Author Archive: Peter Webb
I left a good job in the consumer technology industry to go a trade on Betfair for a living way back in June 2000.
I've been here ever since pushing very boundaries of what's possible on betting exchanges and loved every minute of it.
Why I never turn my phone off, ever….
Most people know the significance of this date, but for a small group of traders, this date has even more significance.
Our story of this day
It started the same as any other day. I was scheduled to do a talk in central London on guess what, trading on betting exchanges. I took the train in central London, as did my delegates and after switching from overground to underground I remember clearly looking at the clock on the exit at …
Tennis – Small margins, large number of points
If you have been active on Wimbledon you would have seen some great matches. But you should have also seen something else, maybe without realising it.
Odd odds
Often you see an outsider really battle away at a heavy odds-on favourite, maybe even winning the first set, but despite this, their odds don’t seem to come in that much. If you look at top player against a lower player, the outsider can be one set all and leading 4-1. But …
Making mincemeat of Strawberries and cream
Here is how Bet Angel can help you this Wimbledon, whether you trade Tennis or not.
It’s packed full of features that are a must-have for any Tennis trader, established or aspiring.
I don’t trade Tennis
That’s not a problem, but maybe you should look at this popular in-play sport, especially during Wimbledon?
Bet Angel has free Tennis bots and can operate in practice mode which means there is no risk to your money. The advanced automation can execute ‘set …
Why Saturday is like a mini Ascot for me
When I first started sports trading, I treated it like a 9-5 job.
I did all the usual things you would in a normal job and returned to my out of work activities after the day was over. Fairly quickly I realised that this wasn’t going to work and was a terrible error of judgement. All the best opportunities seemed to occur outside of ‘normal’ hours and therefore I had to shift my working patterns.
Shifting my workload
At first, …
Ascot 2017 post meeting summary
I’ve been meaning to summarise Ascot. It’s always worth doing as you can refer back to it next year for comparison, so here goes: –
Turnover
Betfair ended up matching, at post time, around £70.5m which was up on last year by about 23%. Last year was down quite a bit so this returns the matched bet turnover to levels that would be deemed ‘normal’.
In the run up to Ascot, I reckoned it would trade around £65m so that’s …
Trading Royal Ascot
And so here we are another year, another Ascot. That came around quickly didn’t it?
For me, it’s another declined invitation to attend the event. While that pains me somewhat, for the moment, I’d still rather be on this side of the desk during one of the busiest weeks of the year. You wouldn’t see a professional footballer work hard all season, only to decline the chance to play in the Champions League final. So missing any major meeting is …
US PGA Golf
Before we talk specifically about trading the US Open, why not check out our Golf trading videos at https://www.betangel.tv
I enjoy my annual foray into the US Open Golf because it reminds me of my very first activity on betting exchanges way back in June 2000. Aside from a small flutter on some financial markets, it was the Golf that launched my betting exchange career. Back then Tiger Woods was being offered at 4.00 for the championship and Colin Montgomerie …
Two card Tuesdays
We have reached the time of year when Monday and Tuesday racing drops to two cards in the afternoon.
The impact of just two race meetings
It’s an important time of year, as this changes the characteristic of these cards to the negative. But also it allows you to do a few other things and skip these cards if needed. Racing tends to be lower quality on a Monday and Tuesday and that combined with the 15-minute gaps in-between the …
Going Grey
Back in 2010, I commented during some bleak winters months, I had a dabble at Greyhound markets.
Since then I hadn’t done much work on Greyhounds as the return per day didn’t justify the effort. However, since that last post, two things may me revisit them.
The first is some renewed interest in the forum, and the second is the turnover figures I saw when I reviewed the markets at the start of the year. Bet Angel has …
Punting on Politics – General election turnout
I did a little piece on the General election recently for Betfair. Underlying it was some work I’d looked at recently on turnout for elections.
Apathy
When the election was called the markets shifted significantly anticipating a Conservative landslide. I immediately wondered if there would be a correlation between certainty and turnout. But first I had to work out what a ‘normal’ turnout would look like.
