| Betting Profit & Loss |
| Ross Taylor 28-Nov-2012 22:02 |
Showing posts with label betting; betfair. Show all posts
Showing posts with label betting; betfair. Show all posts
Wednesday, 28 November 2012
The Steady Drip Always Fills the Bucket..........
More Betfair income tonight. Nothing to celebrate remember that the Steady Drip always fills the bucket:
Monday, 2 July 2012
More Green on Betfair
Traded out of my Federer liability. He must have had a wobble as I could back him at 7.0. Now I win £2 whoever wins the tourney.
Friday, 8 June 2012
Friday 8th June
Actions today:
Going to go for a long walk tomorrow morning.
- Complaint in to Tower Bakery.
- Won £18 on Betfair.
- 45 minutes Darts Practice.
- Grub - All Bran, Soup, Homemade Chicken Tikka Massala.
- Transferred some onion seeds from the propagator tray into pots.
- Applied for a part time job.
- Listed 50 books on Amazon.
Going to go for a long walk tomorrow morning.
Saturday, 12 May 2012
Jedward Trade Out
Successfully traded out of my Jedward punt. I now win £10 - so long as Jedward don't win Eurovision. Nice position to be in.
Have been trading BGT final tonight. I'm up so long as Molly Rainford doesn't win.
Have been trading BGT final tonight. I'm up so long as Molly Rainford doesn't win.
Tuesday, 8 May 2012
Back and Lay Jedward?
From Sofabet:
Eurovision 2012: Are you backing Jedward now to lay them later?
When Daniel and I started Sofabet in 2010, I didn’t expect to write any articles on Eurovision. Daniel is the master of this subject, whereas my primary fascination lies more with the autumn staple of Sofabet’s coverage, The X Factor – specifically, attempting to dissect the often-masterful techniques employed to generate hype and manipulate public opinion.
Last year, though, the worlds of Eurovision and X Factor-style hype came crashing into each other in the bequiffed shape of Jedward. The brothers Grimes were, of course, unleashed on an unsuspecting public by the 2009 UK X Factor are are still managed by their mentor in that show, Louis Walsh. A remarkable late gamble saw the twins plummet in the Eurovision 2011 win market from around the 50/1 mark to as low as 11/4 second-favourites on the morning of the big day.
This year, again, Jedward are representing Ireland. And this year, again, they are trading at juicy double-figure odds a couple of weeks out from the contest. So will we see another late plunge bringing them down towards favouritism during semi week? And can we cash in on it by backing them now to lay them later?
Daniel and I reckon it’s a possibility well worth considering. So while he packs his bags for Baku, I’ll lay out the reasoning.
For any Sofabet readers who are not conversant with betting exchanges, here is a quick explanation of how a “back-to-lay” works. Suppose you back Jedward with £10 at odds of, say, 30.0. (At the time of writing, their current odds in the Betfair win market are 32.0). As it stands, if Jedward win, you are +£290 and if they lose you are -£10.
Now imagine that Jedward’s odds come down to, say, 10.0. At which point you go onto Betfair and lay them, to the tune of £270. In effect, you are accepting the bet of another punter who wants to back Jedward with £30 at odds of 10.0. From this bet, if Jedward win you are -£270, and if they lose you are +£30.
Taking these bets together, then, you have just locked in a £20 profit either way. Jedward win, and you’re up £20 (your profit of £290 on the first bet minus your loss of £270 on the second). Jedward lose, and you’re up £20 (your profit of £30 on the second bet, minus your loss of £10 on the first).
In a back-to-lay bet, you don’t have to have any view at all about Jedward’s chances of actually winning the thing. You can be completely agnostic on this question. (For Daniel’s views on this matter, see his review of Waterline after the Irish national final). What you’re betting on is the proposition that Jedward’s odds will contract significantly before the contest.
In this example, effectively you’ve bet £10 at odds of 3.0 that Jedward’s odds will contract from 30.0 to 10.0. Obviously, if their odds contract to a lesser extent, then you could lock in a smaller profit. And if their odds drift, then you would have to accept locking in a loss – that’s the downside.
