To Post Or Not To Post?

John The Gambler posted something earlier today which irritated me just a little, probably because I took his comments personally.

He wrote “Why these part-time bloggers even bother is beyond me. If you don't blog everyday give it up, and do us all a favour.”

Could it be because most people have lives John? They go to work, they come home, they relax in a manner (manor if very rich) of their choice (dinner, movies, Betfair, a good book, a few beers, a lover etc.) and then they go to bed (with lover if lucky). Blogging is a part-time hobby for most people, to be done as and when time allows.

And how does not posting anything at all “do us all a favour”? Some of my posts are incredibly thought-provoking and challenging, and surely it is better to post something of substance once a week, than to post daily but say nothing related to the supposed theme of the blog, in John’s case – ‘A Year In The Life Of An Online Gambler’. He closed his online account two months ago!

Incidentally, the definition of a blog is “a website, usually maintained by an individual, with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video.”

Note that the definition states regular entries, not frequent, and certainly no mention of daily.

Perspective

Courtesy of John the Gambler, this blog kinda puts everything into perspective. Next time you think you've had a bad day, remind yourself that you really haven't.

http://baldyblog.freshblogs.co.uk/

Bankroll / Money Management

I have been asked to describe my money / bankroll management techniques. In my reply to the request, I suggested that the answer might be disappointing, because the simple answer is that for the type of investing that I do, it is not possible to manage a bankroll in the same way as it is for ‘system’ type gambling.

To try to explain this further, my style is to look for value. In an earlier post I mentioned a Celtics NBA game against the Sixers where the score was tied with 5:01 left in the game. I saw a chunk of money wanting to back the Celtics at 1.3 and this seemed to me to be a good value lay, so I layed every penny that was available. Had there been £2 trying to back Boston at that price, I would have taken it, and had there been £16,000 there I would have taken it. The key point is that I felt that the price was very good value and with an instantaneous decision to be made (the in-play market waits for no man) I do not have the luxury of time to work out the appropriate stake using the Kelly criterion even if this were possible, which I very much doubt given that whilst similar situations can repeat in basketball, identical situations do not. I do limit myself to losing no more than £5,000 on any single investment by not requesting Betfair to raise my limit, so this does guarantee that no single loss can exceed (currently) 21% of my bankroll. Also, it is rare indeed for me to find a value bet with anywhere close to this amount of money available.

When I offer odds, I tend to stay within the £1,000 to £2,000 risk range, (4.34% - 8.68%) but if the market is liquid and I feel there is a good chance of being matched for more at a value price, then I will offer, or attempt to back with, more than this amount.

So the bottom line is that there is no hard and fast rule for managing my money. If I see or can get value, then I am in for anything up to 21% or so. It all depends on the situation.

My mistake a couple of days ago was to risk £4,000 on a bet that was borderline value. That is too close to gambling for my liking and I will take the loss on the chin, learn the lesson, and put it behind me.

One thing I do seem to be able to do is learn from my mistakes. I started this venture with £100 in March 2004, and by September 10th 2005, had turned this into £21.40, with the balance at over £1,000 in-between. At that point I decided to get serious about it, treat it as a business rather than a hobby, and make it work. Despite the setbacks this week, I feel I am well on the way. I may post a lessons learned / rules to invest by some time.

As always, comments welcome, but please don’t post any links to casino gambling sites. They are not for me.

John The Gambler

I have written previously about the famous 'John The Gambler' but once again he is calling it quits so far as gambling is concerned. He had a well documented bad loss a while ago, although I never did read what the amount was, but in a way that is quite irrelevant. The fact is that however much it was, it was more than John was comfortable losing. 

Since I'm coming off two bad losses myself, I thought I might comment on this. For me, I am usually fairly disciplined, and just made a stupid decision on Sunday to involve myself in a game that I knew I wouldn't be able to see to its conclusion. My daughter is much more important to me, and as my very understanding girlfriend said to me later, in a few months/years I won't recall losing the money, but I will remember seeing my daughter in her show. She's very wise, as well as beautiful.

Yesterday's loss was just one of those losses that I still consider was value, but just didn't work out. What I'm not so happy about is the size of the loss, but I have learned another valuable lesson.

