Storytime

People have been v kind re the Betdaq win, so, am taking a day off to make some Chilli.

There is a point to this post. Its never give up. Do your homework, work hard and , don't let the punctuation or portion police near you.

While it simmers, I promised to do a post, re a cricket game, which took place, over 3 mths ago.

The game took place at a off-the-track ground, which I have history with (good and bad)

The Bad.

I went there to watch S.Africa play Sri Lanka (over 7 yrs ago). It cost me 400 quid to get there .. (multiple car legs, followed by flight, followed by car), and arrived 1 hr late. Sri lanka were 40-9 when I got there, finally scoring not many, and S.Africa won by a distance. Lost the expenses. Not happy. A day to put in the memory banks.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/series/12644/scorecard/514035/south-africa-vs-sri-lanka-1st-odi-sri-lanka-tour-of-south-africa-2011-12/

The Good

I repeated above, but, arrived on time. S.Africa mustered 208 in a one day 50 over game .. fair, definitely not a certain winning score, but N.Zealand faltered in their reply, and were 20-2, pretty quickly. At this stage, S.Africa were 1.21 or so .. short enuf, but you could understand it.

At this juncture, the main scoreboard went blank. Ok, so was manually keeping score, and NZ ticked on a few runs. They got to 30-2, and the price on the exchange was 1.17 .. lower than they were 5 mins ago. The runs were coming at a reasonable pace .. time was never going to be a factor, (either S.Africa were going to bowl NZ out, or NZ would win), and the lower price made little sense, so, I laid some. Another over went by, and NZ got to 40-2 .. now, you would have expected their price to be .. maybe 1.35 or so .. but, it was 1.12 !! I could scarcely believe my eyes, and thought maybe my software was faulty, so checked. It wasn't, so entered some really lumpy lays, at 1.09 and 1.08. These were both taken .. at which point, NZ were 45-2.

I went on twitter to ask, WTF was going on .. and saw a long thread, about how the power outage had stopped all transmissions of scores. The sheep effect had stepped in, and people expected NZ to be 30-4 or something. I quickly put them straight .. gave a ball-by-ball commentary, and even posted a picture of the scoreboard. That settled it .. and was able to book v good profits, when the price resumed to normality.

So, that's the history.

Its still a ground I battle to find .. The GPS is off whack, but went to watch a domestic 50 over game.

There was no international Tv coverage, and I was the main market maker, happy to tick over, and maybe win expenses.

I had watched all the local domestic cricket .. and had a bias, always thinking the chasing side would get up .. chasing 289 (you can see how cricket has moved on). Anyway, it was a decent chase, but, it looked like they were gonna fall short, needing 14 off the last over, scoring just 3 off the first 3 balls, and then getting a run-out. The new batter, was someone I always liked, so had a playful interest at 100/1 +, that he would get 11 off the last 2 balls.

5th ball of the over .. Bosh !! 6

Last ball .. another beautiful 6.

Its now on my Xmas card list ..

Betdaq Cheltenham Trading Competion

Been busy etc and will do other posts, but this one crossed my desk.

Last year, Peter Webb (Bet Angel) used his trading tools to trade on all 28 of the festival races and won on every one. He did a video :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehUqgO0-K6Y

This is a pretty decent effort. Its not a billion to one chance . I would take 10/1 to do it (winning 5p or something), but his numbers were v strong, so he is obviously a great trader.

Betdaq generously announced a competition :

The basic rules were you had to trade on all 28 races and your net result would be multiplied by your net win percentage.

So, if u won $3k over the week and won on 14/28 races, it would have been $3k * 50% = $1500.

First prize 1k, 700 for 2nd, 300 for third.

I very rarely trade Cheltenham but this year was able to fit it in.

Competition strategy is important. I initially expected anyone making around $7k would be close to winning but as the week progressed, my idea of what would be needed fell.

My trading strategy was to try to limit losses, but if certain horses won, put myself into the frame.

During days 1-3, I was able to limit losers to just 1 a day and had some big swings in my favour.

By day 4, I felt I was v close to winning and though I had committed to not really trading Day 4, couldn't help myself when Apples Shakira was trading as low as 2.2. Beating this probably put me well over the top.

Here are my results for the 4 days ;

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

All of this made my winnings for the competition

So, about 4820 multiplied by net win percentage of 89% (25/28) = 4289.


That got the job done.

Was pleased that Betdaq trading volumes were up .. we estimate by around 20% on the week, and Betfair fell by about 15%, year on year.

Matchbook also had very decent liquidity. It's encouraging, competition is gaining traction, especially at high profile events.


Edit : Have discovered 2nd and 3rd were low 1k profits .. which probably indicates bad Game Theory, by risking it all in the first race of Day 4.