Quick update

I'm still waiting for a call from the hospital so I'm sat here doing year end accounts and the VAT return. As a result I had a stab at the first hour of racing. The lack of UK meetings seems to have shifted volume to the Irish card so if you are trading it's probably worth having a go at the Irish racing as the volume is making this look a reasonable prospect at the moment.

Well that's about it then!

Looks like the two main meetings are off today so that brings the year to a close. It's not worth trading the remaining low quality meeting at Lingfield today unless you are a masochist. So far this month eleven meetings have been lost to the weather. I'll have a look at some point and see how many on the year, but it's a bucket load by the look of it.

Last night Hayley Turner notched up her 100th winner of the year and goes into the record books. Well done Miss Turner. I didn't see the race, so can't comment on the price activity but I did notice the last race. Our friend with more money than sense was back and made £71k appear on Hayley's horse. As it's on the lay side it was a back order and looking at the data from Betfair only £4k or so of the order got matched. The rest remained there for ages. Quite a lot appears to have been laid back at SP. Curious stuff I am sure you will agree. Hayley's horse was never in the race and the fact the order appears to have been laid back, looks like it was a market neutral position for some reason.

Hope you see in 2009 in style. We all gang together in the local community and have a party but I am not sure if I will get back from Hospital in time or not. Hope you have a good one whatever you are doing.

Trading opportunity tonight?

Hayley Turner could be the first lady jockey to net 100 wins in a calendar year tonight when she rides at Wolverhampton. The afternoon meeting at Southwell saw her notch up her 99th winner, leaving only one tonight to get to the magical ton. I sense that a lot of money will be following her tonight so if you are trading it's probably worth trying to watch and see if that happens. I don't know if I will trade tonight as I have to pick up my Dad from hospital and I also made a resonable job of the what racing there was in the afternoon, inbetween playing on the WII with the kids. So no great shakes if I don't get the chance. I think it's worth a look if you are behind your desk.

Optical illusions - Part one

Here is some music to listen to with this post.

We provide two, no actually, three types of charting with Bet Angel. The first two we have had since Bet Angel was created some time ago. These are the basic Betfair charts and the more complicated charting area which is replicated in the advanced ladder area. This charts price and weight of money.

The latest addition to this arsenal was the advanced charting, which came on line in this last year. We invested a fair bundle of cash in bringing you the advanced charting function, this despite reducing prices. It's a swing traders nirvana. Rather than blabber on about it watch the video here.

The reason for this post is to point out an optical illusion that befalls many a hopeful trader. If you rely on the plain old Betfair charts you will not see a true representation of the market. This is because the data is not scaled correctly to time. In the illustration you can clearly see the problem.

Figure (1) A nice trend has developed on this horse but this is from the open of this market, probably from the night before the race was run. Also, look at the bottom this trend has occurred with little or no volume. There is actually very little money behind this trend. Not only does this hint at its weakness, given the time taken and the lack of volume this isn't a trend that could have earned you a fortune.

Figure (2) is the 'real' trend and the one that is supported by true volume and the one that occurred in minutes before the off. Notice how, despite covering a much smaller time period, it looks like it is over the same time on the Betfair graph.

Figure (3) is the in play market.

If you fire up Bet Angel some time before you intend to use it and load up the 'Guardian' feature with the markets you wish to trade. Bet Angel automatically cycles these markets and not only manages any positions you have, but also collects data for you. When you are nearer to the off switch to the market and the full screen resizeable charting will already be populated with data from the most recently time period. You can now change or modifying the charting to suit and it will instantly reflect the data for you, allowing to you see real trends in real time. Not the optical illusion you see on the Betfair charts. If you want to go a step further, we have also included a charting spreadsheet for you in the template area of the Bet Angel Excel link. This will allow you to custom create your own charting.

In short, there are lots of tools on Bet Angel that take you well above anything that anybody else has in the market. Make sure you use them.