There are other reasons why I am comfortable with my losses, if comfortable is the right word. I funded my Betfair account with £100 back in March 2004 and haven't put in another penny since, so any losses are not directly out of my pocket. The other reason is that I have put together a long run of winning months, and although I am disappointed to see that come to an end, in a way it's a reality check for me not to take winning for granted so all-in-all I shall just take the past two days on the chin and get back on the horse with a solid profit on the Celtics tonight.

And this Betfair lark is also great entertainment for me. This may sound crazy, but the amount of money I win or lose is not so important to me as the mental challenge of finding value, or to put it another way, outwitting someone else who is sitting at home weighing up the odds in his underpants. Poor use of English grammar I know, but quite intentional.

The money is just numbers in an account, so it's easy to lose touch with reality. I would never dream of putting down £400, never mind £4,000 in cash, but numbers on a screen are a little like betting in a casino with chips. It's not really money. Except that it is.

How about a few comments? Like John said in his blog, it gets lonely out here.

http://john2e.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/05/the-final-count.html

So THAT's Why They Call It Gambling

Two bad days on the NBA to report. Sunday, I made the mistake of getting involved in a game knowing that I would only be able to watch the first half and of course got caught on the wrong side of a run by the Celtics who were up by nine at the half. The question was cut my losses and 'red-up' at a loss of £1,846.89 or leave a bet out there in the hopes that it would get hit. I decided to take the loss and of course the Cavaliers came back to within 1 in the fourth quarter which, had I been home, would have meant not only getting out with no loss, but also with a healthy profit. But my mistake for getting involved in the first place.

Now to Monday's loss. Hornets at home in Game 7, down by 10 against the Spurs at half-time, and the Spurs trading at 1.5x. I was quite convinced that the Hornets would make a run at some point, and I guess they did by getting within 3 with 1 minute left in the game, but unfortunately that was too late to allow me to get out of another big loss. £3,885.62 to be precise. All rather depressing really, but that's life. I've had a stellar run of 12 winning months, so if May ends up being a loser, and it will take a minor miracle for it not to, then it's not the end of the world. I hate to think that I was chasing on the second bet, but if I am honest with myself, I was. I do take big positions where I think there is value, but I held on longer than I should have done, so lessons learned, back to basics and onward and upward.

There's Something In My Eye

Congratulations Pompey

It's been a long day today with very little betting. A friend of many years, (I don't have many) over 20 of them, hails from Portsmouth and I have given him much abuse over the years about the fortunes of his local team. So when he invited me to a party to watch the FA Cup Final today, I could hardly say no. Of course his wireless Internet wasn't working, but some things in life are more important than betting. Yes, really.

Not the greatest of games, but finals are usually disappointing since teams are there to win, not to look pretty, but it was great for him to see his team win the cup. Probably a once-in-a-lifetime moment, but one never knows, and I'm sure that like myself, he never seriously thought he would see his team win the Cup. How much more it meant to him than it would have meant to any supporter of the 'Big Four'. Winning gets (almost) as old as losing, (although betting is an exception I guess) but surely even the most fanatical United fan would admit that winning any trophy for the nth time isn't as precious as winning the first or the first in a lifetime.

One sad fact - of the guys at the party, I was the only one who has never seen his team win the Cup. One day. Please God...who just happens to have his own blog - check it out:

http://stuffgodhates.wordpress.com/

All Or Nothing

How fickle the gods of gambling are. After a positive start to my Sunday with a lay of the Over 2.5 goals in the Chelsea - Bolton game (I love those pre-game odds-on Overs bets) my day got steadily worse.

I then lost all the winnings from the above bet when the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim couldn't hold on to a lead, and market illiquidity meant that I was unable to lay my 'value' investment off.

I did admittedly make a small sum on the Utah Jazz - Los Angeles Lakers game, but lost that and much more on the San Antonio Spurs - New Orleans Hornets game when the Spurs just ran away with the game after half-time.

New strategy for the NBA play-offs - back the home team pre-game and go to bed. 14 of 15 conference semis have been won by the home team. Cue a win for the Boston Celtics tonight...

And finally a value bet in the late baseball game between the Minnesota Twins and the Boston Red Sox went pear shaped although the Red Sox did come within a hit of giving me a nice win. They do say it's a game of inches.

And so after twelve consecutive months of profitablity, I am now in the red for May but with 21 days to recover and maintain my streak.

But it does seem to me that there are times when everything you touch turns to gold, or at least green, and other times when nothing you do is right.