I looked back at elections since the second world and munched through some …
The Oak’s Betfair’s first ever market
So today we reach the Oaks and tomorrow the Derby when the summer racing really starts to step up a gear. The start of June means Royal Ascot is just around the corner.
If you are a Betfair newbie you may not know that the Oaks at Epsom was Betfair’s first market way back when they started in June 2000. But it was a little later that year, on June 11th. Mark Davis reminisced on his blog about it. I …
Are Arsenal getting better or worse?
Arsenal to finish fourth and win the FA Cup? Maybe not this year then, so it’s Wenger out?
Financial fair play?
I look at many different aspects of football aside from the general market pricing. Being able to read a financial report, a club’s financials can be quite useful for predicting long-term performance. Clubs that carry a lot of debt expense will see their ability to finance the purchase of new players squeezed. Clubs that are flush with finance can …
Betfair trading – Little and often soon adds up
This is a phrase I’ll often quote when advising people on how to trade.
The real objective when trading
It’s really nice to bang in some massive results now and again, but generally, that’s not what trading is about. Most of the time I’m in a market I’m just looking for an opportunity. Something I recognise as having a decent chance of a payoff, with as little downside as possible. Sometimes you just can’t see them and sometimes they are …
The London Marathon – When I became a QPR fan
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. Good luck to all those running or watching 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. I’ve been really good this year and gradually built up my distance again, but once …
Trading Tennis in-clay – When it’s good to see Red
European clay court Tennis, Group Racing at Newmarket, the Grand National behind us; spring is definitely here!
We are now on the cusp of a lot of major sporting action. The Monte Carlo Masters Tennis is a signal to start dusting down things for the French Open. The European clay court season is upon us and it presents us with some decent opportunities.
Tennis – Why Red Clay can equal Green
Clay is an interesting surface for Tennis because of …
Betfair trading – Ten years apart
A reflective and rather long post for the bank holiday weekend.
Don’t look back in anger
I recently looked back at some stats from the start of 2007 and compared them to 2017. I’ll often compare previous periods and markets to see what I find. I’ve always archived huge amounts of data as doing so allows me to monitor my own activity, but also see how the market changes over time.
My strike rate on racing in 2007 was a …
Aintree, the Grand National and fallers
If there is one thing Aintree is known for it is spectacular fallers. In 2011 British racing yielded to public opinion and changed the fences at Aintree. The idea was to stop more fallers and serious injuries to horses. Did that happen? Will it happen? What the key factors behind a faller in a race?
Source data
To answer all the questions I took a look at half a million horses that raced around the various jumps races over the …
New version of Bet Angel released
We are pleased to announce that a new beta version of Bet Angel Professional is available v1.47.0
Download it from here: – https://www.betangel.com/securedownload … _beta1.exe
Following feedback from our community this version sees:
- the introduction of Staking Methods
- the option to calculate Offsets (and Stop Losses) by Percentage instead of ticks.
- for Advanced Automation users, the ability to quickly Copy Rules between Automation Files.
Staking method
Bet Angel can now vary stake based on the placement price of a …
The Betfair exchange in numbers
I started collecting data on Betfair from the very early days and have carefully archived masses of work that I’ve done in the market.
I hoard data, even if I have no need for it, as I can go back and look at or compare previous periods. This is helpful in sporting terms to understand how the markets behaved in the past, but also I’ll often go back to apply something I recently discovered and see if results are consistent …
The growth and growth of inplay
It seems difficult to imagine a time when it wasn’t ‘all about the in-play’ – but before Ray and Betfair there really wasn’t much concept of betting on an event after the official start time. How things have changed!
The start
Back when exchanges started, it was purely a replication of the traditional bookmaker regime. Similar sports and similar punting styles, but exchanges brought this new concept of betting while an even was underway.
In essence, some markets were ‘in-play’ …
Everybody needs a role model
I’m very excited to have pre-ordered Ed Thorp’s new book. I suspect it will go on my top recommendations list.
