Author Archive: Peter Webb

Do Betfair markets reflect true opinion?

OK, for years the exchange mechanism has provided a very useful pricing mechanism. A careful aggregation of demand between people competing on a level playing field and it has provided a beautiful insight into the way free markets can work to mysteriously, accurately, price an event –  in this case the prediction that something will win a sports event.

Changes

But we have been watching closely as the market has gradually decoupled from it’s long established core. What do we mean …

Trading the Open Golf

The British Open is different from other majors in that it is played on rotation schedule across a number of ‘links’ courses in the UK. Links courses are traditionally near the sea, are near or on dunes, have an uneven surface and a sandy soil. This is in stark contrast to a lot of ‘modern’ courses which are often set in parkland or woods and carefully manicured.

Weather and links golf

Links golf is very different from traditional golf in that it’s …

The losers game in action

We had an interesting mix of sport at the weekend. As I suggested, I had a full blooded session on Saturday, but didn’t little on Sunday and choose to enjoy the sport instead.

In a previous post I talked about the ‘losers game‘, we saw some this weekend.

Win by not losing and win by winning

A triad of interesting sport awaited on Sunday. First up the British Grand Prix, definitely a case of playing the losers game. …

British Grand Prix

After a really  successful week, I’m ducking out of trading seriously today to watch some sport and do a few other things. I can’t rule out doing something at some point, the temptation can be great, but I’ll endeavour not to do much. I may trade the Euro 2016 final pre-off.

British Grand Prix stats

The British GP is curious in that, for a non-street circuit, the average outcome is quite variable from Grid to Finish. It’s the least certain race

An Ace is worth more than a point

When you read that statement it looks a little strange. How can one point be worth more than another? But statistics seem to show that’s true. With Murray about to line up against a big server in the Wimbledon final tomorrow lets look at the perfect serve.

Wimbledon

Wimbledon is the home of mighty servers, with alternate big servers booming the ball past their opponent. But what effect does it have? Some, it appears.

Over the last couple of years, …

The thin line between individual skill in Tennis

If you have been active on Wimbledon these past two weeks you would have seen some great matches. But you should have also seen something else, maybe without realising it.

Often you see an outsider really battle away at a heavy odds on favourite, maybe even winning the first set, but despite this, their odds don’t seem to come in that much. Why is that?

What’s the point?

The first thing to note is there are a lot of points …

Can you predict 1.01 defeats in Tennis?

Surface problems aside, the main news from Wimbledon so far was the shock’ defeat of Novak Djokovic.

Of course things are very easy in hindsight. But that said, short priced players are easily opposed when trading, more on that in a second . The thing that is surprising in these cases is to see somebody who traded near 1.01 before the off losing. That’s rare, but certainly not impossible.

1.01 Losers in Tennis

I shuffled through one of my database of matches and found 442 matches …

Trading the dead zone

It doesn’t happen often, but now and again all things conspire to produce a dead zone in the markets. For racing, we are currently in that dead zone.

Why does it happen?

Racing markets are seasonal and peak and trough around major meetings. The last was, obviously, Ascot. So you can get a trough before a major meeting, but you almost certainly get one after it.

Summer racing can be a bit weak as there are more meetings and the …

Making mincemeat of Strawberries and cream

I’m pleased to see the 2nd round has just finished, on the first Saturday! So there is lot of Tennis to cram in on the 2nd week, starting today!

How I learnt to trade Tennis

When I first started to trade Tennis, I needed a few things to be in place. One of those was an understanding of how odds move in match. If I knew that, I could pitch my opening and closing trades just where I wanted. I could also