Skip to main content

Daytona trading last night

No marvellous green book to show off this year, although it was a decent profit on turnover considering how little liquidity was on Betfair. Being on Premier Sports for the first time didn't help since very few people have subscribed to it, plus the Betfair site has been dodgier than the BBC's 'The Real Hustle' recently. It was easy enough to get a live stream but I doubt many others would have bothered. It's not the most popular sport outside of the US anyway, and also having to deal with a toddler who didn't want to go to bed before 11pm made it incredibly difficult to trade! I'd emptied most of my acct recently, so I'm more than happy with a £45 green book from a £60 balance.

Same old theory for low liquidity, many runner events. Just keep putting up half-decent offers for small stakes. Increase the size of the lays as you create more green on the other runners. Don't get over-competitive (let someone else jump ahead of you in the queue if they are desperate to get matched and give away value). Don't lay one selection heavily, spread the risk as wide as you can. Lay as many selections as you can, I think I matched 17 drivers all up.

Bookies would have loved it in the end, the drivers who ran 1-2-3 were unexpected - a 20yo rookie in only his second NASCAR drive, Trevor Bayne, took the win; Carl Edwards, a decent mid-field runner came second and David Gilliland at huge odds ran third. Daytona is ripe for longshot wins due to the evenness of the racing - restrictor plates around the long circuit keep the pack together, the fastest cars can't break clear like in regular motor races.

Next events to use a similar trading system - televised ladies or senior golf tournaments, Eurovision or even BBC Sports Personality of the Year.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

It's all gone Pete Tong at Betfair!

The Christmas Hurdle from Leopardstown, a good Grade 2 race during the holiday period. But now it will go into history as the race which brought Betfair down. Over £21m at odds of 29 available on Voler La Vedette in-running - that's a potential liability of over £500m. You might think that's a bit suspicious, something's fishy, especially with the horse starting at a Betfair SP of 2.96. Well, this wasn't a horse being stopped by a jockey either - the bloody horse won! Look at what was matched at 29. Split that in half and multiply by 28 for the actual liability for the layer(s). (Matched amounts always shown as double the backers' stake, never counts the layers' risk). There's no way a Betfair client would have £600m+ in their account. Maybe £20 or even £50m from the massive syndicates who regard(ed) Betfair as safer than any bank, but not £600m. So the error has to be something technical. However, rumour has it, a helpdesk reply (not gospel, natur

Spot-fixing - you will never, ever be able to stop it

According to this report , IPL tournaments so far have been rife with spot-fixing - that is fixing minor elements of the game - runs in a single over, number of wides bowled etc. The curious part of that article is that the Income Tax department are supposed to have found these crimes. What idiot would be stupid enough to put down 'big wad of cash handed to me by bookie' as a source of income? Backhanders for sportsmen, particularly in a celebrity- and cricket-obsessed culture like India are not rare. They could come from anything like turning up to open someone's new business (not a sponsor, but a 'friend of a friend' arrangement), to being a guest at some devoted fan's dinner party etc. The opportunities are always there, and there will always be people trying to become friends with players and their entourage - that is human nature. This form of match-fixing (and it's not really fixing a match, just a minor element of it) is very hard to prove, but also,

lay the field - my favourite racing strategy

Dabbling with laying the field in-running at various prices today, not just one price, but several in the same race. Got several matched in the previous race at Brighton, then this race came along at Nottingham. Such a long straight at Nottingham makes punters often over-react and think the finish line is closer than it actually is. As you can see by the number of bets matched, there was plenty of volatility in this in-play market. It's rare you'll get a complete wipe-out with one horse getting matched at all levels, but it can happen, so don't give yourself too much risk...