Football ratings part two

Now look at the ratings again but this time ordered by the strongest home teams: -

Home	Away	Score
Man Utd	West Ham	2-0
Liverpool	Portsmouth	1-0
Arsenal	Tottenham	4-4
Aston Villa	Blackburn	3-2
Fulham	Wigan	2-0
Stoke	Sunderland	1-0
Bolton	Everton	0-1
Middlesbrough	Man City	2-0
Hull	Chelsea	0-3

You can see that Liverpool is highly rated as a home win but quite low on the likely goals list. Therefore, you can assume that this match would pan out as a low scoring Liverpool win. As you slip down the list, the chance of a home win gets more tenuous.

Football ratings part one

OK, a bit late for last night, but here is a good example of why I post up the goal ratings. This list is ordered in terms of the matches most likely to produce goals along with the actual scores from last night: -

Home	Away	Score
Man Utd	West Ham	2-0
Arsenal	Tottenham	4-4
Hull	Chelsea	0-3
Aston Villa	Blackburn	3-2
Liverpool	Portsmouth	1-0
Middlesbrough	Man City	2-0
Stoke	Sunderland	1-0
Bolton	Everton	0-1
Fulham	Wigan	2-0

Such is the nature of football that I can't say, oh yes the score will definately be X or Y but I can tell you a huge amount about how the game is likely to pan out and the chance of something happening. That's basically the essence of getting something out of football. Being right more often than not.

In this example, where I have ordered the matches in most likely to produce goals, the top four matches produced 18 goals, the bottom four just six. Obviously this should radically change your individual approach in a match whatever you are doing, which is why I post them.

Arsenal 4 - 4 Spurs

Remarkable score line you may think. But wind the clock back four years ago and the return leg of this local derby ended 4-5. I remember that match very well, as I was in the thick of it. Being the record keeper I am I still have the data from this match so I have put up an image of the Arsenal implied probability on this post. This fixture seems to throw up some off the scale results on quite a regular basis. While that's entertaining it makes it difficult to know what to do. This time around though no stress was induced. Because I had a good day, I treated myself to the evening off, testing aside.

The more remarkable thing about a local derby is their propensity to throw up draws. I did some research on this over 20 years ago and if you plot distance between home grounds there is a direct correlation between distance and draws. The spirit to remain unbeaten is strong between local rivals. You didn't need maths to confirm that, but it's nice to know that statistics back it up. It's also interesting to see the 'new manager effect' is still benefiting Spurs. It is likely to negatively impact Portsmouth.

Santa fails to deliver

Woke up this morning to see snow on the lawn, earlier than for a few years. A cold wind is a blowing and that means we are well and truly past the flat season and into the winter months. This is a time to hunker down and get the best out of some generally pretty awful, usually weather affected, cards. On the flip side days are shorter and this offers the chance to get a bit of my life back and do some other things. Missing a card on a Monday or Tuesday isn't going to break the bank at this time of year and the earlier finish means I can have tea with the kids and go to the gym etc.

The tenuous link in the header was to the Breeders cup in Santa Anita. I must say it was a little dissapointing. I did well last year, but struggled a bit this year. With the long gaps between races the money sort of flopped into the markets and never really created many clear cut opportunities. It did the same last year but the last two races more than compensated for the rest of the card. This year almost the opposite happened and the latter part of the card was poor. On the Breeders cup classic I managed to only do less than 1/3rd of my total from last year but on the I still managed to have a record day. No surprise really, given the huge number of races on the card. I haven't posted up the P&L for the day as I think that would set unrealistic expectations. You'll just have to guess what the total was!! But here is the last race at Santa Anita, somewhat short of the £300+ of last year.

Easiest soccer trade ever!!

Good old Harry Redknapp has always liked a flutter and has always been good for a flutter too. This Sunday morning I woke up early, thanks to the clocks changing and kids failure to understand daylight saving time, very understandable IMHO.

I did the usual thing of switching on the TV to adjust my eyes to new day and heard that Ramos had been sacked by Spurs and replaced by Redknapp. Knowing that Spurs were playing that day I immediately headed to my computer to check the price of Spurs. Everybody should be aware of the 'new manager' effect and the fact that just the process of appointing a new manager increases the mood and optimism within a team. Listening to comments from the team last week would easily tell you they were at a low ebb.

