punitive charges, I need to be sure doing something else is a good use of my time . I love messing around and learning new things, doing new research and exploring the limits of what I do; but it also has to have an economic payoff and not impinge too much on the wider development of completely new things I want to do professionally and that of my family. Over the last decade I have worked on more than just betting exchanges, so that demands increasing attention also. The share of this activity has grown faster than my work on betting exchanges.
Using Bet Angel on Saturday yielded the equivalent of about 320 monthly subscriptions. This morning, the equivalent of another 50. There is no doubt it’s good value for money, so my task there is to try and get that message across. If I fail, then the bottom line is that will be worth more to me than it is to others. On the training side we are looking at a number of options to help people achieve their potential but the same rule applies there also. So if you want to experience advice from somebody that actually does it, register your interest there so you can keep up to date with the new things that we are doing.
But, as we exit the busy period and move into November, I am definitely in full on pondering mode!
Bet Angel for Betdaq
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on October 4th, 2011
Somebody emailed me yesterday asking when we will be upgrading the Betdaq version of Betdaq. For those that were not aware, we did this in July; hence this post this morning!
Bet Angel for Betdaq is available free of charge and we were the first vendors to release a Betdaq version of our product way back in 2008. The upgrade in July was the first major upgrade we have done in a while. There are still some differences between products, but both and very similar now and you get a similar range of features and capabilities.
I’m not going to recommend you use one exchange or the other, that’s your choice. But I often use both exchanges where it makes sense on one or the other, or when liquidty, market structure or availability of certain markets suits. BetDaq Angel is availble free, so why not download and use it today.
Download by clicking here: -
http://www.betangel.com/download/
I have put up a video to show you what it looks like here: -
http://www.betangel.tv/video/using-bet-angel/getting-started/151-betdaq
Time for a chit chat
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on September 25th, 2011
It’s been a while since I did my last webinar so I’ve decided to dust off the webinar service and give it another go.If it goes without a hitch I will do some more. Now the evening racing is gone, that will also free my time up a bit more. I plan to hold the webinar on Monday evening 8pm UK time.
There is no specific topic planned, but I am sure there will be lots of questions. The format will be to turn up and ask some questions and we will attempt to get through as many as we can.
To register for the webinar visit: -
Cheaters never prosper
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on September 24th, 2011
I saw this post on another blog recently and it shows up how statistics can actually reveal very little at all. This is obviously unintended in this case, but is a trap a lot of people fall into very often. Especially when gambling / trading.
http://www.soccerbythenumbers.com/2011/09/cheaters-never-prosper-connection.html
I first looked into the relationship with fouls and goals some time ago and the link is the attacking strength of one team over the defence of another. If your defence is under pressure then they are more likely to commit a foul. It’s as simple as that, there is little more to be read into things.
For some time I sought to understand how to price odds on a football match. This was the obvious key to finding value. Bit by bit I improved my forecasting skills to the nth degree. In that quest I discovered many things, but one of them was how a lot of stats that are proffered to the market are in fact completely useless in determining value.
If a team has scored two goals a match for ten matches in a row, then you may think this has some bearing on the next match. But ultimately it doesn’t. But that doesn’t stop every pundit and his son offering this as a useful stat. In fact the source of true odds actually lies much deeper in individual statistics and how you plug two disparate teams together. Sort that out and you have the key to successful forecasting.
Betfair suffer DNS hack
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on September 5th, 2011
Betfair and a number of popular web sites suffered when hackers changed their DNS records to redirect their visitors to their site. It’s important to note that the site itself was not hacked. For the full story read the following link: -
Passive Tennis trading
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on September 2nd, 2011
Missed most of the US open last night as I opted to play Tennis rather than watch it, but I still profited on the matches last night.
I also had a nice reminder of how using stats can show a different version of the match than the score. I won 6-4 6-4 last night, but the first set was quite tight and I effectively won it with a break of serve in the ninth game. The second set was not close, but I lost two games against serve when I relaxed and tried too many adventurous shots. The score would have been 6-2 otherwise. A good reminder that you should always keep your eye on points won, rather than games won.
Bet Angel contains some very useful tools that allow you to do one thing while doing another. Using Guardian and the spreadsheet integration allows you to expand your sphere of opportunity. The following video shows us linking to all the days matches at the US Open: -
http://www.betangel.tv/video/using-bet-angel/using-spreadsheets/215-tennismultiplespreadsheet
One thing you may want to try is passive trading, setting up a position to get matched in-play to generate a profit (or loss!). I do this lot in the early rounds of Tennis tournaments. I use Tennis trader to identify key areas in a match and place an opening bet offset to get matched at a different price during the match. I can then monitor this in the background with Guardian and use a spreadsheet to give me an at a glance look at how things are going. This means I can trade all the matches with some potential in them. The trick is to place your bets at a area where they are likely to match, but with enough margin that they offset the ones that don’t work.
