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.
The national – Part three
And so ends the national series for this year, a decent result on the The Grand national, the Scottish national and the Irish national. Outside of the Irish national there was little of interest for me today, I didn’t like the card and I was proved right, it was a mess. I really should stop doing days that I know I wont enjoy, it makes little material difference to me and to enjoy a day out on a boat …
Racing needs to wake up
Sunny public holiday, lots of people on extended holidays, spirits are high. But racing is struggling to muster up decent fare again.
Today we have a bumper bank holiday card with 8 meetings and 55 races on hand, excluding the Irish racing. But a casual glance down the UK card shows only Warwick with decent fields and out of the remaining 7 UK meetings only 4 races have ten runners or more. Hmmm….
No racing on Good Friday and only …
Gambling millions
Give me five minutes with somebody and I can teach you how to put through enormous sums through a market at relatively little risk, you wont make or lose much, but you will be able to say that you gambled millions that day, an impressive feat; or is it?
I have often been misquoted, especially when it comes to numbers. But one thing that is fairly certain in the modern betting age, is that racking up bets in the millions …
Probe starts into AW races
On top of rumours of another scandal about to break, the BHA is investigating unusual betting patterns at all weather courses: –
https://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/horse_racing/9465233.stm
Dropa del rey
Look at this image. Police men, firemen, bus stopped, everybody rushing to aid the dire situation at hand. Looks nasty, but infact it wasn’t a pedestrian under the wheels of this bus, it was the Copa del rey! For a video of the most entertaining part of this 0-0 draw view the following: –
https://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/13155619.stm
Fair weather
Well what a start to spring we have had in the UK! It’s more like the summer at the moment, not that this will impress people in warming climates, but it’s a welcome period after a very cold winter. Having flown away to warmer places in February, it’s been a good start to the year. No seasonal disorder for me this year!
The racing markets have been better in April as well, so the weather on that front is improving. …
Losing it!
A good example of key turning point in a Tennis match recently. Whether you consider the distraction a key point or the reaction to it, It dug under the mood and psyche of the player and triggered off a bad run in the match. Sometimes not all turning points are based on stats or interpretation of them. However, they do help frame your potential risk and reward and that’s why we created Tennis Trader.
https://sports.yahoo.com/tennis/
You can’t take account …
2011
At the start of the year I decided that 2011 will be a different year for me, let me explain.
Last year I pulled out all stops to achieve a few things left on the to do list. I picked last year as it marked a decade since Betfair started and I joined up. There were only a couple of long term things left that I wanted to do and, despite a poor January and December, I managed to achieve …
Grand national – take two
May seem odd to talk about the Grand National a week after it happened, but on Saturday we had the Scottish Grand National. While not as big, well know, or as popular as its bigger cousin it still provides some decent opportunities given the right conditions. Which it had on Saturday.
Gadget show
Just returning from the Gadget show in Birmingham. My kids and I are avid watchers of the show and we tried to go last year. but tickets sold out faster than a quantum computer.
This year we booked the tickets minutes after they were on sale so I carted the whole family up the M40 to Birmingham. I’ve loved gadgets from a very young age and I am still a sucker for something new. I’ve also applied gadgets to my …
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 …
One horse race
I was going to write about the FA Cup semi final today as it looks a really tantalising prospect. But the thing that really caught my eye this morning is racing’s continued struggles to adapt to modern commercial realities. The result of which is a race that includes just one runner at the 17:10 at Leicester this afternoon.
https://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011/apr/14/one-horse-race-leicester-protest
It’s unfortunate that prize money is under pressure, but in any other commercial regime you would simply incur less cost to …
Schwing
A really good day for swing traders and a generally good day to boot. Plenty of races, plenty of opportunties whatever your style; but the thing that stood out today were some big swings. Hope you had a good one.
Nothing’s impossible
That has to be the message that Harry Redknapp will send to his team this evening. But just what chance does he have?
When you can lay Real Madrid at 1.02 to qualify, so the market thinks Harry has less than a 2% chance. But memories are still fresh for me with that remarkable run Middlesbrough had in the UEFA cup a few years ago.
Spurs are priced at 3.35 for a win, the match is only priced for …
Cat and mouse
I’m expecting a game of cat and mouse tonight at Old Trafford, both teams would like to score but both have very strong incentives not to concede. This is the only match that holds any great interest in the remaining quarter finals, the others are formalities it would seem. I’ll put some energy into this match this evening but I’ll be planning on doing something else tomorrow.
Man Utd vs. Chelsea is priced at 2.40 goals with a 0.25 goal …
Record day
Phew, what a weekend that was!