Postive start to the week

Given that it is likely to be a difficult week, in terms of the weather creating a problem, I thought I should work a bit harder today to get something under my belt early in the week. The result was one of the 'cleanest' days I have had in December. I managed to lose only one of 32 races. I did pretty much all the races on the card including 11 Irish races. I didn't intend to go large on the Irish races but just wanted to have a dabble and perhaps nick a tenner out of each race. I got a bit more out of the feature at Leopardstown which was won by 'Sublimity' who has now dramatically shortened for champion hurdle.

Freezing out a profit

With a high pressure slapped right on top of the UK at the moment it looks like this week could fall foul of the weather again. High pressure in winter, with the winds blowing in from just about the right direction means cold weather, getting colder. Only a few courses will have protection against the weather so this brings the prospect of quite a few cancelled meetings. I hope not, but looking at the forecast the ground could get rock hard by the middle of the week with a deep penetrating frost. It would be a gutting, but fitting, end to a year plagued with terrible weather and more lost meetings than I can recall.

Click here for more news from the Racing Post

Christmas chaos

Well that was a pretty manic time! Manic for a number of reasons but at least it did turn out to be worthwhile.

I didn't perform as well as last year, but that is no surprise as I had a lot on my plate. My Dad's consultant gave us the news that his illness was terminal on the 22nd so that sort of shook things up a bit. As a consequence, I spent a fair bit of time at my Dad's house and that caused me to have to adapt to a different set up. A rather old PC, a slow broadband connection and slightly less than suitable surroundings made for an interesting trading experience. Nothing that my travel case and my favourite laptop couldn't sort out. This is where a sling box comes in handy. As it turned out I didn't do too badly. My Dad's PC was up to coping with Bet Angel and the usual hammering I give it so I decided to stream pictures to my laptop on the same connection. I only had a 2Mb connection to work with but it seemed fine.

The highlight of the Christmas meetings was the King George the VI. I pulled in a decent total on the race, below last years, but it wasn't a bad result. The day went ok as well despite the chaos of eight meetings all kicking off all over the place. I tried hard to get something out of all of them but it was pretty tough with volume barely reaching £300 p/s on a lot of them. Not great trading fodder, but no disasters. I nipped in to some of the Irish racing to top things up as well. If you choose carefully a number of Irish meetings are perfectly tradable. Overall, especially given the circumstances, I am pretty happy with the results over Christmas.

Betfair Christmas hamper

For quite a few years there has been lots of fun banter as Christmas time about what Betfair have given out to their customers for Christmas; most of it very tounge in cheek. Suggestions of rewards for their business over the prior year have ranged from a bristling hamper to a learlet!

As I enter my ninth year on Betfair, they appear to have surpassed themselves this year. This year I received, errr.... nothing at all. No gifts, however minor, no card not even an email. I suspect this was the same for a number of Bet Angel customers. Actually I stand corrected, I did get something from Betfair on Christmas eve, A premium charge on my account.

Considering they decided to levy a 20% charge on profits based upon a lot of us being in the top 0.50% of customers. The seasonal offering so far is somewhat more fitting for people in the bottom 0.50% of customers, not the top!

However, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt as I am sure this is an oversight. As I sit down to round off my business plan for next year year I am sure those seasonal greetings are still on their way to me. If not, you could easily suspect that Betfair have taken their eye completely off the ball couldn't you?

Merry Christmas from Bet Angel

As is tradition, each year at Bet Angel we create a custom card. So here is this years version, designed by yours truly! Hope you have a great Christmas holiday and a happy new year!

Christmas opening hours

We will be operating a skeleton staff over Christmas eve and Christmas day so don't necessarily expect an instant response, but we are fully back for the bumper Boxing day sports card! Enjoy the two days of no sport and have a great break.

I am currently reading

The title to this post should have read, 'I am currently re-reading'. This is a book I have read a number of times. For such a complicated subject it is actually a pretty light read and well detailed. It's a discussion of fractal analysis and how fractals are better able to explain the way markets and prices work. It also proposes how they are better at modelling events that often fall outside that of normal statistical analysis. A good read.