So, what are the chances of Jedward’s odds contracting significantly?
To answer that question we need to speculate about what caused their odds to plunge last year. There are two obvious possibilities. One is that, a few days before the contest, punters around Europe started thinking “hey, you know, Jedward’s chances have been grossly underestimated in the betting so far.”
The other possibility is that someone with an interest in Jedward’s success started placing some strategic bets, with the intention of causing the odds to tumble. Why might someone do such a thing? In a word: hype. Dramatic odds plunges have the effect of generating a sense of buzz and garnering headlines in the media.
We’ve seen a similar dynamic play out on X Factor a couple of times, most notably with Jedward themselves in 2009 and Wagner in 2010. In both cases, acts which had been deservedly rank outsiders for the win were backed right down to unlikely-looking short odds soon before being eliminated.
As we wrote at the time re Wagner, such gambles are a win-win for all concerned. The show gets column inches, the tabloids get an easy headline, and the bookies get some nice free advertising with their representatives quoted in the press.
With Eurovision, of course, the stakes are somewhat different. There would be no point in triggering an odds plunge on Jedward unless it were going to have some effect on their position in the vote. So, did it? Well, Jedward scraped through their semi-final in 8th place with the hype just starting to build; and then, with the hype reaching tidal wave proportions, they also – much more impressively – placed 8th in the final.
I know there are numerous reasons why you can’t translate directly from semi result to final expectation – different countries vote, one semi may be stronger than another, and so on – and I leave those to Daniel and the many Sofabet commenters more steeped in Eurovision lore than myself. Still, at least one of those reasons – the running order – should have worked against Jedward. They got through their semi from the plum draw of 19th of 19, whereas in the final their strong result came from a much tougher draw, 6th of 25.
It seems fair to conclude that Jedward placed better in the final than you would have expected if you’d known their result in the semi. The question then becomes: is there a plausible mechanism by which we might trace this improvement to their plunge in the betting?
We can find an unlikely analogy in the 2006 election campaign to succeed Charles Kennedy as leader of the UK political party the Liberal Democrats. Frontrunner (and eventual winner) was party elder statesman Ming Campbell. But a then-unknown MP called Chris Huhne was the subject of a remarkable plunge, being backed in from 300/1 to odds-on favourite.
There was a widely-held suspicion that people with a desire to see Mr Huhne succeed might just have been strategically punting on him, with a rationale pinpointed at the time by Mike Smithson on his blog politicalbetting.com – “that he should get the tag so beloved of journalists – “the bookies’ favourite”.”
In other words, in a world where the media look to the odds as a quick guide to who should be taken seriously as a contender, you may be able to get yourself taken seriously as a contender by engineering yourself towards the head of the market. (Mr Huhne finished a respectable second to Mr Campbell, and failed by only a whisker to beat the current incumbent Nick Clegg when the position next became vacant).
How might this kind of thing work in Eurovision? It seems plausible – although I can think of no way of testing this theory scientifically – that being among the market leaders might cause a song to perform better than it would have done as an outsider. The speculative reasoning is that when casual televoters hear their national broadcaster’s commentator say “and coming up next is one of the favourites, there’s been a lot of talk about this one”, they may be more likely to listen attentively.
Intriguingly, the jury vote increased by even more for Jedward in the final compared to the semi than did the televote. Is it possible that national jurors were susceptible to the hype, too? One would expect them to be more immune to hype than the casual televoter – but, then again, also more exposed to it.
Is this speculation feasible in terms of what kind of sums might be required to bring an act down from the 33/1 to 50/1 range into low single figures in the Eurovision win market, and whether those sums would be likely to be within the scope of an act’s promotional budget? We can only guess – though, to some extent, such a strategy might perhaps partly pay for itself by starting a snowball effect: That is, initial bets trigger price cuts; tabloids report the big gamble taking shape; casual punters jump on the bandwagon, depressing the odds further and allowing the original bets to be laid off at a profit.
