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.
Making mincemeat of Strawberries and cream
I’m pleased to see the 2nd round has just finished, on the first Saturday! So there is lot of Tennis to cram in on the 2nd week, starting today!
How I learnt to trade Tennis
When I first started to trade Tennis, I needed a few things to be in place. One of those was an understanding of how odds move in match. If I knew that, I could pitch my opening and closing trades just where I wanted. I …
What’s working in Euro 2016
As we move into the knockout stage, let’s review what’s happened in the Euro’s so far from a market perspective.
Turnover
The first thing to note is that the volumes are down a fair bit from Euro 2012 on Betfair. In 2012 in the group stages the lowest turnover match was £7.7m before the off and £17.8m at the end of the match. This year it was a paltry £1.6m and £3.3m, slightly lower than in 2012! I think it’s …
Trading Royal Ascot
And so here we are another year, another Ascot.
Ascot is obviously a big deal and, generally, I target it to be at least the second biggest week of the year. I’ll look to do more in a week than I can normally do in a month, so it’s a significant meeting. Wall to wall, quality racing, from Tuesday till Saturday. You also get the added bonus of lots of drunk people places bets on horses because they like the …
Volume is not liquidity
I was at a meeting last week and was at pains to point out the difference between volume and liquidity. I’ll save the detail for another post at some point in the future, but here is a simple view and some examples, using just £100 stakes.
If you come on any of the courses we run, I’m happy to talk you through the strategy. It’s simple easy and really effective at tournaments like Euro 2016.
Stuffed full of cash…
Are England just unlucky? No!
When brushing up for the Euro’s I had a good look at prior records to see if there were any trends. One of things that stood out was England’s terrible opening game record.
Since this Euro’s started in 1960 England have never won their opening game, a proud record that was upheld yesterday. So in 15 competitions spanning 52 years. It will be at least 56 years before England win their opening game of the tournament, possibly more. An amazing …
Deep breath
Here we go, summer starts right here!
I must admit to being a bit tired already, which isn’t great planning. But from this point on we have a really busy schedule ahead of us starting tonight. It’s the same every other year. Major footy championship, Ascot, Wimbledon, Cricket and half a dozen other sporting events combine to produce a smorgasbord of opportunity.
Over the next few weeks, you can trade very high quality and high liquidity markets in quick succession …
One Bank Holiday you may want to trade
Bank holidays can be a bit of mare. Four billion horses, racing over a thousand meetings. OK, A slight exaggeration there, but you get the picture. Too much racing, too many courses, not enough quality and everything falling over itself.
But today that actually isn’t the case and generally isn’t on this holiday. We have a lot of runners and they are spread many races, but the card is lined up well. That means, even allowing for later starts, it’s …
Monaco Grand Prix
The Gym I belong to had a new joiner that I started speaking to last year, he is an ex-racing driver. He has given me some valuable insight into the racing world from behind the wheel! He told me Hamilton would struggle this year and that Red Bull stood a good chance of pole position at Monaco. I’m all ears now when I chat to him now!!!
For a view of the race from behind a spreadsheet, read on…
You …
Tennis vs Football
Some of the overriding factors in trading are opportunity, position placement and money management. Get any of these out of kilter and your trading strategy goes up in smoke.
Let’s look at Tennis and Football to understand what I mean.
Skill differences are slight across a lot of sport, but have you noticed how there can be some wildly uncompetitive matches in Tennis but in Football the opponents always seem to have a chance?
Football
Football is a game dominated …
Interesting statistics for the FA Cup Fi-nil
So the FA Cup final is upon us and, rather predictably, the final has delivered us two premiership teams. But what will the match deliver? Is that going to be as predictable as well?
While today’s match may throw off differing characteristics based on what I saw of Palace last weekend, I’ve delved back over a number of years to see if I can unlock some prevailing trends.
History has shown us, the FA Cup is no particular respecter of …
Last match could be the most interesting
If you keep your eyes open, opportunities can occur from the strangest of circumstances.
On Sunday May 15th, 2016 we faced an interesting final day in the English Premiership season. The title and relegation battles had already been settled. But there was still the qualification for European competition to decide.
Qualification
Most of the focus was on Man City, Man Utd, West Ham, Southampton and Liverpool. Some could qualify for Champions league football, some for Europa league football.
You also …
York Dante Meeting
After a successful Chester meeting we roll onto York for the Dante meeting this week.
The York card looks good with plenty of group racing, but the other stuff on the card today looks a little ‘testing’. For a direct comparison look at the prize money. Kempton has a grand total of £18.4k, York £191.5k. I’ll be cautious and use small stakes at the smaller meetings as a result.
As we move through the early part of the flat turf …
The losers game
Ever felt like somebody is deliberately trying to coax you into a mistake when you trade?
When I first started trading
When I first started trading I wasn’t sure why the market did what it did, but my response to this was was quite simple and something I have always done in any market I have participated in. I started keeping detailed records of everything I did.
That sounds incredibly dull and uninteresting, but it’s actually the core of any …
Trading Horse Racing – Workshop
Why trade horse racing?
Trading horse racing markets pre-off is big business. In 2015 just short of £9bn was matched on horse racing before a single stride in the race had been completed.
That’s more than twice as much as football and nine times the same amount that is matched on Tennis. Racing is the biggest pre-off market on Betfair and provides some unique trading opportunities.