Principles to live by
It’s important in life to find something you can live by. Some principles, desire, a path to follow. Often you look to others to find that.
A long time ago, while still at school, I visited at a friends house. There I stumbled across a Commodore pet. Learning to do some basic stuff on …
Bet Angel user guide, upgraded!
As regular users will know Bet Angel has continued to grow year after year with new features continually being added, often at the request of our users. This has inevitably resulted in an ever-expanding and extensive online user guide.
Quick links
We have therefore noticed that sometimes finding the information you’re looking for may have become quite time-consuming. For this reason, we have added in a new tab ‘Quick Links’ which we hope will make the online user guide more …
Trading Tennis at the Australian Open
January is when the Tennis season starts up again and it’s a great time to get some Tennis trading experience under your belt. With weaker markets elsewhere, the Australian Open is a great time to get going on Tennis.
If you want a quick browse of previous advice dispensed on Tennis, click here to search the blog for Tennis articles. But also view the playlist on betangel.tv. The forum is full of chatter from previous tournaments that should help …
Trading Christmas racing markets
It’s almost time to relax, but typically this can start and end sooner than you expect on racing markets.
Pre-Christmas period
The markets in the run up to Christmas day can be a bit barren. Indeed, this year, they thin out completely. We have some low-quality fodder through the week, then one Irish evening card on the 23rd and, obviously, nothing on the 24th and 25th.
It actually works well this year, as it means you can most likely take …
Loss recovery systems
A very common question I’m asked on specific trading strategies is ‘what do I do’ about losses.
Puzzlement
At first, I was pretty puzzled by this question.
You expect losses, they are part of trading. Trading is all about getting a positive expectancy. If you trade at random you will end up with random results. Because the market is generally very efficient this means that, excluding costs and commission, you will end up neither winning nor losing a massive amount …
Starting out as a sports trader – Scaling up
I was back on my small account on Monday. I was recording a few videos at low stakes (I posted one last week) and also giving instruction to my daughter; she is progressing nicely.
I’m also teaching a new recruit to the team. It’s interesting to watch and learn from newbies and how they look at the market. I feel like It’s a microcosm of the entire market. I ‘feel’ this in the market every day, but experiencing first hand …
Starting out as a sports trader
I’m conscious that when I post bigger totals people wonder how they were created? The first thing to note is that the commonality with them is that they were all created with a lot of experience and hard work! There are no shortcuts when it comes to really good quality trading. Knowledge, experience, hard work, the rollercoaster that is trading, all count. It takes a lot of practice to trade with larger stakes confidently, but you can do it!
Bigger …
Bet Angel – Now ten times faster!
We are pleased to announce that a new version of Bet Angel is now available.
The upgrade is free for all trial and existing users. There is no need to re-register. To upgrade simply download the latest version, install and log in!
Download it from here: –
https://www.betangel.com/download/?product=BetAngelPro
Key new feature – Exchange price streaming
This version adds support for Betfair’s Exchange Streaming for prices and bet updates. The feature is switched off by default but is activated by ticking …
‘Gut feelings’ help make successful traders
While browsing various papers I recently came across an academic report publish in Nature, entitled the unfriendly – ‘Interoceptive Ability Predicts Survival on a London Trading Floor’.
Basically speaking, researchers show that ‘gut feeling’ does indeed contribute to successful trades. You can read the full report here: –
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep3298
If you don’t want to wade through this, here are the key elements: –
First off, Physiologists often use the term ‘gut feeling’ as a colloquial synonym for any interoceptive sensation …
Difficult to Trump that
Well that was interesting.
It was clear for some time that this was going to be a huge market. Interestingly enough, the same guy I know that foresaw the financial crisis, also saw this development. I’m now his devout follower forever and would jump off a bridge if he told me it was appropriate 🙂
Previous markets
I started looking at this particular market back in 2004. Clinton was a democratic nominee back then as well and I’ve revisited each …
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