One would expect this snowball effect to be much more likely to happen with acts hailing from the UK or Ireland, for reasons Daniel explained in his preview of the UK’s chances this year: Betfair and many other high-profile bookmakers are British (or Irish) based, and likewise much of their clientele – especially their casual clientele, the kind more likely to place an impulsive bet in a High Street betting shop after reading a story in their morning paper. I’m guessing it would take a significantly bigger budget to cause and sustain a similar odds plunge on acts hailing from outside of the British Isles.
There’s also something about the betting patterns on Jedward in 2011 that suggests a highly targeted approach.
Whilst Jedward’s odds plunged in the high-profile win market, this was not mirrored in more niche markets such as the top ten market, where their price remained more static. Had there been a general sense among Eurovision-savvy punters that Jedward were underestimated, you would have expected this to be reflected in the likes of the top ten market as well as the win market. There would, however, be practically no media mileage in “Jedward well-backed in top ten market” headlines.
If this speculation is anywhere near target, then one would imagine that there must have been satisfaction with last year’s outcome among those who set the ball rolling. In the X Factor, if something seems to have worked once, then chances are it will be tried again. Will the same be the case here?
At current odds, a “back-to-lay” makes Jedward effectively a price of about 2/1 to be single-figure odds on the day of the final. Of course, they might get knocked out in the semi (although being drawn in the pimp slot again here does help them), but you could hedge against the possibility by laying them in the qualification market (currently around 1.35, meaning you could pay £3.50 for the insurance of getting your £10 back if they fall at this hurdle).
This hedge means you can get somewhere around 5/4 about the proposition that if they progress through the semi, then Jedward will be backed down to single-figure odds by the day of the final. Are you tempted, or are there holes in our reasoning? Do let us know below.
Eurovision 2012: Are you backing Jedward now to lay them later?
When Daniel and I started Sofabet in 2010, I didn’t expect to write any articles on Eurovision. Daniel is the master of this subject, whereas my primary fascination lies more with the autumn staple of Sofabet’s coverage, The X Factor – specifically, attempting to dissect the often-masterful techniques employed to generate hype and manipulate public opinion.
Last year, though, the worlds of Eurovision and X Factor-style hype came crashing into each other in the bequiffed shape of Jedward. The brothers Grimes were, of course, unleashed on an unsuspecting public by the 2009 UK X Factor are are still managed by their mentor in that show, Louis Walsh. A remarkable late gamble saw the twins plummet in the Eurovision 2011 win market from around the 50/1 mark to as low as 11/4 second-favourites on the morning of the big day.
This year, again, Jedward are representing Ireland. And this year, again, they are trading at juicy double-figure odds a couple of weeks out from the contest. So will we see another late plunge bringing them down towards favouritism during semi week? And can we cash in on it by backing them now to lay them later?
Daniel and I reckon it’s a possibility well worth considering. So while he packs his bags for Baku, I’ll lay out the reasoning.
For any Sofabet readers who are not conversant with betting exchanges, here is a quick explanation of how a “back-to-lay” works. Suppose you back Jedward with £10 at odds of, say, 30.0. (At the time of writing, their current odds in the Betfair win market are 32.0). As it stands, if Jedward win, you are +£290 and if they lose you are -£10.
Now imagine that Jedward’s odds come down to, say, 10.0. At which point you go onto Betfair and lay them, to the tune of £270. In effect, you are accepting the bet of another punter who wants to back Jedward with £30 at odds of 10.0. From this bet, if Jedward win you are -£270, and if they lose you are +£30.
Taking these bets together, then, you have just locked in a £20 profit either way. Jedward win, and you’re up £20 (your profit of £290 on the first bet minus your loss of £270 on the second). Jedward lose, and you’re up £20 (your profit of £30 on the second bet, minus your loss of £10 on the first).
In a back-to-lay bet, you don’t have to have any view at all about Jedward’s chances of actually winning the thing. You can be completely agnostic on this question. (For Daniel’s views on this matter, see his review of Waterline after the Irish national final). What you’re betting on is the proposition that Jedward’s odds will contract significantly before the contest.
In this example, effectively you’ve bet £10 at odds of 3.0 that Jedward’s odds will contract from 30.0 to 10.0. Obviously, if their odds contract to a lesser extent, then you could lock in a smaller profit. And if their odds drift, then you would have to accept locking in a loss – that’s the downside.
