Tag: world cup

The flat is back

The flat is back

While playing Football World Cup in the desert may not be a great ideal, running the world’s richest race is!

This weekend we have two key events in the racing calendar , the highest profile being the Dubai World Cup in Meydan. Here is another sports event I will make the effort to attend some day. For the moment, I’m still sat behind my monitor taking an active interest in it from the other side. The racecourse was designed to

27/03/2015 | By | Reply More
World Cup Final stats

World Cup Final stats

These stats are brought to your by our friends over at Football Form Labs. Check out their site and the powerful software that sits behind these comments.

First off, kudos to Football Form Labs for picking the winner of the World Cup. But hold your horses the match hasn’t started yet? Well it doesn’t matter because they nominated both Argentina and Germany, boom! Well done. So here are their thoughts on the final

Much like when these sides met …

13/07/2014 | By | Reply More
Das erste Halbfinale

Das erste Halbfinale

I couldn’t talk about the Rio 2014 semi finals without paying homage to Germany’s remarkable record. Forget all the England coaches we have had in the past, why don’t we get a German in charge?

Die BBC hat eine schone Zusammenfassung: –

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/28202397

Der letzte “normale” Arbeit, die ich gemeint hatte, arbeitete ich für drei Jahre in Deutschland. So habe ich ein bisschen Deutsch in mir.

Onto the match however. It’s, not surprisingly, being priced as a tight affair with …

08/07/2014 | By | Reply More
Neymar out Germany in

Neymar out Germany in

It’s interesting to reflect on my post yesterday when I indicated that backing the winner of the first quarter final may prove fruitful ahead of the second match.

As it turned out there was another reason why this may be the case, but it came from an unexpected source. With Neymar now out of the world cup, Brazil’s chances have been re-assessed. After touching 2.90 they have drifted back to 3.80 and the Germans are into 3.45 from 3.80 …

05/07/2014 | By | Reply More
Betfair exhibit sense of humour

Betfair exhibit sense of humour

Just took this screen shot to use at the course I’m presenting on Tuesday. Take a look at the top left of the screen!

28-06-2014 - Full P&L - Copy

28/06/2014 | By | Reply More
The (cold hard cash) winners so far in the World Cup

The (cold hard cash) winners so far in the World Cup

OK we know who’s through and who is out, but how has that translated into a profitable strategy so far in the World Cup?

Listed below are the returns to £10 stakes on each team that has qualified for the knock-out part of the tournament. Of course, the best bet of the tournament again was to lay England to do anything reasonably useful. But  in reality, we should have all been on Costa Rica instead. But the returns here show …

28/06/2014 | By | Reply More
The trading dead zone

The trading dead zone

It doesn’t happen often, but now and again all things conspire to produce a dead zone in the markets. We are currently in that dead zone.

First off, this relates to the racing markets. Racing markets are seasonal and peak and trough around major meetings. The last was, obviously, Ascot. So you can get a trough before a major meeting, but you almost certainly get one after it.

Summer racing can be a bit weak as there are more meetings …

26/06/2014 | By | Reply More
Pre match volume at the World Cup

Pre match volume at the World Cup

Just cut some data on the pre-match volume at the world cup and thought I would share it with you.

The chart is looking at what percentage of volume arrives when, represented as a percentage. So all matches ‘end’ with 100% of volume at the start of the match. Y axis is percentage, X axis time in minutes before the start of the match.

You can see both graphs are pretty similar but there is a lot more money earlier …

23/06/2014 | By | Reply More
Profiting from Lay the draw – before the off!

Profiting from Lay the draw – before the off!

A curious episode in the annals of sports trading this week. No, not another England fail at a major tournament but an opportunity to profit, with a bit of foresight.

With Italy due to play Costa Rica and hold England hopes alive I was browsing the various scenarios in a similar manner to the way I did at the end of the EPL season.

I posted some comments on the forum where I was looking at the prospect of …

21/06/2014 | By | Reply More
World Cup Winners – Trading returns so far

World Cup Winners – Trading returns so far

In summary the big gainers are Germany& the Netherlands. Big losers Spain and to an extent Portugal & Uruguay. But the latter two never had short odds to start. Here is the full overview though. Returns to £10 stakes: –

Postive – Germany – Started at 8 now at 5.8 – Returns £3.79
Postive – Netherlands – Started at 46 now at 14 – Returns £22.86
Postive – France – Started at 23 now at 19 – Returns £2.11
Postive …

17/06/2014 | By | Reply More
How did the world cup draw affect your teams chance?