With Spurs at home to Bolton I expected the price of Spurs to come in a fair bit once the news was out. After all, the bounce in optimism and the revitalised team would probably stand a much better chance of winning than the team that stepped out last week. As you can see from the screen shots that was exactly what happened. Pencil this in your notebook as it's unlikely this will be the last managerial change this season!

Breeders cup - Day one

First day of the Breeders Cup has started postively. Last year I really struggled to do anything useful on the Friday but already I have managed to get a reasonable total out of one of the earlier races. Hopefully it's not downhill from here! I wish you the best of luck whatever you are doing.

Betfair annual financial results

Betfair's latest annual report is out for the year to 30th April 2008. You can read the full edition by clicking on this link.

Revenue, of which the vast majority is commission paid by punters, is up 29% to £240 million. So it looks like Betfair were not exactly struggling before they decided to implement the premium charge.

Operating profit was up to £28m from £20m. It is difficult to work out the detail on this as more, or less, marketing spend will always drop straight to the bottom line. In short if you choose to splurge money on marketing you will make less profit and vice versa.

Interest received on client deposits and cash in the bank was £9.9m up from £7.1m. I forecast this will drop a lot next year as people will probably not look to hold money on tap in Betfair any more. I always had large amounts in Betfair for opportunistic purposes but since the introduction of the premium charge I have pretty much cleaned out all my accounts and now choose to shuffle money in and out as required. More hassle but it will save me a lot of money.

If you look at the balance sheet it appears people have been moving money already. Cash in hand and at the bank has dropped by £70m to roughly £111m. In previous years nearly all the cash on the balance sheet has been client deposits. It's the first time since Betfair came into being that client deposits have dropped year on year.

Overall not the report of a company that is struggling. So the introduction of new charges doesn't appear to be for structural reasons by the look of it.

Are you are swinger?

With recent upgrade to Bet Angel I recorded some new videos recently. The old videos without the jockey silks, advanced charting and the new greening tools looked a little jaded so some fresh ones were overdue. I'll look to put some up on the blog to highlight some of the features. A lot of the videos have been accessible to existing subscribers for a while via the message of the day. If you haven't viewed them, take some time out to have a look.

Yesterday I recorded this new video which I thought you would find interesting. It's a classic swing trade on one of the early races of the day. You can view the video by clicking here. It's very similar in style to the one I detailed in the August edition of Racing Ahead.

I traded 31 markets on this day and had four losers. This reace at Great Leighs was the first decent swing traing opportunity of the day and, fortunately for me, it worked a treat. So I didn't need to record any more videos. Swing trading is a fickle art so to bag the first decent opportunity was a bonus.

A tale of two weekends

I mentioned in the blog last week that combination of the champions meeting at Newmarket and the return of Cheltenham should set up a good weekend. It was a cracker! Sometimes things line up just nicely and you can really get going. To have a good result though it sometimes also takes a little bit of luck. Not luck as in dumping £1k on a favourite and getting away with it, luck in terms of taking a position and it turning your way well. The days surrounding the meeting were excellent and the week wasn't half bad either, over all, very satisfying. However, I have some good news, the best is to come.

This weekend is the Breeders cup and on the same day last year I had an absolutely stonking day. That's no surprise really as the racing went on all afternoon and into the late evening, a total of 46 races in all. This year we have even more races on the card and I think we could be lined up for another great weekend. Its really the only time I ever do US racing. The only downside for this year though is that the meeting is being held in Santa Anita on the west coast. This means the last race is scheduled to go off at 23:45 UK time. It's going to be a looooooooooooong day.

Tonights Champions League - Ranked by strongest home advantage

1	Inter	Anorthosis
2	Chelsea	Roma
3	Bordeaux	CFR Cluj
4	Shakhtar	Sp Lisbon
5	PSV	Marseille
6	Atl Madrid	Liverpool
7	Panathinaikos	W Bremen
8	FC Basel	Barcelona

Tonights Champions League - Ranked by most likely goals

1	FC Basel	Barcelona
2	Inter	Anorthosis
3	Panathinaikos	W Bremen
4	Chelsea	Roma
5	Shakhtar	Sp Lisbon
6	PSV	Marseille
7	Bordeaux	CFR Cluj
8	Atl Madrid	Liverpool

Wiliam Hill growth continues, expands gaming

Click here for the full full RNS notice

Looks like William Hill is still growing but quite a bit of growth has and will come from the FOBT / Casino style products. The sports book returned to growth again and they have done a deal to expand their gaming products. Things seem stable but an interesting footnote is that they are still carrying £1bn in debt. This debt needs to re-financed inside the next 16 months.