So, what are the chances of Jedward’s odds contracting significantly?
To answer that question we need to speculate about what caused their odds to plunge last year. There are two obvious possibilities. One is that, a few days before the contest, punters around Europe started thinking “hey, you know, Jedward’s chances have been grossly underestimated in the betting so far.”
The other possibility is that someone with an interest in Jedward’s success started placing some strategic bets, with the intention of causing the odds to tumble. Why might someone do such a thing? In a word: hype. Dramatic odds plunges have the effect of generating a sense of buzz and garnering headlines in the media.
We’ve seen a similar dynamic play out on X Factor a couple of times, most notably with Jedward themselves in 2009 and Wagner in 2010. In both cases, acts which had been deservedly rank outsiders for the win were backed right down to unlikely-looking short odds soon before being eliminated.
As we wrote at the time re Wagner, such gambles are a win-win for all concerned. The show gets column inches, the tabloids get an easy headline, and the bookies get some nice free advertising with their representatives quoted in the press.
With Eurovision, of course, the stakes are somewhat different. There would be no point in triggering an odds plunge on Jedward unless it were going to have some effect on their position in the vote. So, did it? Well, Jedward scraped through their semi-final in 8th place with the hype just starting to build; and then, with the hype reaching tidal wave proportions, they also – much more impressively – placed 8th in the final.
I know there are numerous reasons why you can’t translate directly from semi result to final expectation – different countries vote, one semi may be stronger than another, and so on – and I leave those to Daniel and the many Sofabet commenters more steeped in Eurovision lore than myself. Still, at least one of those reasons – the running order – should have worked against Jedward. They got through their semi from the plum draw of 19th of 19, whereas in the final their strong result came from a much tougher draw, 6th of 25.
It seems fair to conclude that Jedward placed better in the final than you would have expected if you’d known their result in the semi. The question then becomes: is there a plausible mechanism by which we might trace this improvement to their plunge in the betting?
We can find an unlikely analogy in the 2006 election campaign to succeed Charles Kennedy as leader of the UK political party the Liberal Democrats. Frontrunner (and eventual winner) was party elder statesman Ming Campbell. But a then-unknown MP called Chris Huhne was the subject of a remarkable plunge, being backed in from 300/1 to odds-on favourite.
There was a widely-held suspicion that people with a desire to see Mr Huhne succeed might just have been strategically punting on him, with a rationale pinpointed at the time by Mike Smithson on his blog politicalbetting.com – “that he should get the tag so beloved of journalists – “the bookies’ favourite”.”
In other words, in a world where the media look to the odds as a quick guide to who should be taken seriously as a contender, you may be able to get yourself taken seriously as a contender by engineering yourself towards the head of the market. (Mr Huhne finished a respectable second to Mr Campbell, and failed by only a whisker to beat the current incumbent Nick Clegg when the position next became vacant).
How might this kind of thing work in Eurovision? It seems plausible – although I can think of no way of testing this theory scientifically – that being among the market leaders might cause a song to perform better than it would have done as an outsider. The speculative reasoning is that when casual televoters hear their national broadcaster’s commentator say “and coming up next is one of the favourites, there’s been a lot of talk about this one”, they may be more likely to listen attentively.
Intriguingly, the jury vote increased by even more for Jedward in the final compared to the semi than did the televote. Is it possible that national jurors were susceptible to the hype, too? One would expect them to be more immune to hype than the casual televoter – but, then again, also more exposed to it.
Is this speculation feasible in terms of what kind of sums might be required to bring an act down from the 33/1 to 50/1 range into low single figures in the Eurovision win market, and whether those sums would be likely to be within the scope of an act’s promotional budget? We can only guess – though, to some extent, such a strategy might perhaps partly pay for itself by starting a snowball effect: That is, initial bets trigger price cuts; tabloids report the big gamble taking shape; casual punters jump on the bandwagon, depressing the odds further and allowing the original bets to be laid off at a profit.
