Tag: trading

Many hands make light work

Many hands make light work

If you are searching for that elusive edge, have you thought about utilising Bet Angel’s many varied automated features? They say that many hands make light work and it’s true on these markets as well, even if they are virtual hands.

Using the spreadsheet functionality on Bet Angel it’s possible to construct very simple to very complex commands, instructions, tools and scripts to do pretty much whatever you want. You can also use it to test ideas or concepts fully …

21/10/2011 | By More
That’ll do nicely

That’ll do nicely

I had a feeling Saturday would turn out to be an interesting day, so I pulled out all stops to take advantage. I did well and it was a real pleasure to net my best day ever (At least before commission).

I managed to pick up a lot of decent results from a wide spectrum of events on both exchanges. Thanks to favourable commission rates and favourable liquidity conditions on Betdaq, it meant I found it pretty easy to beat …

17/10/2011 | By More
Dilemma

Dilemma

It’s just gone 08:30 on Wednesday morning and I’m up over £700 on the day already. On Saturday, I sat down to do a decent days work on the exchanges. Across both I earned somewhere between £3.5-4k which was similar to last year, slightly higher as Betdaq is contributing more than it did in prior years. What’s my point?

As you are probably aware I’ve been doing this for over a decade now, have collected a ton of data and …

12/10/2011 | By More
In-running confusion

In-running confusion

From today new rules come into play for Jockeys and their use of the whip, new rules must also come into play for in-running punters. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

For example, if a jockey has ‘used up’ all his in-running whip chances before the last fence and is desperate to edge out a close rival. In theory, he will be unable to do anything and this may bring what was a previously short price …

10/10/2011 | By More
Internationals

Internationals

I had my own international experiance last night when I met up with Howard Hamilton from Soccermetrics. A dedicated group of stats experts huddled in a pub in Fulham to discuss all things football related. Could have done with a quieter pub!

With so many international matches going off at once, or at best close to each other, you may consider using a generic strategy that you can automate. All this can be done in practice mode as well, …

07/10/2011 | By More
Mighty oaks from little acorns grow

Mighty oaks from little acorns grow

When my first daughter was born I planted an acorn. Since then it has grown to the proverbial Oak Tree. This year it is 14 years old and yielded its first crop of Acorns.

My point?

When I was in a ‘normal’ job I was always planting metaphoric acorns. My hope was that some would grow to Oaks, and so they did. So I suggest you always keep planting Acorns. Not just in the context of building for the long …

05/10/2011 | By More
Bet Angel for Betdaq

Bet Angel for Betdaq

Somebody emailed me yesterday asking when we will be upgrading the Betdaq version of Betdaq. For those that were not aware, we did this in July; hence this post this morning!

Bet Angel for Betdaq is available free of charge and we were the first vendors to release a Betdaq version of our product way back in 2008. The upgrade in July was the first major upgrade we have done in a while. There are still some differences between products, …

04/10/2011 | By More
Traders of the De l’arc

Traders of the De l’arc

Once a year I will tuck into French racing like a connoisseur drinks French wine, with a sense of appreciation but with the gusto of a true enthusiast.

I don’t tend to trade on Sunday’s or on French racing, but the richest race in Europe always draws my attention as it and the companion races are nearly always a great opportunity. It has to be said that most of the other stuff on today is not the greatest quality. So …

02/10/2011 | By More
Back to back

Back to back

That’s woken me up from my slumber!

A very simple strategy would have made you money trading the racing today. Get a back order filled and wait.

Somebody was in the market a lot today, as we have seen before, with seemingly infinitely deep pockets. Race after race has had one horse or another completely smashed up with huge back orders. When trading you don’t need to catch many of these to make a huge difference. I am sure a …

30/09/2011 | By More
Good old fashioned gambling

Good old fashioned gambling

Since Betfair introduced new charges for their most successful customers, me included. I’ve done a fair bit of work all over the place. Back on Betfair, no matter how easy the opportunity, I can’t tell you just how difficult it is to actually do something that you know will result in the loss of 60% of your profit, I don’t know about others, but I really struggle to do it.

