Trading strategies

Where Angels fear to tread

One thing I’ve learnt over time is that whether it’s short term trading on Betfair or long term investing in financial markets being a contrarian seems to be a very, very effective strategy.

Why does contrarian behaviour work?

Over the years I’ve spent a lot of time looking at psychology and its impact on decision-making and it’s proved a fascinating subject. I’ve immersed myself in as much material as I can find, all in the quest of really trying to …

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.

How ‘links’ golf differs

Links golf is very different from traditional golf in

Gamesmanship in Tennis

It was interesting to see the outrage over Cillic’s very slow service during the Wimbledon semi-finals.

http://www.express.co.uk/sport/tennis/828680/Wimbledon-2017-Marin-Cilic-Sam-Querrey-fans-furious-semi-final

Gamesmanship

I’ve mentioned on the blog several times that elements of gamesmanship are prevalent in Tennis. They are all designed to throw the person on the other side of the net off balance and out of the zone.

You see medical timeouts, comfort breaks, disputes, rain breaks when there are just a few drops. There is no better way to put your opponent …

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 at Wimbledon so let’s 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, I’ve been …

Why I never turn my phone off, ever….

Most people know the significance of this date, but for a small group of traders, this date has even more significance.

Our story of this day

It started the same as any other day. I was scheduled to do a talk in central London on guess what, trading on betting exchanges. I took the train in central London, as did my delegates and after switching from overground to underground I remember clearly looking at the clock on the exit at

Tennis – Small margins, large number of points

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

Odd odds

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. If you look at top player against a lower player, the outsider can be one set all and leading 4-1. But …

Making mincemeat of Strawberries and cream

Here is how Bet Angel can help you this Wimbledon, whether you trade Tennis or not.

It’s packed full of features that are a must-have for any Tennis trader, established or aspiring.

I don’t trade Tennis

That’s not a problem, but maybe you should look at this popular in-play sport, especially during Wimbledon?

Bet Angel has free Tennis bots and can operate in practice mode which means there is no risk to your money. The advanced automation can execute ‘set …

Why Saturday is like a mini Ascot for me

When I first started sports trading, I treated it like a 9-5 job.

I did all the usual things you would in a normal job and returned to my out of work activities after the day was over. Fairly quickly I realised that this wasn’t going to work and was a terrible error of judgement. All the best opportunities seemed to occur outside of ‘normal’ hours and therefore I had to shift my working patterns. 

Shifting my workload

At first,

Ascot 2017 post meeting summary

I’ve been meaning to summarise Ascot. It’s always worth doing as you can refer back to it next year for comparison, so here goes: –

Turnover

Betfair ended up matching, at post time, around £70.5m which was up on last year by about 23%. Last year was down quite a bit so this returns the matched bet turnover to levels that would be deemed ‘normal’.

In the run up to Ascot, I reckoned it would trade around £65m so that’s …

Trading Royal Ascot

And so here we are another year, another Ascot. That came around quickly didn’t it?

For me, it’s another declined invitation to attend the event. While that pains me somewhat. For the moment, I’d still rather be on this side of the desk during one of the busiest weeks of the year. You wouldn’t see a professional footballer work hard to only miss the champions league final, so missing any major meeting is not an option for me. It can