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.
Nadal brings bonus
Well that was a surprise, Nadal crashed out of the french open today which opens up the competition dramatically. £1,159,628 was traded at 1.03 on Nadal, Ouch! In all when Nadal came back into the match and traded at 1.08 £9.4m out of £9.5m had backed Nadal. Low backers took a serious, serious thrashing today.
For me it was an unexpected bonus as I had dutched the field, excluding a number of players, with the intention of catching an unexpected …
Murray serves up another great trade
If the Tennis carries on like this we could be in for a cracking warm up to Wimbledon. Murray again stuttered at the start of this match today, but fought back to take the first set. A weary Tipsarevic then retired after losing. Very similar scenario to the previous Murray trade. Murray is on court again today, so worth taking a look in what is likely to be a more competitive match.
Let your profits run
In the stock market they say, “Cut your losses and let your profits run”. In this video you can see us ensure we never lose money, but we keep our upside open to get the maximum potential profit. A fairly intuitive strategy.
In clay trading
Great news, it’s the French Open. Your last chance to practice your Tennis trading before Wimbledon. While you are having a practice take a look at Bet Angel’s Guardian feature which is perfect for Tennis training. I’ve uploaded a video here: –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4X25nbH7vA
Murray served up a good start trading opportunity with a roller-coaster against an opponent ranked well below him. Starting at 1.05 and out of sorts, Murray sort of stumbled through the early part of the match with …
Biggest ever Betfair premium charge? Pt 2
It was quite amusing to see my previous post a few months ago, suddenly spring to life.
https://www.betangel.com/blog_wp/2009/02/25/biggest-premium-charge/
Unfortunately it seems to have been hijacked into an anti in-running fast pictures debate. This is quite amusing as the charges, note the question mark on both posts, are nothing to do with horse racing and definitely not in-running. I guess people will always try to stir up controversy if it suits their agenda and that’s probably the motivation to incorrectly pin …
Murray is 11% better than Starace
Just watching the 2nd round match at the French open. According to the market at the ‘off’ Murray was 11% better than Starace at winning a point on his serve. Currently Murray just lost the second set, but reading the match Murray appeared to lose hope of turning around the second set and effectively just gave it away, probably to conserve energy. With Murray serving first in the third set I may consider backing Murray subject to how the third …
Proposed tax on forex trades to raise $50bn aid?
Hmm, more like proposed tax ruins perfectly efficient market. Well fairly efficient, anyhow. Saw this in the Sunday papers over the weekend when I was at the gym.
I do wonder on the credentials of politicians, especially ones that tax everything that moves. Forex trading is a tempting market given the quoted turnover of $1 quadrillion ($1000 million). But the reason this market is so huge is because of the amount of speculation that takes place. I know John at …
Has this happened before?
Manic scenes on Monday at the last race at Leicester. Out of the original 14 runner field six horses never started the race. Not unusual for non-runners, but five of these horses made it to the start but never got into the stalls. As a result of the non applicable reduction factors Betfair SP returned 98%. Not such great news for layers!
I don’t have extensive records for this, but the records I do have go back about three years …
Last day relegation mayhem
I must admit to quite liking relegation markets. On top of my Southampton bet, I had a nibble at West Brom to be relegated, their escape look totally improbable. Today we have a whole multitude of opportunities.
Based upon past experience, backing or laying the field will throw up a bundle of opportunities as the afternoon progresses. You can see Newcastle and Middlesbrough perhaps getting something out of their games but Hull? If Hull hold on or even take the …
Good run
Just broken a nice winning run today.
Until the 15:35 today I had managed to get 47 winning races in a row, not my best this year but my best for a little while and a welcome relief from a month that has brought a lower strike rate than average.
Of course, your strike rate is directly related to your maximum likely winning run and losing run. Take more risks and your strike rate will fall, less and it will …
Outrageous risk – Part three
I have finally got round to the last part of this mini series of posts. Sorry for the delay but we have been busy working on some completely new tools for Bet Angel and that has drawn a lot of my attention. For my sins, I’m always the front line when it comes to testing. Thank fully the new stuff is all working well and we forward to bring you something, just a little bit different.
To reprise, as an …
Experiance matters
If there is one important thing I can suggest to you, it is to read. Having learnt the art of delegation in increasing frequency, I tend to read a lot. I should also give credit to my team who offer me such excellent support. It’s interesting what pops out of the woodwork now and again. I caught this article today about football managers: –
https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/simonaustin/2009/05/experience_matters_in_manageme.html
Seeing some of the stats caught my attention and a few phone calls later I …
Gentle Mulla
Not exactly an appropiate name for the moves seen on this horse. I was hoping for a good finish to the day and landed this wild ride instead. My P&L was all over the place but I managed to regain my composure for a £40 profit, but this was one manic end to the day!
Who let the dogs out?
I thought of calling this post ‘Dogging’ but changed my mind! LOL!
I noticed last night that it was the greyhound derby semi finals at Wimbledon. I’ll often nip in and do something on the Dogs if I get the chance and I did last night. If you have never traded them before they are worth a go but don’t expect horse racing like results. The liquidity is lower and the opportunities a bit up and down. The main opportunities …
Best trade ever?
I say this far too often, but there have been another two excellent candidates in the last week or so.
