Fever Shock Detroit, Not Me

Could the WNBA be the summer basketball? I don't know much about it, but I'm learning. I'm seeing the same price movements from proper basketball repeating, and as I write this I am green-all-over on the Indiana Fever v Detroit Shock game...

Women's basketball obviously isn't as popular as men's, but for investing it's plenty good enough. With slight adjustments needed due to the lower scoring, the strategies in the NBA seem to carry forward well enough. In the afore-mentioned game, Detroit had a 17 point lead early in the third quarter, but this was the same team that was outplayed two nights ago at home to their oppenents Indiana. Was 1.05 value to back? I didn't think so. If anything, the WNBA is even more a game of momentum than the men's. You know what girls are like. Things start to go wrong, they can't handle it, and timeouts to call their Mums are expressly forbidden. So when 17 points became single digits, I could see only one winner. Detroit fell apart. In the end the Indiana Fever won by double figures - a massive swing, but not unusual for basketball, still the world's number one sport for trading. In my opinion of course.

I mentioned earlier this month how it makes absolutely no sense to focus on the big sporting events if you are in it for the money rather than for entertainment. Personally I don't find it entertaining to bet on an event just because it's a big event. The Grand National may be a great British sporting spectacle, I wouldn't argue with that, but is there value to be had there? One could argue that there is value to be had in laying, with so many casual punters throwing their money away, but my point that for investment purposes, you have far more chance of finding value in a novice chase race at Newton Abbott. There have been similar comments posted on the Betfair forum, and it appears my thoughts are generally agreed with for once. Betting on the Grand National or the Derby may give you something to talk about over a beer, but it doesn't help to pay for the beer. Cheers.