Tennis - Murray marches on!

I thought Murray had a chance for a good run in the Masters in Madrid but I hadn't expected him to be in the final and priced at 1.32 to win the event! Here are some stats for you. Some of these can be influenced by who serves first so please bear that in mind. Also these figures assume static 'ability' during the match which is unrealistic but that is where some of your judgement comes in. Should be fairly accurate though.

100% Book - Starting prices

Murray 1.32 Simon 4.12

First game Murray wins - 1.20, loses - 1.37
First set Murray wins - 1.11, loses - 2.16

Bet Angel for Betdaq

We are pleased to announce Bet Angel for Betdaq. As the product is in beta at the moment it is free to use. Please register at http://betdaq.betangel.com for access.

Betfair - Cross matching statement

The Gambling Commission just released a statement relating to Betfair's introduction of the cross matching bot that they implemented back in February. It looks like Betfair got a ticking off as they posted an apology to customers on their web site. The Gambling commission reckons that Betfair made around £300k in the first month of operation. Rebased over a year it looks like Betfair would earn anywhere between an extra £2-4m a year. Make of that, and other changes since then, what you will!

View the statement by clicking here.

Exciting weekend ahead

Domestic football returns to the scene, Madrid master offers us plenty of Tennis and in the horse racing arena we have the return of Cheltenham to the fold. To top that we also have the high quality champions meeting at Newmarket. It should be a bumper weekend. I couldn't find a screen shot from Newmarket from last year but here is one from the previous year, 2006. Given the growth I've seen since then, it's not massive by this years standards, but it's still a useful result. I hope you can get a similar one this weekend. It's a weekend full of opportunity.

French cancel 2009 F1 Grand Prix

"For economic reasons, the FFSA has decided to cancel the (2009) French Grand Prix," said a FFSA statement.

The current financial turmoil is a bit worrying for sport in general IMHO. Quite a few sports rely on sponsorship etc to gather funds to splurg on over paid stars. During a downturn in the economy advertising is usually one of the first expenses to be cut. It's seen as a "soft" way to prop up the bottom line. The marketing effect takes time and when under pressure weakening the spend is a quick way to keep things level. Typically most downturns are not protracted, though this downturn doesn't look normal at the moment, and marketing spend can return to normal later. Also you have consumers who will be less hungry than normal. I still remember paying £1.50 to watch a top class football match. That doesn't even buy you a drink now!

The biggest impact though is likely to hit those clubs that are highly leveraged. Liberal funding is very hard to get hold of suddenly and any dip in revenues will make it difficult to met debt covenants. Pressure will also be applied in the transfer market to keep spending within the clubs means and the sales of players will get harder. It's at times like this that monumental shifts can take place in clubs fortunes. Keep your eyes open for opportunities.

Strongest ranked home teams

1	Croatia	Andorra
2	Lithuania	Faroe Islands
3	Northern Ireland	San Marino
4	Portugal	Albania
5	Germany	Wales
6	Italy	Montenegro
7	Russia	Finland
8	Bosnia	Armenia
9	Rep of Ireland	Cyprus
10	Greece	Switzerland
11	Iceland	FYR Macedonia
12	Slovakia	Poland
13	Austria	Serbia
14	Norway	Netherlands
15	Luxembourg	Moldova
16	Georgia	Bulgaria
17	Belgium	Spain
18	Estonia	Turkey
19	Belarus	England
20	Malta	Hungary

Goal ratings for this evenings matches

Croatia	Andorra	4.9
Lithuania	Faroe Islands	4.8
Northern Ireland	San Marino	3.7
Portugal	Albania	3.4
Malta	Hungary	3.2
Germany	Wales	3.2
Italy	Montenegro	2.9
Estonia	Turkey	2.8
Russia	Finland	2.8
Rep of Ireland	Cyprus	2.8
Bosnia	Armenia	2.8
Belarus	England	2.8
Belgium	Spain	2.7
Norway	Netherlands	2.7
Luxembourg	Moldova	2.7
Slovakia	Poland	2.6
Georgia	Bulgaria	2.6
Austria	Serbia	2.5
Greece	Switzerland	2.5
Iceland	FYR Macedonia	2.4

Bet Angel for Betdaq

As you may be aware we have had this ready for at least a couple of weeks now but we are still tweaking and awaiting confirmation on a few things before we release it. Rather than keep emailing in about the availability please complete the form here to keep in touch with the release of this software.

