Sport is made for betting

Haven't found much to rant about today, so I thought I'd reprint some very useful betting philosophies I've found on different sites. This batch were originally found on the Slipperytoad blog. Mistakes are the portals of discovery. James Joyce - Irish author (1882 - 1941) When everybody thinks alike, everyone is likely to be wrong. Losers think of selecting the winner and beating a race. Professionals think of betting for value and beating the races. Never succumb to anyone who just wants to let you know what you are doing will never work. Don't fall foul of the favourite/longshot bias i.e. Horses with short odds (i.e., favourites) tend to win even more frequently than indicated by the final market odds, while horses with long odds (i.e., longshots) win less So, during tissue compilation, don't underestimate the chances of preferred contenders and overestimate the changes of marginal contenders. The best handicapping literature in the world are your own...

Australian racing is right up there with the best of the world on many fronts - the flagship event of Aus racing, the Melbourne Cup gets a local (not national unfortunately) public holiday; the prizemoney at stake considering the number of race meetings held each year; the facilities at Flemington; the press coverage etc... But the one issue where it really stands head and shoulders above UK racing in particular is stewarding and the regard for punters. National stewards decide to put punters first in overhaul of rules STEWARDS from around the country emerged from a two-day conference in Launceston with the punter in mind. A revamp of betting deductions issued when horses are scratched late, an overhaul of the rortable jockey-challenge betting, the old commission-agent bogey, etc, were on the agenda. Leading form student and respected punter Dominic Beirne overhauled the antiquated betting system. ''It will be a much fairer system and most kind to the punter,'' Ra...

Bookies in the NorthWest are going into panic mode (or is it that media stir-up mode) with news that there has been strong support for Wayne Rooney to stay at Man Utd this morning. Hills reported 7/4 into 4/9 before suspending the market, several others have followed suit. Not much money on Betfair for it, but after a high of 4.0, the Yes to Stay option is now into 1.08! UPDATE - Two mins later, the announcement that a new five-year contract has been signed. Ho-hum....

Just eight players left now in each event, so I thought it's a nice time to give an update. Men Federer - the obvious favourite, and in awesome form. He just toyed with Hewitt and hasn't lost a set since R1. Best asset is he knows what to do at this end of a tournament. Davydenko - wobbled against Verdasco, led 2-0 and then had a mini-break in the fourth set breaker, before winning in five sets, having given his backers at 1.05 many grey hairs. Has beaten Federer in their last two clashes, after being 0-12 before November. But how will he go over the best of five sets, and with much more at stake? Djokovic - a bit wayward against Chiudinelli, but otherwise solid. Record is 2-4 v Tsonga, winning their first clash (AO final 08) and Miami last year. He hit a bit of a flat spot in between, the effects of an overloaded schedule and changing racquet brand - I think he is back close to his peak now. Tsonga - only scraped through against Almagro, almost throwing away a 2-0 lead. His ta...

Beware when betting on awards and prizes where votes are cast by a committee or the general public - all logic can potentially go out the window! Has he got it for “Not being George W”? In a word, yes. I'm sure he will probably be worthy of that prize in due course, but he's hardly had time to do anything on a world stage apart from try to bail out his own busted economy. Obama was 25/1 at Ladbrokes with hardly any takers. Whenever it comes to betting on an award where people have to vote for it, be it the Nobel Peace Prize, Mercury Music Award, Man of the Match in a sports event, Big Brother eviction etc, you must consider the psychology of those making the votes and how much influence they have. Sometimes voters can just be blinded by the celebrity status or headlines around one person. Other times, they vote to an agenda - to get a certain player chosen in a representative team or to appeal to a particular audience. Any awards on the BBC for example are heavily-biased toward...

The Australian marketplace continues to change. You can bet on interesting times ahead for bookies Paddy Power are going after Sportsbet by the way, not Sportingbet as mentioned in the article. Betfair take on the Dutch govt with help from the internal markets commissioner for Europe. EC's Charlie McCreevy threatens Dutch over 'Betfair bias' Prosecutors are recommending jail terms for former Juventus directors in the Serie A match-fixing scandal which saw them relegated to Serie B. Jail terms requested in Italy match-fixing case TABCorp actually make some sense, calling for Australian govts to scrap the ridiculous state anomalies and have gambling taxes set nationally Tabcorp wants national control of taxes on betting Wowsers opposed to everything that might remotely be fun strike in India (to be honest, it is really cheesy) India’s IPL hit by govt’s ‘gambling and betting’ slur Finland asking for trouble from the EU over gambling Finland debating online gambling advertising...

Sports betting in Australia has changed enormously over the years. It was only 20 years ago when you could first bet on Aussie Rules (AFL) legally, now it's huge. Pioneering bookies reflect as punting on footy turns 20 "We've gone from those first four bookies in Melbourne to now 35 online betting shops around Australia betting on AFL," he said. "You can throw in another 40 overseas betting shops as well." That equates to huge money. "Back in 1993 footy betting turnover through legal channels was $3 million. This year I'm sure it will top $1 billion. Big business, and best of all for expats like myself, there are three games per week live on Setanta in the UK.

