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.
Europa league ratings
Just put these on the forum.
It looks like the football will be one of few sports going ahead today, so I may as well make the most of it. We have been very close consistently on the goals tally but this evening poses a few problems given the increased importance of some of the matches. Early goals will most likely produce more goals than forecast due to the incentive to score.
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 …
Snovember
That was an interesting month.
The end of the month was a complete damp squib, which was a shame, but the start was well above expectations. The result was that I managed another month up on the prior year and in fact I somehow managed to beat June, which is a bit weird. I was active on 871 races during the month, so it was still quite a busy month. Biggest individual race topped £1.1k and my worst loss was …
Carling cup
I don’t do too much on the Carling Cup but if I was on tonight, then opposing big teams fielding weakened sides is probably not a terrible idea. I find it difficult to price these matches, but a bit of speculative position taking is never going to be a disaster given the incentives in these types of matches.
The outsider will tend not to drift much if at all in the first half so a back at large odds will …
Betfair widen cross matching again
Betfair have gone for the big one and are going to ‘trial’ cross matching on pre-off horse racing today at Lingfield. Cross matching was initiated to ‘improve’ the fill rate on markets and eliminate the possibility of the book going over broke. As users subsequently found out, the first iteration also improved Betfair’s bottom line.
As you know, I am a keen market watcher and given enough races will be able to see the exact impact that this change …
Speechless
You could claim to be speechless about the prospects of racing this week. It looks like only the ‘all weather’ racing will survive, with all the other courses likely to struggle. But this title refers to my inability to speak well this week thanks to flu. Time for a break!
[Edit : Got a text from my local school saying there were 72 children off with the same thing, I hope you don’t get it]
Back to the weather, it’s …
Trading the drifting Denman
With a tough week already, it looked like Saturday was going to be a white out as well. Fortunately Newbury survived with a quality card and that gave me a reason to sit behind my desk. I’ve typically done OK at the Hennessy gold cup, so wanted a fair crack at it. When you have been going for a few years you can’t but resist looking at previous years and having that as an unofficial target. Tough when the most …
An ill wind….
Tis an Ill win that blows no good, so they say. With an ill wind blowing down from the artic it looks like racing is going to suffer badly over the next week. Saturday is pretty much a wipe out by the look of it.
So….. Hopefully you can now see the context of this blog entry back in the summer.
I know it seemed odd to some that you would put trading first in these situations. But that week …
Champions league ratings
An excellent result from last night when we chose to oppose Chelsea to start and got the goal forecast spot on!
I would forecast 22/23 goals this evening. I am paying a lot of attention to the Tottenham match this evening. Spurs have a big incentive to win and market seems to be pricing that in. But my contrary side is nudging me towards Spurs making hard work of it, so I am going to try and find an opportunity …
Champions league ratings
From most to least goals: –
Chelsea vs. Zilina
FC Basel vs. CFR Cluj
Ajax vs. Real Madrid
Roma vs. B Munich
Braga vs. Arsenal
Partizan Belgrade vs. Shakhtar
Auxerre vs. AC Milan
I will forecast around 20 goals this evening. Final matches in the group stages can be tricky as managers often send out weaker teams. Chelsea should beat Zilina but may be a little short at 1.17 to win, intially. It all depends what team they put out.…
Busy week ahead
World tour finals Tennis in London, top quality stuff afternoon and evening. Champions league football and then cricket throws in its hat with the Ashes. Going to be a great week to exit November!
Cross matching goes live on inplay racing
See Betfair announcement. Looks like they are planning to go live tomorrow on all racing: –
“Following a previous trial earlier this year, we are now running another trial of in-play cross-selection matching (‘cross-matching’) on the win markets at Lingfield Park on Tuesday 23rd November. Cross-matching will only be activated after the markets are turned in-play.
Cross-matching was introduced
Dinner
I met up with somebody last night at Gatwick airport. We talked for hours about many things related to the markets and in particular how to model behaviour and probabilites. In a world dominated by ‘experts’ it was a real pleasure to speak to somebody who actually was one! I sense the feeling was mutual.
Anyhow, when it came to paying the restaurant bill we both offered to pay and, as you would expect, we then could have dutched the …
There was a little girl
You may have heard this poem before: –
There was a little girl,
Who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good,
She was very good indeed,
But when she was bad she was horrid.
The market can feel like that at times and it can be the very thing that throws you off balance. But you have to believe that just as the market can be horrid she can be very good …
Set back for Betfair Australia
Scott reports on his blog that Racing NSW has won an appeal on what is clearly a discriminatory tactic against Betfair. Unless Betfair can overturn the ruling it’s a game changer in this territory for exchanges.
https://www.sportismadeforbetting.com/2010/11/racing-nsw-wins-racefields-legislation.html
International friendlies part 2
If you want evidence to back up my previous post, have a look at the following chart from Albania vs Macedonia. It would be easy to assume you could tell what was going on in this match. But this graph was actually taken at 53 mins into the match at 0-0. The match ended 0-0, go figure!
International friendlies
I can’t offer dramatic insight into these matches this evening.