As I write this, today there are eight race meetings, with a total of …
New version of Bet Angel released
Constantly striving to improve your trading edge, we are pleased to announce a new version of Bet Angel is available, version 1.43. You can download it from here: –
You can download it from here: –
https://www.betangel.com/download/?product=BetAngelPro
The upgrade is free for existing Bet Angel users or those currently trialling Bet Angel. If you haven’t had a trial recently you may be eligible for a new one. Bet Angel will tell you if you qualify when you try and register …
Chester May Festival
Chester May festival starts today and it’s a welcome addition to the card, but based upon previous years it’s nothing amazing from a trading viewpoint.
Obviously we all love some extra liquidity that the quality racing will bring, but it’s never been a meeting that I’ve got really good amounts from. By that I mean I’m not banging in three figure results a race. Just the odd one or two a day. The thing to note about Chester is its …
Manic Monday
It’s one of a handful of manic trading sessions you see during the year today.
There are 620 runners on the card today and 54 races. Sounds like heaven, but it can be hell. The markets are just often not strong enough to do anything with. You often get a lot of donkeys out and therefore you end up with some competitive handicaps at the lower end of the scale, but little money and little time to trade them.
If …
Will Leicester really stuff the bookies?
Lot’s of PR, sorry, I mean talk, from the bookies recently about how much they will pay out if Leicester win the title. But is that a reality?
My worst bet ever!
Here is a confession – I will lose money if, when, Leicester win the title. But I have to say it will be one of the most enjoyable losses of my career! Why, because it’s great to see a competitive season in the premiership. As a supporter of …
Good Luck to all runners 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.
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. Nothing’s impossible though as I could always enter the wheelchair race! I was a good 1/2 marathon runner, but couldn’t transfer that form …
Betfair exchange advertising
Great news, Betfair are going to start pushing the exchange again. I can’t remember the last time I saw an exchange advert so it was a delight to discover they are going to give it a push this weekend!
Here is one of the adverts posted on their You Tube channel: –
How evening racing is different
We have now started the evening racing in earnest and it won’t stop till the end of August. So you have four months to make hay while the sun shines, not forgetting we are in the England, so it won’t shine much.
However, there are at least four different states that you see in racing during this period.
(1) Afternoon racing
This tends to me higher quality than the evening racing and will therefore trade differently.
(2) Evening racing
There …
An intriguing prospect
It wasn’t a surprise to see Newbury abandoned yesterday or today. When I went out on my mountain bike it was tough going and getting worse. I immediately felt the meeting was under threat.
It was a surprise however to see the meeting shifted to Chelmsford City! The meeting and the course seem incompatible, but I suppose racing has saved a meeting. I usually find Newbury quite nice to trade and Chelmsford horrible. Chelmsford markets are the most erratic on …
A day at the races
After many years sat behind the screen. I’ve been making a conscious effort recently, to actually get out and enjoy some of the hard earned. But also I’ve been keen to experience first hand some of the sporting venues I’ve traded.
This was another year when I declined an invite to the Cheltenham Festival, but I made up for it yesterday by attending the racing there. Judging by the weather I picked the right day! I was quite keen to …
Craven meeting
We have just started the Craven meeting at Newmarket. With deference to the TV presenter, it’s not named after him but instead an early supporter of Racing at Newmarket. Yesterday we had the Nell Gwyn an interesting character.
How the Craven trades
I prefer to know whether I’m in a good market or a poor one. But the Craven meeting at Newmarket often sits right in-between that. I know there’s quality there, but in terms of liquidity it often …
Aintree 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 …
US Masters – Trading Golf markets
I like the US Masters, mainly because it’s the only major played on the same course each year. This means you can collect a ton of stats on how the course plays. This gives me a good guide as to when to trade in and out of a position. You can do this on most courses, but because the Masters is at the same location every year it is much more predictable.
If you are a golf player, when …
The Flat is back
Today marks the traditional return of the flat turf season. So that means the end of the footy season is near, the Grand National is right upon us and the first Golf Major of the year is also here. Time to really start building up your activity!
The Lincoln has been going since 1859 and this complex handicap is traditional launcher for flat turf racing. There have been some two-year-olds out already, so the flat season has started but this …
Made in Meydan
Today sees the worlds richest horse race take place at Meydan, the Dubai world cup.
Over the years I’ve moved from dabbling in the Meydan markets to doing them seriously. They often make for a useful addition on a dull winters day in the UK. Therefore I’d recommend a dabble in these markets if the volume is holding up and there is no clashing with other races. The world cup stands out on it’s own as a race later in …
Always be a contrarian
I chortled with much merriment yesterday when I saw the story about how people were saying the lottery was ‘fixed’.
Twitter filled up with disgust that five numbers on the draw yesterday netted the life changing sum of just £15. But as per normal, people blamed their own issues on somebody else. Because things didn’t work out the way they wanted, it must be somebody else’s fault. It couldn’t possibly be down to them.
Flawed thinking
The fact is that …
William Hill issue profit warning
Further to my recent post, William Hill have issued a profit warning this morning. Other gambling related stocks have fallen in response.
You can read the full warning here: –
https://www.investegate.co.uk/william-hill-plc/wmh/trading-update/201603230700099669S
In a nutshell: –
- Time-outs and self exclusions are up
- Gross win margin is down due to European football results and also the worst Cheltenham results in recent history.
The numbers & valuation
Profits for the year are forecast to fall by up to £30m. However they would …
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