NBA Trading - Thoughts

BB’s NBA trading blog I mentioned earlier got me thinking. It’s no secret that successful trading means buy low/sell high, or in Betfair terms, back high/lay low. Of course, this is easier said than done. If you read books on trading, usually written with the financial markets in mind, you will read about entry and exit points. It’s not difficult to devise these for non-financial markets. For example with basketball, you could set a rule that if a game is tied or the pre-game underdog is within ‘x’ number of points at the end of the first quarter, and the price on the pre-game favourite has moved less than ‘y’ percent, then this is a signal to enter the market.

One big difference between highly liquid financial markets and relatively illiquid basketball markets is the inability to set a stop-loss. BB mentioned in one post http://tradethenba.blogspot.com/2008/04/denver-la-game-5.html that he layed the Lakers at 1.17 and had a stop loss at 1.10 should they continue to play well. Personally with a lay at the 1.17 mark, I wouldn’t be too concerned about a stop-loss. The downside is already very limited, but when entering a market at a higher price, the inability to set a stop loss can be expensive. Just look at tight games in the last couple of minutes. The price doesn’t smoothly drop in .01 increments, but plummets from say 20 to 5 to 2.3 to 1.2 with little activity between those points.

A recent example was last night’s game between the Cavaliers and the Wizards. Note that all times and prices are approximate because in the heat of battle I do not have time to record everything. Essentially the situation was that with a minute left, the Cavaliers were up by 5 points and were trading at 1.05 or so. For me this is a great lay opportunity. The last minute in an NBA game can last for an eternity, and if I am ever told by a doctor that I have a minute to live, I am going to request that it is the last minute of a close NBA game.

I digress. Laying at 1.05 meant that the downside was minimal, but the upside was huge. One score by the Wizards, and the price moved nicely out to 1.25 or so. Then the Wizards got a stop, and scored again – now the price was out to 1.7 or so. When the Wizards took the lead with about 3.6 seconds to go, the price on the Cavaliers had shot out to 6.0 or so, and as it turned out, the Wizards ended up winning by that 1 point so for a risk of 50, one could have let the bet run and made 1,000 or backed it back to go Green-All-Over and nicely in profit after the lead was trimmed to 3 or to 1. I should mention that I didn’t manage to lay any of the 1.05 myself, but I have used this strategy in the past to good effect.

Rather than wait until late in the game, my strategy revolves around laying teams after they are on a 6 to 10 point run. Basketball is very much a game of momentum and with the market being driven by fear and greed, it lends itself perfectly to trading. I can’t really reveal my precise method because there’s a substantial subjective element to it. I try to get a feel for the game, and weigh factors like whether it’s the home or the road team that is under-performing, what stage the game is at, the foul situation, which team needs the win more etc.

Basically I look for value. I look to lay a team that in my opinion has been backed too low or vice-versa. It is very seldom that a chart of the prices will show a steady decline down to 1.01. There are always runs within a game and greed means that the price is driven too low, and then when the run is over and the other team starts a come-back, the fear element kicks in and the market moves back.

Comments welcome, please.

Back With A Vengeance

Well, the holiday is over, and it's back to normal. Not too much trading over the last few days, and yesterday saw me drop £614.49 on the Suns who managed to miss at least a dozen free throws and made no less than seven turnovers in the fourth quarter. So a bet that was value ended up a loser which happens, but it is immensely annoying when it does. Why is it that whenever you have a chunk of change on basketball, the team you are on goes to pieces? It seems that way anyway!

But tonight I called the Cavs / Wizards game a little better, though I did get a little lucky. I laid the Cavs big at 1.5 when it seemed to me the price was too low for a two point game. The Wizards took a six point lead so I went Green-All-Over though more green on the Wizards. With a late run in the last minute the Wizards won the game by one, and I made £500. (A Cavs win would 'only' have made me £350...)

There's a new blog which you might check out if you trade basketball. It's a little late in the season to be starting the exercise, but interesting anyway. 

It's at http://tradethenba.blogspot.com/

All Quiet on the Investment Front

It's all been a bit quiet on the investing front lately. I've had my two kids staying with me for a few days and would rather enjoy their company than win some money, although I have managed to do the latter. Woke up early this morning to find that the San Diego Padres v Colorado Rockies game was still going on. For some reason the Padres were available to lay at 1.2 with the score tied, and I took advantage of this, laying it off when the Padres duly failed to score. 