So, I’ve done some additional work on Betfair by looking …

21/09/2011 | By More
Awesome match

Awesome match

At last, a real classic match to talk about at the US Open. Djokovic through to the final after defeating Federer, again, in the semi final from two match points down. A great trading match as well, with some clear cut entry and exit points.

10/09/2011 | By More
Passive Tennis trading

Passive Tennis trading

Missed most of the US open last night as I opted to play Tennis rather than watch it, but I still profited on the matches last night.

I also had a nice reminder of how using stats can show a different version of the match than the score. I won 6-4 6-4 last night, but the first set was quite tight and I effectively won it with a break of serve in the ninth game. The second set was not …

02/09/2011 | By More
New in-running tool

New in-running tool

Something has been annoying me for ages and that is how I’ll often sit between races waiting for the next one to start. It’s a lot of wasted time, so I recently decided it was time to do something about it. The result is a new tool for Bet Angel users.

The concept is a clickable user interface that shows you the progress of a race as it happens. Its the first ever product to allow you to click on …

01/09/2011 | By More
Back the draw

Back the draw

I’m going to put up some information on Saturday’s about football / soccer.  Some of it may seem contradictory for some of you and some logical, but it’s all based on years worth of research and application in the market.

For starters: –

If you backed the draw, pretty much at random, last weekend; you would have have netted a cool profit. I know, because I did exactly that and suffered a 60% thumping as a result! I was doing …

27/08/2011 | By More
Free morning workshop

Free morning workshop

This summer we have been holding a series of morning workshops, we are currently conducting another one this morning. These have been aimed to improve your ability to use Bet Angel and your participation in the markets. Because of the small class sizes we do have a waiting list, but if you are interested in attending future courses, please register your interest now.

22/08/2011 | By More
Look, no hands…

Look, no hands…

One upshot of Betfair’s recently decision to increase their rake from more successful users like myself is that I have revisited my love of interacting on the exchanges with spreadsheets.

I have taken some time out from ‘normal’ trading to work on spreadsheets a bit more. This is to see if I can create something that works fully automatically for me where the payoff will now be particularly high as it takes none of my time to execute. When something …

19/08/2011 | By More
It’s all kicking off!

It’s all kicking off!

Yes the premier league is back. Twenty teams, OK maybe four, well maybe three battle it out for the greatest honour in football…. Who will sack their manager first!

As I have mentioned in previous posts the market tends to inefficient at the start of the season. I looked back over the two months at the start of last season to see what happened last year.

The first thing to note is that the market got the number of goals …

13/08/2011 | By More
Kick off

Kick off

The English football season kicked off in earnest last night with Blackpool nudging a 1-0 win against Hull. Today league football gets underway properly and the hopes and aspirations of many will re-ignite across the nation. How appropriate that the financial markets are crashing under the weight of false hopes and huge amounts of debt just as the football season starts up! If you are looking for excess then there is plenty to find on and off the football field, …

06/08/2011 | By More
Getting better at Golf

Getting better at Golf

In real life and on the markets!

Out with my son again this morning who got his first par today and I managed to get round the whole nine holes on par. Haven’t done that for a few years, one birdie, one bogey. I’m also getting better at understanding the golf markets. It’s taken a few years but I am finally getting under the skin on the markets. It’s proved pretty interesting and it’s also been a bit of a …

05/08/2011 | By More
Another new strategy

Another new strategy

Sat the in bath the other night pondering a number of things. Of all the things I do, looking for new things and trying to solve the puzzles that any market throws at me is the thing I find most interesting.

I came up with a way off thought based upon what I had seen from recent market data. Basically that the market has been tightening and less money than ever is lost to one side of the book or …

04/08/2011 | By More
Good approach

Good approach

Looks like it will be the last day before the glorious weather breaks in the UK so went out to play some Golf with my son this morning.