How did the world cup draw affect your teams chance?

Money talks and as the World Cup draw was made, the market moved as people discounted a favorable or unfavorable draws. But for whom and how much?

The big winners were Argentina as the market shifted nearly 4% in their favour. Was England’s draw so bad? They slipped from 28 to 30 in decimal odds, only an decline of 0.25% in implied probability terms. They had little change, they have slightly less. Spain suffered the most as their chance of …

06/12/2013 | By | Reply More
Adding multiple soccer markets using Guardian

Adding multiple soccer markets using Guardian

Bet Angel has so many useful features that many of them are hidden away and not immediately obvious.

For example, did you know you can quickly add all ‘Match odds’ markets for football (soccer) games happening on a particular date in the Guardian tool? And if you only want to bet on the premiership games, these are easy to add too.

Multi market trading is in high demand and the Guardian tool within Bet Angel is a great way of …

10/08/2013 | By | Reply More
Lessons from England vs San Marino

Lessons from England vs San Marino

When England played San Marino at Wembley last time I captured a bunch of data. I was aiming to try and understand the best way to approach matches at such short odds.

In hindsight, most of it was obvious but it was worth examining; after-all there are lots of very short prices out there this evening.

There isn’t much to say about matches like this, England should completely pummel San Marino, but England are England aren’t they?

At Wembley, despite …

22/03/2013 | By | Reply More
Money buyers of the world unite!

Money buyers of the world unite!

World Cup qualifiers are the order of the day again and we have some highly uncompetitive matches on the card. So uncompetitive you would be sorely tempted to re-mortgage the house and lump it on a few on these matches. The Czech’s are 1.08 to beat the mighty Malta at home. If that’s not good enough, Netherlands at 1.01 to attack Andorra looks tempting. But the daddy of them all is England to beat San Marino at 1.01. Surely worth …

12/10/2012 | By More
Betfair miss the chance for some great customer service

Betfair miss the chance for some great customer service

First off, on the plus side, the start of the flat turf season was a success, so that was a big positive.

On the downside; how would you feel if minutes into a game of football the match stopped and the team you just backed, decided to field a reserve team instead? Would you like your bet to stand? Thought not!

Yesterday at Meydan the Dubai Gold Cup had to be stopped mid race due to a fatal injury to …

01/04/2012 | By More
Flat pack

Flat pack

Looking forward to the return of the flat turf season today with the Lincoln at Doncaster. 22 horses line up to battle out this competitive handicap.

We should rejoice at the return of the flat turf season. It’s return will herald less clashing and generally bigger fields. In the winter it can be a right pain when you have many cards and all the races and are falling all over each other. This will mean you should see better opportunities …

31/03/2012 | By More
World Cup Cricket

World Cup Cricket

Some really massive matched amounts coming through these markets. New Zealand vs Sri Lanka reached £30m in matched bets and so did last nights big match between Indian and Pakistan.

I hadn’t considered doing much on this tournament but I’ll be taking a very keen interest in the final now given the level of activity on these matches. Advice to follow on another post.

31/03/2011 | By More
2012 all over again?

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 …

01/12/2010 | By More
Spain will win

Spain will win

While browsing the other night I found this really interesting peice: –

https://kn.theiet.org/magazine/issues/1008/predicting-football-1008.cfm

It’s quite rare to find some decent stuff on the Internet. It’s amazing how many experts are out there, despite there actually being very few people who can claim to be true experts. My definition, somebody who is willing to back up their rhetoric with hard cash!

Anyhow, this is an interesting peice and would have made an even better read before the world cup!

26/09/2010 | By More
It’s over

It’s over

Last night finally saw the World Cup end.

It’s been a great couple of months but I’m exhausted, so I am personally glad to see the end of this busy period. It’s really great having such opportunities, but it’s impossible to work flat out like this for any length of time. Time for some recuperation and hindsight. It has been very rewarding though, with last week bringing in my second biggest week ever.

I’ve also gathered lots of data to …

12/07/2010 | By More
The world cup effect?

The world cup effect?