One would expect this snowball effect to be much more likely to happen with acts hailing from the UK or Ireland, for reasons Daniel explained in his preview of the UK’s chances this year: Betfair and many other high-profile bookmakers are British (or Irish) based, and likewise much of their clientele – especially their casual clientele, the kind more likely to place an impulsive bet in a High Street betting shop after reading a story in their morning paper. I’m guessing it would take a significantly bigger budget to cause and sustain a similar odds plunge on acts hailing from outside of the British Isles.
There’s also something about the betting patterns on Jedward in 2011 that suggests a highly targeted approach.
Whilst Jedward’s odds plunged in the high-profile win market, this was not mirrored in more niche markets such as the top ten market, where their price remained more static. Had there been a general sense among Eurovision-savvy punters that Jedward were underestimated, you would have expected this to be reflected in the likes of the top ten market as well as the win market. There would, however, be practically no media mileage in “Jedward well-backed in top ten market” headlines.
If this speculation is anywhere near target, then one would imagine that there must have been satisfaction with last year’s outcome among those who set the ball rolling. In the X Factor, if something seems to have worked once, then chances are it will be tried again. Will the same be the case here?
At current odds, a “back-to-lay” makes Jedward effectively a price of about 2/1 to be single-figure odds on the day of the final. Of course, they might get knocked out in the semi (although being drawn in the pimp slot again here does help them), but you could hedge against the possibility by laying them in the qualification market (currently around 1.35, meaning you could pay £3.50 for the insurance of getting your £10 back if they fall at this hurdle).
This hedge means you can get somewhere around 5/4 about the proposition that if they progress through the semi, then Jedward will be backed down to single-figure odds by the day of the final. Are you tempted, or are there holes in our reasoning? Do let us know below.
Wednesday, 18 April 2012
Where are the Sharbs?
Elsewhere I've entered a few competitions and I'm expecting a freebie bottle of lucozade in the post.
Saturday, 14 April 2012
Gartmorn Dam
Had a nice walk round Gartmorn Dam, Sauchie with a couple of my mates this morning. We discussed Sharbing. I think a target of mine this week should be to get at least one sharb in the bag.
Grand National Day
Placepot
1: 1,8,9
2: 3
3: 1,2
4: 4,7,12
5: 11,14,19,34
6: 4,8
10p lines equals a £14.40 stake.
Lays (all laid to a £100 liability on Betfair at SP):
1: 2,3,5,6.
2: 1,2,4
3: 3,4
4: 1,2,3,5,6,8,11,14
5: 1,2,3,4,5,7,8,9,10,12,13,15,17,21,22,23,24,25,27,28,29,30,31,33,35,37,38,39,40
I think the winner of the Grand National will come from:
Alfa Beat
Chicago Grey
Shakalakkaboomboom
According to Pete
Always Right
Cappa Bleu
Rare Bob
Sunnyhillboy
Swing Bill
Giles Cross
Vic Venturi
My 4 favoured are the ones highlighted in the Placepot selection. The Grand National is Race 5 of the card.
Good Luck.
Tuesday, 27 March 2012
Discipline is the Key on Betfair
Like an alcoholic I am now going to have to start counting the number of days since my last non-system bet. Discipline is definitely the key in the world of gambling. It sits like an angel on one shoulder whilst the little devil called Greed whispers into my other ear.
Sunday, 18 March 2012
Cheltenham Success
The Betfair work was the best. Basically I went through all the ten year trends to rule out horses which I thought definitely wouldn't win. I then laid them at SP to a £100 liability. All in all I laid 40 to 50 horses on the last day of the Festival (so had a theoretical liability of £700) and they all duly obliged. In fact I'm sure only about 3 were even placed.
This worked so well that I think I'm going to do it for all the big meetings where there is a lot of history and stats to work with. The next logical time to try would be the Grand National Meeting at Aintree, and also the Cambridgeshire meeting at Newmarket which is the traditional curtain raiser for the Flat season.
Saturday, 10 March 2012
Better day at the office
Betting Profit & Loss
Ross Taylor 10-Mar-2012 18:26
Football: £26.60
Tote:
Total P&L: £26.60
Tuesday, 6 March 2012
Disaster Zone!