They are often difficult to price and have a lot of variables that you just can’t take account of. So if you are playing in these matches I would recommend some specualtive plays opposing the obvious. When you look at the teams, the incentive to win is a bit dulled and the underlying players will probably be jumbled around and mixed up. So it’s difficult to get a real handle …
Man Utd to refinance
News story this morning about how the Glazer’s have given notice on their money borrowed from hedge funds.
Read more about the story here: –
https://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/m/man_utd/9192771.stm
It’s interesting because the interest payments on the debt have been putting a huge strain on Man Utd’s ability to spend money. A case in point in the following sentence: –
“Earlier this year the rate rose to 16.25%”
I’m aware that raising finance in the current market is tough and rates can be …
Cock ups, blunders & mishaps
You are either perfect or a liar and nobody is perfect.
Coming to terms with errors is the key to success in anything. If you stop or get put off by losses, errors or mishaps, you will never see the upside. Upside is always there, but a lot of people never ‘see’ it. Couple losses, cock ups, blunders & mishaps with a bit of psychology and it prevents you from getting to the good bits. It took some time, but …
Cheltenham
Nice to see Chelt’s back on the card and some decent jump racing. I am hoping to get something out of the open meeting and it has worked well in previous years. Looks like we have finally arrived in the jumps season proper.
With it’s arrival we also have some bad weather on the doorstep but also Christmas decorations in the shop. It’s put me in a festive mood and looking forward to the upcoming holidays.
I tend to be …
Posthumous Paul
I am sure you have heard of Paul the Octopus by now and his recent death. I think along with the Vuvuzela this was one of the things the World Cup will be remembered for. More than the football. But, putting aside the well acceptable cognitive and predictive abilities of Octopus vulgaris, just how clever is Paul?
Here is an excellent post that I missed first time around but found in my recent google search of our departed deity.…
October
October went very much to plan. No big upside or downside surprises and it followed the pattern in previous years of having been a strong month overall. Though it has to be said that the UK racing always takes a dip in this month as we transition to the jumps.
I managed to get a new record day in October and beat it twice again which was a surprise, I did have a few moments where I was really on …
Zenyatta – History not made
A real disappointment to see Zenyatta not make history this evening. But an odd ride by the jockey who was trailing by some distance for most of the race and only produced Zenyatta on the last bend. While I can’t claim to be a jockey or understand racing that well, with such a huge prize on offer, it seems odd to have ridden the race like that.
Pretty liberal use of the whip late on as well as it was …
Football’s turn for an ouch!
Bolton score against Spurs, so you would expect the odds to move a bit. However, you wouldn’t expect Spurs to get backed into 1.59; but that’s what happened! I suspect somebody sorted the odds in the wrong order or just had the wrong selection up some how and back heavily on the goal.
Bolton won 4-2 so no get out of jail card was served on this occasion. £77,809 was matched at 1.59.
Jockey title opportunties
Another close Jockey championship draws to a close this weekend and it’s going to the wire by the look of it.
https://www.thepja.co.uk/champ_flat.aspx
The battle is throwing up some interesting trading opporunties as people start to discount the prospect of a jockey change bringing a change of fortune for individual horses. Certainly there is a big incentive to win races that may have been over looked earlier in the season. Keep your eyes open for racing with either of the …
95% of traders lose?
95% of traders lose is a very common statistic quoted, but I’ve never seen any data on it. Somebody recently sent this to me about forex traders, which I thought made interesting reading. Obviously this is limited to the scope and definition of the survey but I think it’s an interesting article and discussion. It also shows the importance of money management and low transaction costs.
As they say, 47.3% of statistics are made up on the spot!
https://forexmagnates.com/us-forex-brokers-account-profitability-comparison/
Europa league ratings
Tonights ratings from most to least goals: –
Most point to overs tonight and I would forecast 64 goals this evening.
PSV v Debrecen
Sevilla v Karpaty
OB v Young Boys
Porto v Besiktas
Leverkusen v Aris Thes.
Juventus v Red Bull Salzburg
Gent v Sp Lisbon
Lausanne v Sparta Prague
Dinamo Kiev v Az Alkmaar
Lech Poznan v Man City
Rosenborg v Atl Madrid
Rapid Vienna v CSKA Sofia
Hajduk Split v Zenit St Petersburg
Getafe v Stuttgart
BATE …
Champions league ratings
This evenings matches are much tighter and difficult to read. Shakhtar / Arsenal for example, if Arsenal were at home much easier. Most matches look pretty even to be honest, apart from the obvious win for Chelsea. For tonight I would forecast 21/22 goals in total.
If you look back through the blog at recent ratings, you will see we have been very close a lot of time and generally nail the lowest scoring match. The more matches there are …
Champions league ratings
Most goals to least: –
FC Copenhagen vs Barcelona
Valencia vs Rangers
Tottenham vs Inter
Hapoel Tel Aviv vs Schalke
Benfica vs Lyon
Bursaspor vs Man Utd
Rubin Kazan vs Panathinaikos
A total of 18/19 goals forecast for this evening.
(Sorry for the edit but I included another match by accident and didn’t cover one other)
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