I also stumbled into an interesting presentation by an academic discussing inefficiencies in sports and financial markets and correlating the two. This also included using candlesticks, which we put into the advanced charting section of Bet Angel earlier this year. Quite heavy going but I'll be reading that over Christmas to see if there is anything interesting in there.

Guaranteed stop order on Bet Angel

Just over a year ago, Betfair released a useful tool for traders, though they didn't realise at the time, a guaranteed stop order. We were quick to spot the opportunity, integrate it into Bet Angel and start using it. A year has passed since then and it seems we were one of few people to offer and understand the potential for this useful tool.

The concept is that a guaranteed stop will close any open orders before the start of the race automatically. If you have laid something and are attempting to back it back you can wait as long as you like or even walk away from your computer knowing your position will be closed.

Of course what I am talking about here is not some magical new function, its Betfair SP. The very tool designed to encourage non trading activity actually has a useful purpose for traders. Imagine you are trading near break even and waiting for an order to fill but the horses look a bit ready. Rather than close out for a loss, click on the 'Take SP' function in the unmatched bet area and you can wait till the off and see what price you get matched at. It's slightly random approach to closing your trade but there are some benefits. First, your bet will be matched, second you have longer to allow that bet to get matched. It's a useful way to close out a position.

There are some flaws that creep in with the way Betfair have implemented SP, you need to read some other posts on the blog before considering this tactic, but have a play. It's another weapon in your arsenal and it also stops you from accidentally taking a position in play which is the antithesis of the pre race trader.

Un-reality TV

Long before rigged telephone votes became public knowledge I generally held a negative view on reality TV shows. I've always preferred participating on things I can model to some extent, things that are measurable. I always held the view that something wasn't quite right and that turned out to be true.

However, even after the vote rigging issues have gone public, it still seems that something isn't quite right. The amount of short priced favourites getting turned over on these shows is still well above normal. Laying at short prices still appears to be a pretty good tactic.

Nice way to break for Christmas

I'll be spending a fair amount of time over Christmas with my very ill father, so this was pretty much my last day. I was hoping to put in a good total for the day so I could end on a high and that's exactly what happened; I love it when a plan comes together! The defining race was the 13:40 at Ascot where everything was set up perfectly to pull in an excellent total. From there on in my confidence was high and I put in a good total for the day.

For some reason I stuttered repeatedly on Haydock, not sure why that was, but the other races more than made up for that. I only ended up with two loses on 27 races. A perfect way to break for the Christmas holidays. There are meetings on Monday and Tuesday but I don't expect anything special to come out of those. So please take my advice and spend some time with family and enjoy an extended break next week. Things really get motoring again on Boxing day so if you are available then or on the next day, Saturday.

I'll post a few things up on the blog before completely breaking for Christmas. Including the annual custom commissioned Christmas card.

New manager bounce

Interested to see the immediate lift Blackburn have been given with the appointment of a new manager. I have discussed this before on the blog and it seems that this effect is in motion again with the latest managerial appointment. It's also interesting to see the opposite happen at Portsmouth, as previously suggested. Pompey appear to be gravitating to their true position based on the ratings I posted a little while ago. I suggest that they will continue on this path for the foreseeable future.

The joy and frustration of trading!

I've had a reasonable week this week, given the opportunities available. But I was keen to bag a decent total for the week before the weekend encroached. After a reasonable start yesterday I got caught out on the 13:00 when the favourite drifted just when I didn't expect it. I got seriously spanked on that trade and was fuming. One of the problems is that I probably didn't help myself either. In my attempt to get out I probably helped the price move anyhow.

Roll onto the very next race and this time the same thing happened but I was ready for it this time. Paquet Cadeau drifted liked the proverbial barge down the Thames and I hopped on for the ride. From that point on the day improved dramatically. It was interesting to note how much this horse drifted. It's one of the biggest drifts we have seen on a favourite this year. I'd have to check the stats but I reckon this drift is bigger than 99.5% of all drifts we have seen. Probably higher.

