Category: Trading strategies
An Ace is worth more than a point
When you read that statement it looks a little strange. How can one point be worth more than another? But statistics seem to show that’s true. With Murray about to line up against a big server in the Wimbledon final tomorrow lets look at the perfect serve.
Wimbledon
Wimbledon is the home of mighty servers, with alternate big servers booming the ball past their opponent. But what effect does it have? Some, it appears.
Over the last couple of years, …
The thin line between individual skill in Tennis
If you have been active on Wimbledon these past two weeks you would have seen some great matches. But you should have also seen something else, maybe without realising it.
Often you see an outsider really battle away at a heavy odds on favourite, maybe even winning the first set, but despite this, their odds don’t seem to come in that much. Why is that?
What’s the point?
The first thing to note is there are a lot of points …
Can you predict 1.01 defeats in Tennis?
Surface problems aside, the main news from Wimbledon so far was the shock’ defeat of Novak Djokovic.
Of course things are very easy in hindsight. But that said, short priced players are easily opposed when trading, more on that in a second . The thing that is surprising in these cases is to see somebody who traded near 1.01 before the off losing. That’s rare, but certainly not impossible.
1.01 Losers in Tennis
I shuffled through one of my database …
Trading the dead zone
It doesn’t happen often, but now and again all things conspire to produce a dead zone in the markets. For racing, we are currently in that dead zone.
Why does it happen?
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 and the …
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 …
Easy ways to automate your Tennis Trading
Next week see’s the start of Wimbledon the pinnacle event of the Tennis calendar.
And one of the best ways to trade the Tennis markets is with automation. If you have never used automation before there is probably no better sport to start with and with the year’s biggest tournament about to begin this makes it the perfect time to dip your toes in and give it a try.
Why automation works so well
There are a couple of reasons …
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…
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Finding a front runner – Exclusive offer & free trial
Click here to take up an exclusive free seven day trial of Pacecards
Trading in-running
One excellent strategy you can use on betting exchanges, is backing or laying before the off and trading out in-play. Many Bet Angel customers do this or a variation of this, , as part of a profitable activity in the market.
In-running tools
Bet Angel is great for this as you can do it manually or automatically using the automation. On the manual front we …
Trading Cheltenham
There is plenty to help you and get stuck into this Cheltenham if you are a Bet Angel user. Not only do you have a vast range of tools available but also the biggest set of videos you can image, a busy forum to chat to other traders and if you are looking to trading automatically a library of examples.Plenty to get stuck into on one of the biggest trading weeks of the year.
There is plenty to get stuck …
Preparing for Cheltenham
We are so close to Cheltenham that I’m now in that final, ‘Have I done everything I can to prepare’ mode.
Cheltenham pretty much makes or breaks March for me. A good meeting and it’s a good March a bad one and it’s a struggle to make the numbers.
Each year I go through the same sort of preparation for big weeks and in this video I explain that process and my thoughts on the run up to a big …
How bookmakers work
Bookies limiting customers has been around for some time. This was a situation I first experienced in the early 90’s, over 25 years ago. Not much has changed since then it seems. If anything, the bookies are much sharper now.
If you want a view on how they do this, read this blog post series that I posted up a little while ago. It gives you the story from very inside of a bookmakers.
My story
The story of how …
Discounted opinion in sports trading
Here is a little-discussed aspect of trading, discounted opinion. First let’s explore what it is?
Discounted opinion pre off
When a market is formed everybody has had a prod a what the odds should be. In some markets, this is obvious; in others less so. But generally, a convergence appears. Unless there is any significant change, that’s the way the market stays until the event starts.
Discounted opinion in-play
When the market gets underway, an opinion forms and the odds …
My best trade ever (so far)
Preamble
Here is a story that you should gain something from.
I spent last week in Florida at Disney world. This is linked to some meetings I did before I headed there. I was running around London with a hedge fund manager.
The reason we know each other and that so much has happened between us; is all down to few moments in a bookstore in Texas. In fact I wouldn’t have joined Betfair if I had gone through this …
Poll straw – Trump trumped
An interesting set of results came in from the US caucuses last night. But it highlighted again that people don’t tell the truth to pollsters. I think I can explain.
Everybody hates an outsider
Nobody likes to be an outsider, apart from me it seems. But being an outsider is where some of the best decisions can be made. However it takes a great deal of strength to be different. So when a pollster phones you or harrases you in …
Free Tennis trading guide worth £19.99
Interested in Tennis trading? With the Australian open upon us, why not combine some knowledge with the best Tennis trading software around!
[If you are finding this via an outdated link this promotion was run in 2016 and is no longer available]
The offer
Order a copy of Bet Angel Professional (excluding one day access) and get a copy of Dan Weston’s – ‘Mastering Tennis trading’ completely free of charge. Click here for an overview of the book, we are …
Connect
Connect with us on the following social media platforms.