Olympic previews

The sun is shining in southern England, the athletes are all here, the city is abuzz with excitement, the opening ceremony is less than 36hrs away - get set for the greatest spectacle on Earth, the London Summer Olympics!

Across the fortnight my focus will be on swimming, athletics and hockey in the order of priority. Other sports no doubt will appear from me but count them as a bonus rather than my targets.

Just like with my guest previews for racing and Eurovision, I am throwing the blog open to anyone keen to write Olympic event betting previews. No worries if you overlap with my work, I'll just make sure they are clearly marked as I'll be keeping a personal P+L logged. And please make them more detailed than the Racing Post's liftout edition yesterday, that was lip service at best! To volunteer your writing services, contact me on Twitter or in the comments to this post.

I tend to bet late, after heats and semis, so don't expect to be knocking off early prices from my previews. Hopefully it also means the markets are stronger and we might get some decent bets on.

And if you've not seen my Olympic tipping before (previously restricted to Australian forums), here's a proofed spreadsheet from PuntingAce with my results from Beijing 2008 and the respective aths & swimming World Champs of 2009. With both WCs in Asia last summer, timezones were bad, markets were weak and I was back to full-time work so I didn't cover them.

Citius, Altius, Fortius!

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

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...

Wimbledon preview - women

Unfortunately this year I don't have the time to write comprehensive Slam previews anymore so I'll sum this one up pretty quickly - it's all about Serena. 1 - Serena Williams. In incredible form. Since bombing out in R1 of the French Open last year, she has lost just three times - to Kerber (Cincinnati QF), to Stephens (Aus Open QF) and to Azarenka (Doha final). She has won three of the last four Wimbledon finals plus the Olympic gold last year where she dropped just 17 games in six rounds, against opponents which included four former world #1s. All that considered though, I can't have her at 1/2 (1.50) on Betfair. She just has to be opposed. I can't put a finger on who is going to beat her, but I have to side with her prospective opponents. If you want a smokey to put some small change on, try Maria Kirilenko. Her record in the Slam isn't so great but it has been improving - a best result of R4 last year beaten by finalist Radwanska 7-5 in the third, and

Sport is made for betting

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