Oh good grief, the ATP really are clueless.... The ATP men's tennis tour may ban 15 professional gamblers from attending tournaments after finding they were placing bets on site to exploit a 20-second delay in scores being received by bookmakers, a tournament director said. Full article here 20 second delay? Even Eurosport's not that bad. The delay on SkySports is 4-5 seconds at most, and fairly standard with most networks. Free-to-air TV is significantly faster, particularly on an analogue signal. Any bookmaker with a clue tests the latency of broadcast pictures, it's pretty obvious when you are 10 seconds or more behind because punters only want to back the same thing.

Will this be the start of the law being overturned, or will the exemption only apply to telephone betting? RacingandSports article

This could be a fantastic tournament. For cricket to become truly international, this concept needs to work. It will be action packed and televised all over the world. The timing of the games should suit most markets around the globe. The betting will be amazing, watch for crazy swings on Betfair. Series link - IPL website

Betfair's landmark vistory in the High Court this week over the head-in-the-sand protectionists of the WA Govt will shake up the betting industry of Australia like never before. Not only can a state deny a firm licensed in another state the licence to operate or use their data should they be willing to pay a similar fee to everyone else, it also will mean an end to the interstate advertising restrictions which has hampered competition for years. Now we can have a proper national racing paper, bookmakers and betting exchanges being allowed to sponsor races or sporting teams or even advertise on TV. Most states recognised the laws breached the constitution but the racing bodies, heavily controlled by the TABs, made sure no rival firm was allowed to advertise. Only NSW was anal-retentive enough to think their law would stand up in court, or at the very least, liked to wave their 'power' around and threaten anyone who dared to advertise in NSW if they weren't licensed there...

Bwin's quest for global domination continues. After legal issues in France and Germany in particular, they have tried the same tactic in Argentina by acquiring a regional licence and then expecting that to work nationally. Fair enough you say, but the Argentinian government are very anti-sports betting, so don't expect them to give this one up lightly. The Argentinean Football Association wasn't too happy about it either. South America is massive on football and other sports such as motor racing, tennis and horse racing are pretty popular as well. It's a big market if someone manages to crack it.

The great new sport to trade has only two rounds left - this weekend in Siberia, then next week in Norway. Ole Einar Bjoerndalen won the men's sprint on Thursday, the incredibly gorgeous Magdalena Neuner won the women's event. Saturday is for the pursuit races, and the Mass Start events on Sunday. It's a great sport to bet on - an athlete can go from 1.02 to 100 within seconds with a couple of missed shots on the last stage. Some hold their nerve and prove their class, others just bottle it! A great event to be backing and laying on Betfair. For the biathlon betting guide - click here

Federico Luzzi has joined the list of Italian tennis players suspended for betting on matches. One of the sacrilegous bets he placed was apparently three euro on himself to win! This continuing story is mostly bizarre because it's the only Italians being caught and punished - there have got to be more. Read the Foxsports article here

And people thought betting on motor racing was dull - I'd much sooner bet on that than the price of wheat! £71m down the drain by a rogue trader The only difference between this and a problem gambler is that he was using someone else's money. The financial markets are just another form of gambling - they just have a much higher reputation because blokes in suits choose that form rather than Walthamstow dogs....

Just a couple of weeks ago, WTA officials in Antwerp ejected three spectators betting on their laptops . Now in Dubai, they've gone another step and removed a spectator who was giving commentary by phone to a colleague who was obviously trying to take advantage of the broadcast delays on Eurosport. Read the article here Kudos to the WTA for doing something about it. At least there are actions behind their words in their vow to keep the sport clean from match-fixing. Whilst there are no allegations that the punter was doing anything illegal, apart from possibly aiding it from Dubai where it would be banned outright, trying to discourage betting on-site is admirable. Not to mention having a spectator in a fairly quiet stadium giving a running commentary throughout the entire match would be distracting to the players themselves.

Oh dear, the ATP have decided to use a sledgehammer to smash a peanut yet again because another Italian tennis player has placed legal bets with legal and licensed bookmakers on tennis matches. A $35k fine and a 100 day suspension on a player who has done sweet FA for a long time.... and the point of this is?? Betting on matches is naughty, and especially if their own match is involved. And these bets stopped back in 2006. Obviously Italian culture involves a lot of betting, particularly on tennis - that's three of them now. But if the ATP can't dig up any evidence to convict the likes of Davydenko or Kafelnikov, then this stinks of a smokescreen and nothing more. Galimberti won THREE matches last year, all at challenger or futures level. His career is over. What a lot of chest-beating about nothing. Official ATP release

Covers.com is a great website if North American sports are your go. Proper stats and previews for the gambler rather than the bland stuff in the papers where pundits aren't gauged on their results. Tonight's the Daytona 500. It's the big one in NASCAR and I'll be trading the Betfair market trying to lay them all low and watch for big prices with a chance back in the pack.

A very handy newsletter from Betfair, full of interesting and educational material. Betfair InPlay newsletter Oh and did I mention that I help compile it? :)

Not the first one and certainly won't be the last one. BBC article Too many 'experts' in the media might be great tipsters, but as money managers they are completely undisciplined. The guy I thought was the best judge on Melbourne racing used to act like a desperate in PubTABs (betting agencies inside a pub) on a Friday afternoon, traditionally some of the worst quality racing in Australia. It made it very hard to take his advice seriously even though you knew his judgement calls were well researched. 95+% of punters lose overall, the ones doing it for a living in the media generally aren't the guys who are winning - otherwise why would they need a job?