My winning streak came to an end with a £350 loss on the England game last night. Goals came around the 84th, 90th and 91st minute.
Need to learn my lesson - stick to League games.
Need to learn my lesson - stick to League games.
Sunday, 26 February 2012
and the Oscar goes to........
Note for next year: Most of the Oscar Winners are leaked before the ceremony.
Betting Profit & Loss
Ross Taylor 27-Feb-2012 06:23
Special Bets: £57.04 Total P&L: £57.04
Special Bets Showing 1 - 11 of 11 markets
Market Start time Settled date Profit/loss (£)
Special Bets / Oscars 2012 : Best Picture
27-Feb-12 01:30 27-Feb-12 04:36 10.33
Special Bets / Oscars 2012 : Leading Actor
27-Feb-12 01:30 27-Feb-12 04:18 10.40
Special Bets / Oscars 2012 : Best Director
27-Feb-12 01:30 27-Feb-12 03:54 3.34
Special Bets / Oscars 2012 : Original Song
27-Feb-12 01:30 27-Feb-12 03:18 14.14
Special Bets / Oscars 2012 : Supporting Actor
27-Feb-12 01:30 27-Feb-12 03:01 4.22
Special Bets / Oscars 2012 : Animated Feature Film
27-Feb-12 01:30 27-Feb-12 02:47 2.51
Special Bets / Oscars 2012 : Sound Mixing
27-Feb-12 01:30 27-Feb-12 02:28 7.52
Special Bets / Oscars 2012 : Sound Editing
27-Feb-12 01:30 27-Feb-12 02:26 13.77
Special Bets / Oscars 2012 : Supporting Actress
27-Feb-12 01:30 27-Feb-12 02:12 7.38
Special Bets / Oscars 2012 : Costume Design
27-Feb-12 01:30 27-Feb-12 01:56 -22.00
Special Bets / Oscars 2012 : Art Direction
27-Feb-12 01:30 27-Feb-12 01:45 5.43
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
Magnificent 77
Sunday, 12 February 2012
A great weekend on Betfair
Ross Taylor 12-Feb-2012 18:47
Football: £48.58
Golf: £3.13
Rugby Union: £30.74
Tote:
Total P&L: £82.45
Saturday, 4 February 2012
Back in the Black on Betfair
Saturday, 21 January 2012
Easy £16.23 Profit
A total of 8 mins work using the 81st minute system - nice!
Saturday, 14 January 2012
Back on the horse
The late, great Oscar winner would've been proud of my £6.89 profit for two minutes "work" this afternoon:
Ross Taylor 14-Jan-2012 18:21
Soccer: £6.89
Tote:
Total P&L: £6.89
C'mon the Wasps!
| 1 | Alloa | 19 | 6 | 3 | 0 | 16 | 7 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 15 | 15 | 9 | 39 |
| 1 | Alloa | 19 | 6 | 3 | 0 | 16 | 7 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 15 | 15 | 9 | 39 |
Team P W D L F A W D L F A GD PTS
1 Alloa 19 6 3 0 16 7 5 3 2 15 15 9 39
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2 Stranraer 20 6 2 2 27 16 5 3 2 22 10 23 38
3 Annan Athletic 19 7 2 1 19 9 3 2 4 11 14 7 34
4 Queen's Park 18 5 3 1 19 6 4 1 4 13 15 11 31
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I've got £25 on them to win the League at 2/1. Long way to go though. I think I'm right in saying that Stranraer have never won anything ever so it is good that those chokers are our nearest rival.
Stung by Chelsea
I had a big loser last week in the FA Cup when Chelsea scored 3 goals from the 85 minute onwards. This is super unusual:
Sunday, 8 January 2012
Chelsea
Mata (48)
Ramires (85, 87)
Lampard (90+3)
4-0
(HT 0-0) Portsmouth
Lesoon learned - avoid the FA Cup.
Sunday, 8 January 2012
Chelsea
Mata (48)
Ramires (85, 87)
Lampard (90+3)
4-0
(HT 0-0) Portsmouth
Lesoon learned - avoid the FA Cup.
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