For example, using Tennis trader I have looked at the Murray match this evening and, excluding tie breaks and the last set won to advantage beyond seven, there are 659 possible score lines that could occur. Projecting forward the odds shows a cluster of odds that are much more likely to be hit than normal so I can place bets in or around this area knowing that unless there is a radical change in the shape of the match I have maximised the upside potential while framing the potential for loss. There is a cluster of potential around 1.30′s in this match which focuses any potential down to the question ‘Can I find more than one in three matches like this where this score will occur’. A variation on this is to place a trade with a trailing stop that has to potential to move into a profitable position. You can then set and forget and come back to analyse the results later, but you are still asking a similar question.
I do this a lot, placing positions in the market with a decent payoff and then searching for the right opportunity. And that in essence, is how you set up a passive trade.
Not so passive
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!
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.
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.
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
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.
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
Gooder Goodwood
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on July 29th, 2011
My old English tutor would have a heart attack with that title!
Had my best day of the week yesterday and should be headed for a great festival overall. The day didn’t start very well with a delayed start and then I got my bottom spanked at Nottingham when I failed to address an alarming drift on the horse I was trading. But from there in things just got better and better. I managed to pull in some really good results across the card on the day, not just at Goodwood. I’m not setting expectations for a repeat today but the card does look generally OK.
After collecting a ton of data on the way Betdaq markets manifest themselves, I had an epiphany last Saturday and I have managed to take that thought forward this week for a generally good performance all round. Previously I had only really used Betdaq at the bigger meetings but I am starting to pull out some decent results whatever the grade of race now. If you look at the last race of the day yesterday at Goodwood it wasn’t the best race by far, but I still got a reasonable result on that. The growing liquidity on Betdaq is helping me a lot. Should be a good week.
A bit of a ouch moment!
Betfair International Stakes
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on July 24th, 2011
Couldn’t resist posting up this P&L on this race from yesterday. OK I got more on Betfair, a bit, but nowhere near the same when if deduct a 60% commission.
You should always do what is best for you, especially in a trading market, but look at my circumstances. It’s a strange feeling to only be able to earn 40% what others can earn by doing exactly the same thing. I can teach people how to do similar things and with a bit of practice they could replicate it , but I can only possibly win 40% of what they can. I struggle to comprehend that. Is this issue a portent to new charges, or a mistake to be rescinded?
For me, the equivalent value of the win like this on Betfair translates to pre commission £317, which would have been an unlikely result on this race. Now I’ve had a lot more practice I am starting to pick up some decent results on Betdaq, not only on the bigger races but also on the smaller ones too and there seems to be few problems interacting with the market. Last year Betdaq was very quiet but with the increase in liquidity it’s really starting to look interesting. Still a very long way to go but, I’m really looking forward to Goodwood next week where we should see some good markets across both exchanges. It will be an interesting week for sure and I’ll report back what I find.
Bet Angel is available for Betfair or Betdaq so you can choose where you want to do business, or why not use both?
Betfair – Cross matching
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on July 22nd, 2011
Cross matching has slowly been implemented across many sports markets on Betfair and earlier this year on the big one, horse racing.
There are still some odd things with cross matching. Prices for the API and for the Betfair web site are different. This is because cross matching is not exposed via the API. We put the cross matching algorithm into Bet Angel, but quite a large number of API applications still show the ‘wrong’ prices. Betfair also never tell you when it is on or off, this only adds to the confusion.
When it was introduced on Horse Racing it was positioned as follows: -
“Cross-matching was introduced on most sports during 2008 and has had a significant, positive impact on liquidity.”
As you may be aware, because we are in the market all the time, we keep very detailed records on just about anything that happens. This gave us the chance to observe what happened when the cross matching was switched on in the horse racing markets.
Curiously the implementation caused the fill rate to drop from it’s previous level. What we found was that if you put an order in the market and waited for it to be filled, it filled twice as fast before cross matching was implemented than after it’s implementation. That seems a bit odd. Some of it could be accounted for by the fact that money now appearas elsewhere in the book when it can’t get matched at a certain price, but the average queue size doesn’t seem to reflect that.
Currently we are studying the markets post the 18th July. We are doing this because we do expect another change. We will report back when we have enough data as to how is has changed from this date.
A different sort of cross matching
Botfair
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on July 20th, 2011
I read some comments yesterday evening from some ‘traditional’ punters about how they were pleased Betfair’s new charges were going to get rid of the bots. Unfortunately for these posters, the opposite is almost certainly likely to be true. There is some pretty simple logic behind it.
Say you have a winning bot that makes money on a market and you suddenly face higher charges. At this level you would most likely work more aggressively to make more to offset those charges. Dropping down a level, say you had something that generally worked but took a lot of time as you had to manually do certain tasks. Losing a lot of that income to a third party for no reward means it could suddenly be unviable if you manually intervene, so the answer is to automate it to save your precious time. OK it may not yield as much, but at least it yields something and doesn’t take any of your time.
Less bots because of increased charges? I bet you it’s more.
If you are interested in automating your activity give Bet Angel’s spreadsheet functionality a try, http://www.betangel.com/excel/. It can pre-load multiple markets to one sheet, or automatically switch to events as the day progresses. It also includes some unique scripting capabilities to enable you to automate key trading functions.