This is one of the benefits of swing trading, big gains, sometimes very big. On the downside you have be quick or very smart to avoid taking regular losses. By definition the most volatile markets offer the best opportunities but also carrying some downside risk. Swing trading is one of the reason we vastly improved the charting capabilities of Bet Angel. We acquired a , rather expensive, licence for a specialist charting to do it. If you haven't used the charting it is preferable to have at least a dual screen display and click on the advanced charting icon. A whole world of specialist user definable charts await you.

You can view a quick overview by clicking here.

Laying the draw with Soccer Mystic

The lay the draw and back it after a goal strategy appears to have been around since time immemorial. The debate about whether it works has also been around for a similar time. Here we examine the strategy using Soccer Mystic. For a limited period Soccer Mystic is free for any user of Bet Angel. To download it visit http://downloads.betangel.com. It allows you to model a football match before it has started and allows you to understand what sort of risk you are taking and what pay off you can expect on average.

View the video of this discussion by clicking here, or if you are having problems with that video use this one.

Why quality and reliability is so important to us

I feel one of the best ways to keep on top of a product is to actually use it. The guys and I are constantly prodding and poking our development edition to see what we can do. I'm always the guy who has to see if it works, good and bad!

Recently we have been quietly working on next generation trading tools and features, I'll mention more about that in the new year. The important thing to note is that there is a huge incentive and benefit for everybody of actually using our own product. That is that we want to squeeze the best performance possible out of it and also make it as reliable and stable as possible not just for us but for everybody. We gain and suffer in equal proportion to our customers.

From the moment you log on you can be sure that we have taken all steps we can think of to help you. When you log on, you authenticate with our server. If that server is down, are you doomed? Nope, we have redundant servers sitting by waiting to pick up the pieces if the main server fails. Even if that happens we still have options open to us. We don't want you to miss out just because there was a problem at our end. It obviously costs a lot more to have this back up, but we feel it is essential.

We have also shaped your connection experience with the unique connection mode concept. This allows you to change the way Bet Angel interacts with the betting exchange. There are a variety of modes you can use and test to work out which is the best way to connect to the exchange. It also has the benefit of letting you connect to the Betfair even if the API is down. When logged on you can still improve your performance by using the 'connection mode tuner'.

All these things can help you get the best out of Bet Angel and have been driven by our need to try and create the best environment for you. Read more about these features in the user guide. Available at http://qrg.betangel.com

Of course, you always have third party risk and when Betfair or any other exchange doesn't want to play ball, there isn't a great deal you can do other than minimise the effects using these tools. We recently enhanced our diagnostics to allow you to test your connection. This was in response to the issues Betfair have been experiencing recently. Download and run them if you are a Bet Angel user. Using this you can keep tabs on how your connection is performing.

Over all, one thing you can be sure of is that we will always be doing our hardest to ensure you are best represented in terms of the product, its usage and any third parties. That's why I think it's important that everybody involved with Bet Angel puts their money where they mouth is. It's a great incentive to perform!

Fast pictures - Part two

Eventually I have got around to rendering the video to this posting I made some time ago. You can click here to view the video. I have also included the original text below. If you are having problems with the large video, click here to use a smaller version.

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 nearest 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.

Waiting for a holiday

I think this aptly sums up my mood at the moment. The week is returning to a more normal week, but that isn't exactly mind blowing at this time of year, so I am looking forward to some well earned time off. Betfair's blippyness (is that a word?) is also making me less adventurous until they resolve that particular issue. I've also noticed quite a few markets are very thin. By thin I mean there is a lack of depth of liquidity. I feel much happier when the market is like a buxom lady, currently it feels very much like a size zero model. In the office we pay close attention to all the markets and their characteristics so we can particularly feel this.