A good approach on the seventh left me in the middle of the green but with a tricky put for an birdie. Almost the perfect put, but the ball stopped just short of falling in the cup. No amount of stomping on the green would make it fall in, so I had …

03/08/2011 | By More
Make hay while the sun shines

Make hay while the sun shines

You may remember this post from last year: –

https://www.betangel.com/blog_wp/2010/08/16/working-holiday/

With regard to the title, never has there been a more apt phrase for sports traders.

In the Summer there is wall to wall sport and opportunties appear at will. In the winter you are digging around for every penny, but pon top of that you also don’t know what the future will bring. So making the most of it while available is always a sensible move, I hope my …

01/08/2011 | By More
Gooder Goodwood

Gooder Goodwood

My old English tutor would have a heart attack with that title!

Had my best day of the week yesterday and should be headed for a great festival overall. The day didn’t start very well with a delayed start and then I got my bottom spanked at Nottingham when I failed to address an alarming drift on the horse I was trading. But from there in things just got better and better. I managed to pull in some really good …

29/07/2011 | By More
Betfair International Stakes

Betfair International Stakes

Couldn’t resist posting up this P&L on this race from yesterday. OK I got more on Betfair, a bit, but nowhere near the same when if deduct a 60% commission.

You should always do what is best for you, especially in a trading market, but look at my circumstances. It’s a strange feeling to only be able to earn 40% what others can earn by doing exactly the same thing. I can teach people how to do similar things and …

24/07/2011 | By More
Betfair – Cross matching

Betfair – Cross matching

Cross matching has slowly been implemented across many sports markets on Betfair and earlier this year on the big one, horse racing.

There are still some odd things with cross matching. Prices for the API and for the Betfair web site are different. This is because cross matching is not exposed via the API. We put the cross matching algorithm into Bet Angel, but quite a large number of API applications still show the ‘wrong’ prices. Betfair also never tell …

22/07/2011 | By More
60% Premium charge

60% Premium charge

On the first day of trading on 22nd October 2010 Betfair shares closed at 1550p. At the time of writing this post the shares are trading at 627p or down nearly 60% from that closing high. How ironic!

I don’t want to feed that hand that bites me, to reverse the common metaphor. So, for me at least, action speak louder than words. Whether volume decreases or increases on the Betfair exchange, why will be the most pressing question. Volume …

18/07/2011 | By More
Open golf – Best trades

Open golf – Best trades

For a full list and other lists, visit the forum.

The Open has been brilliant so far. The highlight today was the hole in one by Tom Watson, amazing. When my shoulder is better I’m getting out there again to reduce my handicap. It’s inspiring to see a 61 year old holding his own against the worlds top golfers.

This is the last list now as we turn our attention to specific golfers for the remaining two days. The …

16/07/2011 | By More
Big moves

Big moves

I thought the first day of the Open Golf at Sandwich would be interesting and that’s exactly how it has proved. For a full list of movers visit the thread on the forum.

Golf has really grown on me as a trading sport and the small gap between the leader-board and oblivion creates some fantastic opportunities. With a £10 stake this is what you could have greened up for on the top movers at the end of day one. …

15/07/2011 | By More
Repeating patterns

Repeating patterns

Sometimes the markets surprise me, but more often than not they don’t. After 11 years of doing this, even the surprises don’t seem surprising any more. But yesterday I got a surprise.

Yesterday, last year, I traded a race at Catterick and got a really cracking result from it. A year later at the same course, on the same day and on the exact same race I got the same result. You would think it impossible that such a thing …

14/07/2011 | By More
Grass is for cows

Grass is for cows

Wimbledon is the only grand slam on grass, but it wasn’t always that way. Two other tournaments were played on grass on the grand slam circuit. The US Open, was played on grass until 1974, and the Australian Open, was played on grass until 1988.

Very few players would not admit that a win at Wimbledon would be a career defining moment. But it’s not through trying that players fail; it’s generally down to how each surface plays. Research by …

20/06/2011 | By More
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