Posts Tagged gold
The fifth, five years on
Posted by Peter Webb in Betfair, Horse Racing 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
Blast from the past
Posted by Peter Webb in Golf on February 10th, 2009
I was wading back through my archives the other day and realised I am older than I thought! I actually placed my first bet on a betting exchange on June 5th 2000. It wasn’t on Betfair but on Flutter, Betfair’s early rival. I didn’t start on Betfair till the 18th June.
On the 5th June, I had a whopping £5 bet on the FTSE up or down market. A day later on the interest rate market and my first sport was Golf. I was backing and laying Tiger woods to win / not win the US Open and Colin Montgomerie as well.
Embedded on the spreadsheet are the immortal words ‘If you want to make money you need to lay at a lower price than you back at’. Would never have guessed back then, nearly nine years ago where those words would lead.
I knew way back then that it was worth putting some effort into things and seeing what I could make of the opportunity. I never realised just how big betting exchanges would get. I also didn’t realise just how the opportunity would present itself. If you said back then that in nine years time I would be gambling millions a week on the horses I would have thought you had gone mad. Just goes to show, always use the words impossible with the greatest of caution!