Triomphe Triumph

Congratulations to the user that sent in a screenshot of his Bet Angel result from the 'Prix De l'Arc De Triomphe'. While I was entertaining some visitors it appears many of you were romping away with this one, maybe I shouldn't make these recommendations so often? I was gutted to miss the opportunity. I have respected the wishes of the user and not published the screenshot but I can confirm the amount it was just short of £700 greened up across the card!!!

Can't see the wood for the trees

I've had an interesting start to the week. On Monday my router started dropping out, I traced the source to an intermittent electricity supply. I phoned the electricity company and they said they would come out and look into it. Yesterday they turned up and promptly cut all the power off without warning, right in the middle of trading!

Having a back up is always an essential part of your plan. For planned outages or unexplained issues I have at least three additional locations I can rely on. When my connection seems unstable or my main location is unsuitable, having somewhere else to trade from is obviously very useful. Even then I always have a laptop with decent battery life and a 3G modem to use. This came in handy yesterday when the power failed I just turned to my left and carried on. Even then I needed to immediately think about a back up plan. If you have exhausted all alternatives, there is another location you can trade from if the situation requires, your car!

As we were mid session yesterday I really had no alternative but to jump in the car. It may seem odd, but I knew the battery power I was on would die so I needed to find another battery to run off and there was a big one on four wheels in the drive. I also had another cunning plan up my sleeve. I knew the location of the local cellular mast. Therefore I immediately drove to that location and enjoyed an afternoon trading in the country side! I saw six pheasants, two deer, several rabbits, an Owl and one bemused jogger. I decided that driving into the woods surrounding the mast was more pleasant than directly next to it.

In the end I got a reasonable total for the day. It shows that trading on the move via 3G is perfectly viable. While it makes sense to use all the best available equipment I am tempted to start doing this more often. The only negative on the day was that on my way out of the woods I accidentally reduced the pheasant population by one, still that was dinner sorted!

Most likely home win rankings for today

Rank	Home Team	Away Team
1	England	Kazakhstan
2	Denmark	Malta
3	Netherlands	Iceland
4	Wales	Liechtenstein
5	Greece	Moldova
6	Finland	Azerbaijan
7	Belgium	Armenia
8	Argentina	Uruguay
9	Turkey	Bosnia
10	Switzerland	Latvia
11	Serbia	Lithuania
12	Hungary	Albania
13	Germany	Russia
14	Bolivia	Peru
15	Slovenia	Northern Ireland
16	Georgia	Cyprus
17	Scotland	Norway
18	Ukraine	Croatia
19	Poland	Czech Republic
20	Romania	France
21	Sweden	Portugal
22	Bulgaria	Italy
23	Luxembourg	Israel
24	Faroe Islands	Austria
25	Estonia	Spain
26	San Marino	Slovakia

Goal ratings for todays matches

England	Kazakhstan	3.8
Denmark	Malta	3.8
San Marino	Slovakia	3.6
Netherlands	Iceland	3.5
Estonia	Spain	3.2
Wales	Liechtenstein	3.1
Faroe Islands	Austria	3.0
Germany	Russia	2.9
Finland	Azerbaijan	2.9
Argentina	Uruguay	2.9
Turkey	Bosnia	2.9
Belgium	Armenia	2.9
Greece	Moldova	2.9
Luxembourg	Israel	2.9
Switzerland	Latvia	2.7
Serbia	Lithuania	2.7
Georgia	Cyprus	2.6
Hungary	Albania	2.6
Bolivia	Peru	2.6
Sweden	Portugal	2.5
Bulgaria	Italy	2.5
Scotland	Norway	2.4
Slovenia	Northern Ireland	2.4
Ukraine	Croatia	2.4
Poland	Czech Republic	2.4
Romania	France	2.3

Thanks Frankie!

Dettori's tip opened at evens and shortened nearer to the off. I traded it before leaving the profit in running and the horse won easily. I've had quite a few emails from a number of people saying they also followed the tip, so well done to all of you.

When Frankie met Harry

I was lucky enough last night to attend an event in London with a number a sporting celebrities. Thank you to my hosts for an excellent evening!

Two central sporting figures were there, Harry Redknapp and Frankie Dettori, both answered a number of questions and gave entertaining dialogue. Inevtiably people asked Frankie to tip something up and to my surprise he did. He gave his mount Musleh a nod in the 14:15 at Lingfield. Make of that what you will but there you have it, straight from the horses mouth.