We are now entering peak season for all things sports related and this weekend was a good warm up for the months ahead. It also set a new bench mark for me as the Saturday just gone turned out to be my best ever day on Betfair! Whether I can ever beat such a storming weekend is another question. When you have been going for as long as me, you need a little luck …
US Masters – The cut
It’s been an excellent Masters so far and the big mover before the cut was Jason Day who was trading at 300’s yesterday and has come into 16’s. Fortunately, I had some money on Day at 240’s, so that’s really made up the numbers at the cut. Tiger looks menacing so I have taken profits on positions and will re-appraise during the third day. I have plenty of profit to play with now. If I can’t see any new opportunities …
Tiring weekend ahead
First day of Aintree is now behind me and I can take that knowledge forward to today. I had a difficult start yesterday but ended up doing OK on the day overall in the end. I think I could have done better, but lets see what today brings. If you remember Cheltenham, you will be pleased to know that the Betdaq markets are working well at Aintree also, so bear than in mind today if you are finding the going …
US Masters golf
First trade of the tournament is already done. When the market was formed Woods was way too short at 5’s so I laid him. His best finish this year is T10 and there is no evidence at the moment that he was anywhere near a 4/1 chance for the masters. It turned out a lot of people thought the same and he is at a much bigger price and I am out for the moment. Not very often you get …
Showdown
Barcelona are priced for an easy win against Shakhtar and I can’t see beyond that. Barca will want to put this to bed comprehensively in the first leg. However, there are decent trades available for this scenario. Goals give you plenty of scope to hedge good set ups.
Last night’s legs were uncompetitive and the return legs look a formality now, which is a shame. The same can’t be said of tonights showdown at Stamford Bridge. I would have priced …
When Harry met Jose
Home wins look the order of the day for the first leg of the champions league this evening. It’s difficult to see beyond that, but as we seen already, anything is possible. When Harry last visited Madrid he got mugged, most Spurs fans will hope it doesn’t happen again on the field of play.
The pressure has to be on Real Madrid to get a result at home against Champions league novices Spurs. Spurs best chance of progressing has to …
Tennis season warms up
With Novak Djokovic’s win against Nadal at Miami yesterday, things are warming up nicely on the Tennis front. Next month the French Open will provide more clues, but it looks like this season we could have some great contests ahead of us.
Miami was a repeat of Indian wells and it provide some excellent trading opportunties. Neither event is highest profile on the tour, but it provided many clues for the summer season. It is clear that Novak is right …
I predict another draw
A cursory glance at the Italian football today reveals two matches were the matched bet volume is 5-6 times greater than normal and draw odds much shorter than expected. I have posted the two matches in question on the forum. I backed Brescia to win against Bologna on Saturday after picking up on activity on that match. Brescia were 2-0 up inside ten minutes, so I traded out at very short odds.
It prompted me to see what happened …
Clean sweep
A very pleasing today on all fronts with lots of decent sporting action to get stuck into and generally favourable results all round for my most popular strategies. The highlight was racing where I managed a clean sweep on all 34 races I participated in. It’s pretty tricky to achieve that nowadays and there are many ways to get tripped up as the day progresses, so it’s a very satisfying result.
Coupled with some excellent results elsewhere it was a …
March
Mainly thanks to Cheltenham March went OK. It was a surprise to post my best ever March as, outside of Cheltenham, some of the racing was just shocking. Field sizes have been very small and some of the racing just wildly uncompetitive. You wonder why some of these races are going ahead?
I was ‘luck positive’ in March which helped. Last year in April I had several massive doses of luck so I have virtually no chance of repeating that …
Waves
For some time I’ve noticed curious elements within betting markets. I love analysing and studying what happens in the market, and it’s all to find out that critical question, why?
Getting a deeper understanding is useful because it allows you to build a firm framework around your decisions. I’ve often seen people stumble on something that works and then come up with things to justify that. Eventually they will fail a little while later and slip out of existence, why? …
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.
Slapped wrists
Looks like Betfair have got slapped wrists again for their advertising.
This time is was for their claim that punters are 40% better off than industry SP when taking Betfair SP. I note the adjudication upheld elements of of the claim, but failed to take account of the fact a punter on Betfair who picked each winner in the manner laid out would never ever get to the number they quote as they would get thumped 20% of profits by …
£15
Not an impressive P&L. That is until you realise it was done with just £10 stakes, that’s a 150% return on stake! But not on capital, as you would need multiples of that to do this.
But the fact remains that I reckon using £10 stakes you could get profitable most days just picking and choosing your targets and strategies. The problem comes when you get to larger amounts, it’s much more difficult to do the same thing then. Today …
Quality over quantity
One trend I’ve noticed so far this year is the increasingly poor racing on offer, I hope it improves during the summer.
Today we are faced with three cards but only five races with 10 or more runners. Tomorrow, at the moment, there are only two races of similar ilk. It’s dreadful, fairly low quality races and very few competitors. 2,3 or 4 runners races are getting quite common at the moment. It seems to signify the underlying problems racing …
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