late night races aren't great for trading

The Daytona 500 was rained off on Sunday, and again Monday afternoon local time, so the race was run on Monday night, which meant it started after midnight UK time. And it has just finished at 6am UKT. So combine that with being shown on a premium channel, Premier Sports, and it made it a pretty poor trading race this year unfortunately. Overall matched volume on Betfair way lower than any previous year. Still got a green book, but nothing like in previous years and not worth the effort really. Thankfully I got a few hours sleep in the middle, just happened to have the baby wake me up near the end of the race...

Matt Kenseth won the race, a crash with just a few laps to go usually sets up a great finish, but nobody was awake and Kenseth's teammate Greg Biffle (who was a much better result) was parked right behind him, protecting him from the chasing pack, hence no last-lap volatility and chaos.

In previous years, it has been bloody marvellous -

2011
2010
and 2009

Ah well, c'est la vie. Back in the zone on trading long-running markets with many selections, with this and the Next Wolves Manager market - which unfortunately I have to wait two months for it to settle.

Comments

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

Betdaq.... sold...... FOR HOW MUCH???

So as rumoured for a while, Ladbrokes have finally acquired the lemon, sorry, purple-coloured betting exchange, Betdaq. For a mind-boggling €30m as 'initial consideration'. That's an even more ridiculous price than Fernando Torres for £50m, or any English player Liverpool have purchased in recent seasons! As I've written previously there are no logical business reasons for this acquisition. from Nov 29, 2012 The Racing Post reported this week that Ladbrokes are nearing a decision to acquire Betdaq. This baffles me, it really does. Betdaq are a complete and utter lemon. Their only rival in the market has kicked so many own goals over the years with the premium charge, followed by an increase in the premium charge, cost of API and data use, customer service standards which have fallen faster than Facebook share value, site crashes and various other faults. So many pissed off Betfair customers, yet Betdaq are still tailed off with a lap to go. Around the world, Betfair

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...

Sport is made for betting

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