Working on Sunday

One of the weekends each year where I will defintaly work on a Sunday is this weekend. The reason being, that it is the big race in France, the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe.

I have always done very well on the Arc and other races around it and the card for the day looks generally favourable. So if you can I would recommend topping up your account by trading on Sunday.

Unfortunately for me I have other commitments this Sunday! A case of bad planning and timing. Due to the turmoil in the financial markets, I will be otherwise occupied this Sunday, fortunately I am already past last years total for the same week even excluding Saturday. I won't be missing out on much, but it pains me to miss this Sunday's card. I recommend you at least give it a go.

Newmarket - Cambridgeshire meeting

I have fond memories of the Cambridgeshire meeting, I hope to add to that this weekend. It was two years ago that I attended the World Money Show with Betfair and traded live at the event. I remember the complete and utter skepticism that surrounded the Betfair stand during the morning as people just couldn't understand why a betting company was at a trading / investment show. I tried to explain to passers by what was going on, but I was met with a general lack of understanding and some downright rude comments. As the afternoon sprung into action and people saw what was going on, the stand started to fill up and by the end of the session it was packed. In the end we all ended on a high with a job well done, it was exhausting but great fun. Betfair don't really seem to fund these events anymore, which is a shame.

Last year, the Newmarket meeting was even better and I knocked in some excellent totals thrashing my performance of the previous year. It would be great to repeat that performance this year. Good luck what ever you do.

Fast pictures and in-play trading

Here you can see the finish of a race, as a bonus you can see it happen all over again a few seconds later. These are two images of the top two screens of my quad screen display. Both were taken a few seconds apart from each other, well at least four to be more precise. Possibly near five seconds if you count rounding of the seconds.

On the right you can see the fastest feed possible and on the left the standard feed from At the races, channel 415 on Sky. You can see that on the first image the fast feed pictures arrived at 3:08:47. As the winner punched the air with excitement we were still waiting on ATR for the confirmed winner. Five or more seconds later we see the horse cross the line.

In this particular race the time delay was of significant benefit, the winner accelerated late on to over turn the front runner. This is common as most action takes place quite late in flat races.

So how to do get these fast pictures? Quite easy really, there are from the BBC. Terrestial pictures are the closest you can get to being on course, beating even the other feeds from the course and being only just behind the real live action. Of course if you have no race reading skills you may still struggle, but at least you know you are pretty much on a level playing field.

Strong September

I've always been an advocate of keeping good records. Not only is it sensible but it also allows you to carefully refine your abilities and see if there is any general trend occuring in the market. Using this data I always carefully see what is happening and try and work out why. For September I had a shock!

In September I acheived my highest strike rate ever. That was great, but the confusing thing is I don't know why? OK, the main reason is I obviously performed well. But it is the underlying cause that is of more importance to me. I'll have to do some work to figure that bit out. Confusing but none the less pleasing.

Court action on unfair charges

You could be mistaken for thinking I am talking about charges that have been applied using retrospective qualification that only affects a 'small' number of users. But no, a rather ironic press release from Betfair this morning: -

Betfair today issued proceedings in the Federal Court of Australia challenging the validity of decisions by Racing NSW (RNSW) and Harness Racing NSW (HRNSW) to impose a 1.5% turnover fee for all wagering operators wishing to cover NSW thoroughbred and harness races.

The proceedings in the Federal Court are brought under section 92 of the Constitution, alleging discriminatory conduct in interstate trade and commerce. Betfair succeeded in a separate section 92 action against the Western Australian government earlier this year.

Betfair’s Director, Corporate and Business Affairs, Andrew Twaits, said: “We’re happy to pay a fee to the NSW racing industry on all our wagering revenue but the turnover fee imposed by Racing NSW and Harness Racing NSW is highly discriminatory.

“The fee equates to around 60% of our gross revenue but less than 10% of TAB’s revenue. Both RNSW and HRNSW are fully aware that it’s impossible for us to compete on those terms. They’ve left us with no option but to challenge the validity of their decisions.

“The only fair basis on which to charge for race fields is to implement a gross revenue model where every wagering operator pays at the same rate. That way, even if there is any transfer of customer expenditure from the TABs to other wagering operators, the NSW racing industry will continue to get the same proportion of revenue from every dollar spent by punters.”

How many goals?

If you are interested in football matches and all things related have a nose in this months Racing Ahead magazine where I talk about goals and give a broad overview of to forecast how many there are per game. You can view and download the magazine by clicking on this text.