We noticed recently that the racing markets have picked up a bit recently. So I thought I would look to see if volume had been affected by Wimbledon and the World Cup. I picked a day when England were playing and looked to see if volumes had dropped.

You can see the gap on the graph, but this was mainly caused by the first race not reaching the same volume as the last race, last year. If you adjust the …

10/07/2010 | By More
Germany vs Spain

Germany vs Spain

The market is priced for 2.40 goals or thereabouts with a 1.20 goals to Spain. The Germans have stormed through to the semi final whereas the Spanish appear to have ground out results but both teams slipped up in the group stages.

Some interesting notes I’ve copied from elsewhere: –

  • Victory at Euro 2008 was only Spain’s second win in eight competitive games against the Germans.
  • Germany are unbeaten in three previous World Cup games against the Spanish.
  • Overall, the
07/07/2010 | By More
Uruguay vs Netherlands

Uruguay vs Netherlands

I think you would have to fancy the Netherlands in this match, which the market is doing by one goal. But it is also pricing in very few goals, just short of 2.30. So the market summarises this as a tight match with the Dutch should win.

I would secretly like a Germany / Netherlands final as it would add some serious spice to the mix, but I suspect Uruguay will feel they have an equal chance. A lot rests …

06/07/2010 | By More
No pleasure

No pleasure

OK, so I got the Netherlands win right, Murray’s defeat at Wimbledon and Forlan scoring with Uruguay qualifying for the semis. But other than the Netherlands win, the other two were a little bitter. A couple of cruicial points would have seen the Murray match take a different complexion and a long overdue UK mens finalist at Wimbledon. As for Ghana’s defeat, it would have been nice to see a win rather than that last minute ‘cheating’ drama. I am …

03/07/2010 | By More
Reaching a climax

Reaching a climax

Excuse the double entendre  but both Wimbledon and the World cup are now reaching the critical stages.

Both Nadal and Murray know that they have a great chance to win Wimbledon if they get through the semi final. That said, Berdych is on fire at the moment as I write this. I can’t help but think Murray’s price is a little low given his opponent. The market is telling us there is only a 2.7% difference in ability given the …

02/07/2010 | By More
More about penalties

More about penalties

Following the recent chatter on penalties, I note the absence of them so far! Somebody posted on the forum about a very useful tool that you can use.

I didn’t know this existed, so thanks to the poster for finding it. It confirms what I was talking about, but more importantly it could prove very useful if a match goes to penalties. This is because it allows you to examine all previous results from the penalty takers and …

29/06/2010 | By More
Ouch, that’s embarrassing

Ouch, that’s embarrassing

I don’t think it needs any more comment really does it? Apparently the English league is the most competitive and highly paid in the world with some of the best individuals. And individuals they will remain!!!

I’ve consoled myself by smashing into a few horse races that followed the match, sorry about that! But one of them was the Irish Derby, too good to miss. Grabbing a few hundred will allow me to drown my sorrows tonight.

Obviously blatter is happy to see this time and time again

Obviously blatter is

27/06/2010 | By More
Coin flippers re-union at 3pm

Coin flippers re-union at 3pm

Had a look at THE match stats this morning.

The market has priced in just a shade over two goals for the Germany vs England match. England have a 0.10 goal advantage. The market is pricing in a tight nervous affair where one goal could be enough, but a draw is the most likely result. Obviously if you share two goals amongst two teams then a draw is very likely.

I sense a nervous two hours come 3pm but having …

27/06/2010 | By More
The maths behind penalities – Part Two

The maths behind penalities – Part Two

Yesterday we saw that goalkeepers are basically glory seekers, or at least showing that they understand the psychology of failing the right way. Today we give a final answer on what David James should do if faced by a German penalty today.

Often the best way to look at something is to turn it on it’s head. When we looked at penalities we saw that while kicks are randomly distributed, the goalkeepers actions are not. So lets look at when …

27/06/2010 | By More
The maths behind penalities – Part One

The maths behind penalities – Part One

Groups stages, tight games, can’t afford to lose, Germany, England. This must only add up to one thing, penalties!

Are we going to suffer again, will there be the same agony as in prior years? Penalties is another area I have looked at and I think the findings may be of use to any prospective England goalkeeper facing a penalty, football traders may also benefit.

First off, you can reach some easy conclusions. From spot to net, the ball will …

26/06/2010 | By More
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