Next week is Christmas and with it the King George the VI. My trading will end on Saturday night and restart on boxing day. A real test of family loyalty but it's the last decent chance of the year from a big meeting perspectice. The second day of this meeting is on Saturday this year so that should be interesting. There is racing next week but with my father so ill and my sister deciding it's a great time to take a holiday out the country!?!?!? I will forgo the trading to help my dad out. Looks like I wont get a holiday for a while.

Unlucky for some

Today is the 13th and it sure is unlucky because yet again the weather has killed what promised to be a good day. I find my way half way through the month and on only 20% of my total for the same month last year. Lop of the premium charge and it hurts even more.

I can't believe how many meetings have been lost to the weather this year. It seems an extraordinary amount and the winter hasn't even really started yet! I passed my total for last year back in September, but since then there have been so many meetings off I'm not going to end up where I thought I would on the year. Lets hope next year is more favourable. Aside from the meetings around the holiday period that's about it for December.

No chance of another crack at the whip either following discussions between Cheltenham and the BHA, it has been decided that none of the races will be re-scheduled.

Woeful Week

Well this week is proving particularly tough. With so much disruption to the card from the weather, it has thrown normal trading conditions right out the window. Not only that, but there are many less opportunities around at as well. If you are struggling this week, don't worry, lots of us are.

It's a times like this I am so glad I worked so hard during the Summer. OK I worked some unsociable hours but at least I can sit here knowing I am already well past last years totals. It's soooo frustrating looking at last years results and realising I am just not going to get past them again this week.

The possible saviour this week is the Cheltenham meeting taking place on Friday and Saturday. It went well last year so hopefully a repeat performance will see a good end to the week.

Premiership league ratings

As you know I have studied football/soccer for many years. Horse racing has dominated my activity on the markets recently but that's simply down to the structure of the markets. There is so much horse racing it just generally gets in the way of everything else!!!

Outside of that I still spend a lot of time on football/soccer and other sports. In each sport I work on I really work hard to perfect everything I do. I don't believe perfection is ever possible, as there is always an element of entropy in sport, but that doesn't stop me from trying!

When preparing for the talk I did last Monday, I brought up the English Premier League spreadsheet I run and had a look at the results. It's too complicated to talk in detail about how it works on the blog. But essentially this spreadsheet looks at the ability of teams to score against each other. Two main items stand out.

Hull's position near the top of the league and Portsmouth near the bottom. The ratings tend to be partial till the middle of the season as not everybody has played each other, but both these positions stick out like a sore thumb. Particulary Portsmouth as their actual league position would appear to flatter them at the moment. There are some other interesting items in there as well, make of them what you will.

I know its difficult to make sense of it without any detailed explanation but hopefully it will give you an insight of sorts to my view on the premiership at the moment.

Kaizen-san

As you are aware, I have been in the market for a long time. One reason I feel that I have outlasted others is probably down to my mindset. One philosophy I subscribe to is one of constant self improvement, or Kaizen as the Japanese say.

I have always aimed to keep meticulous records of the things I have done and have carefully documented my progress. This not only allows me to compare and analyse my performance over time, but it also allows me to minimise or strike out errors. I suggest you do the same, it's quite surprising how being self critical can dramatically improve performance. On the other hand , letting your ego get the better of you is an error strewn path to follow. One thing I never do is let myself believe I have it cracked, for the day you start doing that, you will start to fail. I always worry that I have missed something or should be doing better; I have a healthy level of paranoia!

It actually appears there is a lot of paranoia out there already, but the wrong sort. I recently read comments not only about this blog, but also others, stating that they must be made up. I've no doubt it's quite easy to fake figures but I can assure you I do not. One unexpected bonus of good record keeping appears to be that such issues are easy to disprove, it also gives me peace of mind. While it costs an arm and a leg, having a premium charge statement also makes authenticity indisputable.

I post items here for encouragement and enlightenment, I trust that is what you get from them. Don't stop being critical, but focus that on yourself and not others.