They did have a couple on base, but with two outs I considered laying at this price great value. This happened twice, the second time a few innings later, and I ended up with a nice profit. I think there was a baseball newbie in the market because when the Rockies took a 1-0 lead at the top of one of the extra innings (the game went to 22!) someone backed them at 1.01, although sadly I didn't have the foresight to lay at that price.

As I mentioned previously, my soccer lay system is on hold until the new season, although I may use it for some of the summer leagues in Scandinavia or MLS. I've been dabbling with the under/over markets with some success, but it seems to me that the soccer markets are so efficient that I have no edge, and these in-running bets are just gambles.

The NBA regular season has ended, and the play-offs start this weekend. Like the football season, it's been tricky betting on NBA with the season winding down and teams resting key players, and some big handicap spreads that I tend to avoid at the best of times. But with the play-offs starting tomorrow, there should be some close games and hopefully some value bets available.

Football Lays Saturday 12 April

17 lay selections today, and they are: Ayr United, Brechin, Bristol Rovers, Bury, Hereford United, Huddersfield Town, Lincoln City, Mansfield Town, Nottingham Forest, Ross County, Salisbury, Sheffield United, Stockport, Stoke City, Stranraer, Torquay United, and Walsall. I haven't yet had time to eliminate any teams that are playing against teams with nothing to play for, but this list may well be trimmed for that reason.

Update: Upon further review, I am removing Bury and Mansfield Town from the above list of selections. So 15 selections 'only'.

Results: Not a good day today, with no less than 8 of the 15 lay selections winning. With the bank still in profit, I think this is time for the system to take a break until next season. It seems that at this time of year, there are too many fixtures that are meaningless to either one or both teams, or more meaningful to one team than the other and strange results are being seen. Lay selections winning 6-1 away for example. The summer will give me a chance to delve a little deeper into the system and try to improve the selection criteria ready for 2008-2009. How time flies when you get older.

Football Lay Thursday 10 April

One lay again today; Ebbsfleet United (3.0) at Halifax Town despite the latter team letting me down two nights ago. Halifax have an incentive since a win will take them out of the relegation places whilst Ebssfleet can take it easy. The bank currently stands at £1,073.53 and I am laying to £10.85.

Result: Halifax duly obliged and beat Ebbsfleet 1-0 tonight, and the bank increases another £5.15 to stand at £1,079.11.

Football Lay Wed 9 April

One lay today; Ross County (3.0) at Airdrie United. Both teams are looking for promotion and thus have something to play for. The bank currently stands at £1,068.38 and I am laying to £10.85.

Result: Ross County lost 0-2, so the bank increases by £5.15.

Tuesday Football Lays 8 April

The Lay System has generated five selections for tomorrow. They are: Portsmouth, Swansea City, Forest Green Rovers, Kidderminster Harriers and Forfar Athletic.

I shall be laying each of the five to a loss of £10.85, but following a comment from A. Nonymous last Saturday it may be wise to exclude two of these selections, namely Portsmouth and Forfar as they are both playing teams that have nothing to play for. He/she has a valid point, so I shall be watching these two results with special interest. Forfar are the shortest price at 2.74, Portsmouth are longest at 3.3, and the others are in-between at 3.25 (Swansea), 3.0 (Forest Green) and 3.15 (Kidderminster).

Result: I guess stranger things have happened in the history of football, but Kidderminster was not one of my system’s best ever selections winning by no less than 6-1 at Halifax, who previously had lost just three times at home all season. Such is life. I guess Halifax are resigned to playing in the Conference North next season.

Portsmouth also let me down by trying too hard in one of the two games where my selection was playing a team with nothing to play for. At least Forfar didn’t win, but I would have been better off excluding both these selections.

All in all, not a very good night with two losses from just five selections. I shall update the numbers later. As the commenter on Saturday said, we are entering a tricky time of the year with so many games involving either one or sometimes both teams who have nothing to play for. I am thinking that I shall heed his advice and drop those matches from my list. Watch this space.