On Friday 8th at Aintree we had one of the clearest cut swing trading opportuntities I have ever seen, almost the perfect set up. Not only was it very likely to be a good swing trading opportunity, but for any savvy trader active on this race there were several clear markers laid down as to where you should get involved. …
Unlucky for some
A year ago this week one of my worst ever losses in one race came occurred on the 13th May. It hurt but I quickly put it behind me got on with things and forged ahead on the week with some nice results.
As I approached the same week this year, I thought, “What a great opportunity to beat last years total”. Rather bizarrely on the 13th May this year I pretty much did a repeat performance. Quite unbeleiveably bizarre! …
Sponsorship
Just a quick note to to let you know of two people who are running this weekend for charity. The first is the nephew of the late Will Johnson.
Will was a Bet Angel customer for some time and was the key to spotting the initial cross matching algorithm that Betfair implemented without warning. When Will dropped me a email, we were quickly able to compare notes see there was a significant change prompting me to escalate the issue to …
Outrageous risk – Part Two
To recap. Last Thursday we backed the favourite at a fixed time of the day and let our losses run without re-dress. Basically it was dumb, reckless swing trading with complete abandon. By doing this we were opening ourselves to potential losses that could be massive. Only at post time did we bother to close our position. Other than that, we let risk run to its fullest extent.
My question to you, is did we: –
(a) Make a bunch …
New ladder features
Just a quick post to introduce you to the new ladder features you may not be aware of yet. We uploaded this video which gives you a view of some of the key updates. Click here for the high quality version.
Slingtrading
Those that have followed me for a few years will know that one of my favourite toys in the office is a Slingbox.
A Slingbox allows you to ‘sling’ pictures and audio out of your home to where-ever you are in the world. All you need is a decent Internet connection and you will be able to tap back into your horse racing pictures back at home. This opens up the possibility of being able to trade from pretty …
Outrageous risk – Part One
This is how many would describe the following strategy I am about to outline.
The strategy takes on the maximum risk possible in a market, here it is :-
Go into the market at 1pm and back every favourite with a £1 tick size….. that’s it! Ok, you will have to close your position before the off, but that’s about it from a strategy viewpoint. No offsetting your order or closing out one tick away from your entry price. By …
Betfair files case against Dutch Government
Betfair announced on Thursday that it has filed an action with the civil district court of The Hague against the Dutch government — alleging that the government has actively called for payment blocking on gambling Web sites.
Also launching a formal complaint to the European Commission, Betfair said its actions come after the Dutch Ministry of Justice reportedly issued a letter “urging Dutch banks not to process payments from any Dutch customers wishing to place a bet on any legal …
How many racing traders are there?
I often get asked how many traders are on the exchanges, how much volume do they do etc? The honest answer is that I currently don’t know, but I can confirm roughly how many existed a few years ago.
Back in 2003 Betfair issued a document that actually clearly laid out what a market looked like. In the document they looked at a horse race and showed how many people placed back bets only, how many laid only and how …
Horse trotting
Never thought I was see a group three race run at a trot but that’s what happened on the ‘feature’ race today. All three jockeys thought it was a good idea to hold up the horses, but it seemed neither knew that the other was going to do this. That turned the 1m5f ‘sprint’ into an equestrian event! The winner took 3m45s to cover the course distance, versus the standard time of only 2m52s.
Betfair changes matching process
Betfair have just announced that they are to change the way bets can be matched on their exchange. This is a move back to the early days of Betfair and an original concept that is actually in use by other exchanges. Full information is listed here: –
Difficult to judge the immediate impact but certainly a lot of markets will have the illusion of money in them. You are also more likely to get matched more often I would …
Why away goals are so critical
I’ve often looked at the away goal rule in European football competition and pondered this rule and how it changes matches. When a team is level, say 0-0 from the first leg. A goal by the away team is effectively worth two goals. This is because the home team can only win the match now by scoring two goals.
This is inherently unfair in my opinion as, on average, home advantage is worth about 0.40 goals to the home team. …
The one that got away
Ah well, you could feel it coming but I just, by seconds, failed to get filled with a very short priced lay on Chelsea this evening. Would have walked away with a nice profit but that counts for nothing now as my lay did not get filled, despite touching my target price. Somebody got filled ahead of me, so well done to the punter that got filled at 1.05. For the sake of an extra £10 I could have bagged …
Chelsea vs. Barcelona
Interested to see the market is pricing in 2.6-2.7 goals in the Chelsea match this evening, slight advantage to Barcelona. Of course, the scenario is similar to last night but more finely balanced, lets hope the match turns out that way as well!
It’s also interesting to see the draw being laid / teams being backed ahead of tonights match, this happened last night as well. Looking forward to the action this evening.
Half time talks
With Man Utd in zone at the moment with a 2-0 half time lead against Arsenal, they wouldn’t have wanted the half time break. In contrast Arsenal desperately needed it. Now Wenger’s managerial skills will be tested to the limit and if it has the desired effect Arsenal will come out all guns blazing, excuse the pun.
Meanwhile, Man U just need to keep it tight at the back. If you have already made some cash, consider laying Man U …
Champions league trading toolkit
Want some ideas for this weeks champions league matches?
I put a post up about trading the markets before the off here. Unfortunately watching a video of scalping the pre-match market would be less interesting than watching paint dry, but here are some videos other things you can do: –
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