Another exchange bites the dust

Hmm, It seems the market is undergoing quite a bit of change all of a sudden. In my opinion these are obvious signs of a response to the global economic problems we are facing at the moment.

Imagine that you have invested in fringe projects over the years with the hope of some payoff in the future. This isn't a problem as there is lots of money sloshing around and speculative projects are considered an adequate risk. But when the money starts to dry up, core business deteriorates and expenses need to be cut; It usually these outlying projects that go first.

Well this is my interpretation of what has happened at Spreadfair. I used them on the odd occasion but never seriously and it was only while reading Scott Fergusons excellent blog, http://sportismadeforbetting.blogspot.com/, that I spotted they had gone. I doubt they were a very large part of the market but its quite likely that during times like these ,weaker players will be shaken from the market. On the wider view I can't see that lack of disposable income for consumers will be good for the betting market in general. But a couple of factors will mask this drop in betting revenue IMHO.

First the propensity of people to migrate to online betting platforms, it's cheaper and more convenient to bet from home on your broadband, than venture to a shop. Second, the internationalisation of the exchange business. Both factors should benefit stronger players and support any loss of growth in the market in general.

Given the outlook for the economy and the negative feedback cycle we are now in, I don't think there is any business that can completely survive without any impact, but online businesses look in a better position than most.

The tale of the heavy backer

After a really good days work on Saturday I settled in to tidy up paperwork etc. in the evening. I often have the evening races up, just in case an opportunity strikes. I was watching the 19:50 at Wolves when I noticed an enormous amount of money backing 'Doubtful sound' just before the off. Intrigued I grabbed a few screen shots and watched the race. 'Doubtful sound' won.

Roll onto 21:20 and again a huge amount of money appeared in the market just before the off backing 'Zuwaar'. This time I was ready so I grabbed a ton of data and kept my eye on things. But what I also did this time was put some money on 'Zuwaar' to win and carried it in-running. Being the risk averse type of person I am, I opted to immediately placed a lay bet at a much lower price to trade out if, as suspected, he ran well. 'Zuwaar' won.

Both sums of money were very significant given the volume traded on each horse prior to these big gambles. At first I thought it was somebody trying to do a major league spoof on the market but the money was stuck at the price,being filled and looked very real. An interesting and curious couple of races.

Daft as a brush

I had one of those great days today where I hardly put a foot wrong. I say hardly as I ripped through the day without any problems and was on for a clean sweep. Got to the last race of the afternoon and just blew it. I felt as daft as a brush. Everything was fine till then, so it was gutting to miss a clean sweep on the day by just one race and then, the final one. Entirely my fault and I was kicking myself for a fair while afterwards.

I soon cheered up as my little girl was singing in the choir at the local Christmas event. So a couple of hours out in the cold soon brought me back to my desk in time to rattle off a few more races at Dundalk and Wolverhampton. I was just thinking how well Dundalk had gone when they said it was the last race of the season. Oh well. Here's hoping for a good day tomorrow, especially now the Fighting Fifth has been switched to Wetherby. It's a very small field though so I am not expecting fireworks.

An 11:40 start tomorrow as well. I usually go to visit my Dad on Saturday as he is very poorly at the moment but I put back my visit, that's dedication for you! Actually there are several reasons including the chance to take my son to football, which is long overdue. So really I am not that obsessed, getting a balance in life is always important.

Whatever you do, I hope you have a good day!

Pondering premium

I've taken to mailing Betfair weekly to get my premium charge statement. The reason, it seems to be jumping around all over the place. Recently I had a remarkably low charge and I couldn't tally it to my weekly total, not moaning of course. But it does seem to rise and fall subject to all the other stuff that's going on your accounts. One thing for sure it that it contains a big fat negative each week, quite an incentive to find ways to mitigate it. I suggest its worth checking yours so you get an understanding of exactly how it's generated. There is nothing more gutting that getting off to a bad start to the week and seeing it vanish from your account mid day on Wednesday.

