Late Goals

I suggested on Tuesday that "Bologna look way over priced at 2.63 to beat pointless Udinese", and while they were arguably anything but way over priced, for once, luck went my way, as Bologna won it in the 90th minute, after going 0-1 down to an early goal. It often seems that these late goals always go against you, but in the long run, it evens out. Catania, tipped as value at 2.14, won a little more easily, 2-0 v Cesena. The Elo ratings had two matches in Serie A to finish drawn, the games at Lazio and Lecce, to complete a 4 for 4 night in Italy.

Only one bet in Spain. The Real Zaragoza v Hercules game was predicted a draw, and at 3.6, was another good win.

In Germany, things weren't quite so good, with the lays of Borussia Dortmund and Bayer Leverkusen both losing, and the predicted draw for Freiburg v Schalke '04 going down after an 87' winner for Schalke. It often seems that these late goals always go against you, and yeah, that is definitely true!

Overall a profit, and one can't complain about that. Football Elite had Freiburg to win, so a loss there, but two out of three for the midweek short-list at 3.5 and 3.65 made for a good couple of days.

I mentioned the Sports Betting Professor's College Football record on Sunday, and my dry comment was that "No doubt he will somehow turn that record into an amazing 5-0 system win! ...So his full record for the new season is a less than impressive 14 wins, 24 losses."

Quite comically, except that some people actually fall for his nonsense, his NCAAF update today opened with this: "

Well we added 3 more system wins last Saturday in the Original system as Vanderbilt, Arizona St. both won as A bets and UCLA won on a B bet. That brings the Original system record up to 9-1 on the year."

So 8 wins and 10 losses = 3 system wins, and an overall record of 14-24 becomes a 9-1 record. Unbelievable really.

A couple of comments on my post about Betfair's flotation. Jason of Smarkets suggested that

Smarkets is growing to become a viable alternative to Betfair. Apart from our current 1% commission offer, we're looking at ways to further disrupt the business model. Premium Charge is an abuse of Betfair's market position.

Smarkets is growing, but can they ever become a 'viable alternative to Betfair'? As Betfair said in their Press Release, they have first-mover advantage, and the second comment from Scott sums it up the situation well

No rival exchange has made a profit or a dent yet, zero reason to believe another one will do anything but join the long list of carcasses left behind. The barrier to entry - marketing and tech costs - is beyond any start-up.

As for Scott's other comment that "Prices can still improve on less liquid markets, there are plenty of those around" he is, of course, quite right. It is the liquid markets where the prices can't be improved, but the fringe markets, and even formerly relatively liquid sports like the NHL and baseball, where liquidity should be improved. Personally, I think the increase in in-play delay time hurt the ice hockey. Five seconds is an age in a fast moving game like ice hockey, never mind the 7 or 8 it increased to a couple of years back. And why are there not thousands of Canadians in these markets?

Betfair sometimes don't seem to help themselves either. For example, in the NBA last season, they would offer three over/under totals markets, at say 190.5, 200.5 and 210.5. While the US Sportsbooks simply adjust the line, and keep the risk / reward the same, the prices on Betfair adjust while the line stays the same. We're all capable of working with that. When they keep adding lines, it simply dilutes the market.

The AFC Wimbledon v Crawley Town match whets the appetite tonight. The raw numbers have AFC Wimbledon at -0.5, but Crawley Town are in form, unbeaten since opening day, and of course, top of the table for now. I have a small interest on the draw at 3.55.