Wednesday 4 March 2009

The Jury Deliberates


A few days ago, I wrote a post expressing serious doubts that a bet had been won at 100-1 as had been claimed by http://thebettingadvantage.com/100-to-1-shot/

There were a number of reasons why I came to this conclusion.

1) Why would someone post about a big win without detailing what made them consider this bet to be value?

2) Why delay posting for almost two days?

3) The money mached at 100 was less than it should have been.

4) The screenshot showing the bet looked very much a fake. Even the two zeroes on 100 clearly didn't match (looked more like 10O).

Having said that, it isn't very nice to accuse someone of something without being 100% certain of the facts, and when the respected Scott Ferguson commented that reason 3) above could be explained as a product of cross-matching, a seed of doubt was planted. I've not noticed the cross-matching in the basketball markets, (at least not in-play) but I agree this is a possibility. Betfair should probably update the Rules on markets where cross-matching is in effect, but that's for another time.

As for 1) I guess we're all different. Personally I find it slightly distasteful to post screenshots showing wins or losses. What's the point? No one is interested, and as we all know, these screesnshots can be easily faked anyway. I'll ask my psychiatrist if she has any ideas during my next session... Off topic for a moment, but for me, blogs are for opinions and ideas, reasons and suggestions, not purely for posting after the event results. We KNOW who won. We don't care if someone won 20p. Do we?

2) Why the delay in posting? Well, it could be down to a busy schedule.

4) The decidedly dodgy screenshot? Well, readers can make up their own minds about that.

I'm not totally convinced, but would the jury convict on the evidence above? Probably not. Reasonable doubt and all that.

Anyway, there's no such thing as bad publicity and with a whopping 18 comments to date, I am a little envious of the attention over there!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Here's 1 on for you then.

Anonymous said...

fake would be my verdict

Anonymous said...

It's interesting that you do not find a point in posting screenshots of wins/losses but you were reading that blog.

Some people do like to follow along other's progress.

Would you say handing out false accusations is distasteful?

Cassini said...

To address your three points.

1) Your blog is fairly new. When you wrote asking to exchange links, I thought it would be a blog about "Sports Betting Tips and Strategies", (since that it what you described it as) and so I did put a link up. I do keep an eye on the blogs I list, and yours was no exception. To your credit, you post frequently which is great, but your posts tend to be the same. A beats B, here's how great/badly I did. I would rather know what you are thinking and how it played out rather than that you won x amount.

2) How can anyone follow your progress when you only show one market a day? What is your goal? Random screenshots provide no perspective. Check out Betting Blog from the list on the right. He has a goal, he states what bets he's doing, and yes it is somewhat interesting following his progress. You and I both have the same problem in this regard, in that the nature of our trading means that we can't post our bets ahead of time, but I understand that people don't want to just read about how much I won or lost, so I stay away from that. Maybe it's just me, but behind those numbers is a story. Share the story.

3) Yes, I agree. As I said "...it isn't very nice to accuse someone of something without being 100% certain of the facts..."

Good luck.