One 'benefit' of the premium charge statement is that Betfair neatly line out your profits per week for the last 60 weeks. It makes analysis easy and gives you a useful reference point on how you are performing year on year. It also gives you the perfect Betfair rubber stamped authenticity on your abilities. So you see, there is a positive in every negative, especially when people doubt your ability and you need evidence to the contrary ;)

Also I am now waiting with interest to see what Betfair send me for Christmas this year. After all I am now paying four times more commission than last year. Does this mean a gift of four times the value?!?

Getting that tingling feeling

This weekend sees the Tingle Creek at Sandown. I've had fond memories of this meeting so hopefully I can do ok this week. So far it's been a struggle with the weather problems causing havoc with the card. Here is a image of my result in 2006 when Kauto Star won last, he also won in 2005. This year sees another Nicholls horse go off at a very short price, Could he win for the fourth year in a row? This and the short price will make this a very high volume race.

Those magical thousands

While browsing my archives I found this little gem from this time last year. I think I may have written about this before. It was a very memorable race as most of the field fell at some point, as you can see from the graphic. It almost allowed one of the huge outsiders to romp in at an enormous price. Unfortunately he didn't and the mega pay day had to wait. Thought I share this one with you. It's always worth putting something on the big outsiders in the right circumstances. Bringing things more up to date, look at this race at Hereford. Before the off two horses traded at 10's despite the off price being 1000. Don't know what was going on there but it looks like fat fingers perhaps? Somebody had a mare on that race.

The non SP issue

After a couple of odd SP's I spotted already this month I thought I should be fair and highlight that the opposite happened today. At Wincanton a horse went to jump but stopped suddenly and the field false started. Lots of people seemed to spot that though and laid into the price sending it out. Unfortunately the failure to start was only temporary and went on its way from there. So on this occasion the SP backers benefited from this activity. I still think SP could do with reforming as it obviously isn't SP, but that's another battle!

Time for some Christmas shopping

With the weather closing in and playing havoc with race meetings I think the time has come to get a few things sorted. Today Ayr is off, Catterick and Fairyhouse delayed and that's going to play havoc with the card, volume, everything. The first race at Catterick saw seven horses pulled, some in quick succession, good luck if you tried trading that!

For me, winter is about taking what opportunities you can get. There are always plenty in the summer where you can pick and choose but little in the winter. Today I'd rather avoid the chaos and do some more research, practice some techniques and generally keep my nose clean. I may even venture to the stores to try and kill of the remaining shopping list.

A frustrating day!

Another sports exchange slips away

On November 18th, 2008, it was announced that TradeSports would cease operations and expire all open contracts. Tradesports was similar in concept to Betfair but it was run along more typical stock market trading lines, with contracts bought and sold. Like other exchanges and models, I had an account early on with Tradesports but I must admit I never really used them.

It was founded by John Delaney in 2000. Located in Dublin and by 2005 it reported 50,000 members and an average monthly volume of around four million trades. Now they will need to find another home to trade on.

One thing TradesSports did do for me was sell my email address. Each week I now get deluged with tipping services and fast buck systems. Not great, but that said, it is quite amusing to see what I get sent several times a week.

In hindsight

In hindsight, I'd use hindsight a lot more!

But seriously, after Newcastle was called off, the weekend didn't go too badly afterall, the week wasn't terrible either. It was a lot less than last year for sure, but I am sure many would be happy with what I considered a poor week. I think maybe the one mistake I made was being too cautious.

If you look at my P&L for Friday the total was ok but there were no standout results in there. I'd recommend consistancy for a beginneer but for for an experianced trader a little more risk is typically the order of the day. I think, in hindsight, after taking a battering in the Wetherby cock up by Betfair, I'd reverted to a more confidence boosting style. I am back to form this week however and I am looking forward to the Tingle Creek at Sandown this weekend.

China allows betting for first time since 1949

Betting on horse races is back in China. The government allowed betting to take place this Saturday, the first time it has allowed this since deeming horse bets illegal in 1949, when the People's Republic of China was founded.

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