Total Match Points Markets in Basketball

These markets must be the most annoying anywhere on Betfair. I've just been watching the Memphis Tigers / UCLA game and the unders looks a shoo-in with less than three minutes left, and Memphis up by double figures. But no. UCLA keeps fouling, time after time, and for what? The game is lost. Memphis might miss the occasional free-throw, but they're not going to miss anywhere near enough to make the game even close. I can only guess that they do it just to annoy me and cost me money. Actually, the worst thing about losing this kind of a bet is not the money. It's knowing that somewhere out there, someone out-witted me. That is not something that sits well with me! But onward and upward. Another game coming up, and so long as the lesson is learned (stay away from these markets), no real harm I suppose.

Update: A poster on the forum just commented that there were 26 points in the last three minutes - in a game that wasn't even close!

Saturday Baseball

Two selections for tonight.

On the mound for the Padres tonight is Cy Young award winner Jake Peavy, who picked up a win on opening day, so my selection is the San Diego Padres (1.7) to beat the admittedly impressive Los Angeles Dodgers. When the Padres take the lead, I shall be looking to lay off at around 1.35.

Result: Padres won 4-1 with a full game from Jake Peavy.

I am persisting with the Detroit Tigers at 1.7 to beat the Chicago White Sox with Dontrelle Willis pitching his debut in the American League. Their awful start can't continue for ever. (Famous last words).

Result: First, the good news - the Tigers went 3-0 up. Last, the bad news. They are still totally inept and lost 3-5. Maybe this awful start CAN last for ever.

Saturday Football Lays April 5

The bank stands at £1,070.28 so today I am laying to 1% on 20 selections, which are: Sheffield Wednesday (playing at noon) followed by Tottenham Hotspur, Sunderland, Bristol City, Burnley, Charlton Athletic, Hartlepool, Oldham Athletic, Tranmere Rovers, Barnet, Brentford, Darlington, Macclesfield, Morecambe, Oxford United, York City, Dunfermline, Livingston and Airdrie at 3:00pm and at 5:15pm, Exeter City. All prices are between 2.84 and 3.6.

The system to date has a strike rate of 82.1% so I'm prepared for four losers, but anything less than six would be great. Six, ho-hum. Anything more than six, not so great.

Update: For some reason, a big drop in the price of the home team has eliminated three of my selections from contention, and they are Barnet, Macclesfield and Dunfermline. Early this morning I left lays in the market, and my strategy is to leave them alone until 2:30 and see how many have not been taken. One of the four unmatched selections was Tottenham Hotspur, who had drifted slightly and I adjusted my bet accordingly. The other three (mentioned earlier) had all drifted significantly so I am dropping them. I did not have this issue last week, so it will be interesting to see how those teams fare today. The Barnet bet had actually been partly matched at 3.2, but then drifted out to 3.75 so I was able to green-up on this one (for peanuts, but I am not allergic to peanuts, especially risk-free ones). If anyone knows why the price drifted out so much on any of these games, please enlighten me. Presumably some significant team news.

Result: Sheffield Wednesday did not win, so a winning start to the day.

Result: 12 of the other 16 games played so far resulted in the predicted four losses (next week I'll try predicting no losses) so the bank now stands at £1,085.24.

In the final game of the day, I have layed Exeter City for £4.52 at 3.4 to lose £10.85.

Result: ...and shouldn't have done! Exeter won, so I lost.

The bank is now at £1,074.38 - up just £4.10 on the day. As I said in the original post - ho-hum. But a profit is a profit.

Tennis

Does anyone sitting at home actually manage to make money consistently by betting on tennis in-running?

I long ago realised that I was always going to be behind court-siders or people who had access to court-side information, but I have had some success with 'playing the numbers' (backing when the weight-of-money indicates I should, and then laying off) but it is stressful to say the least.

Tonight I am looking at the numbers jumping around as Andy Roddick is playing Nikolay Davydenko and with Davydenko a set up, I decided to jump in with a bet on him at 1.73. As per usual, (or so it seems), the price then immediately moves against me, and my heart rate goes over 100, (or at least it feels like it). About two hours later, ok, more like five minutes later, the price is back down to where I backed at, and then drops still further, to 1.66, at which point I lay-off, leaving zero on Roddick, and all the green on Davydenko.

Why did I lay off at that time? I think it's because the market initially moved against me, so psychologically I say to myself "If I can get out of this even, I'll be happy" and thus when the opportunity to get out with a nice profit presented itself, I took it. Tennis being what it is, had I waited just a few more minutes I could have layed off closer to 1.3, (at which point I went Green-all-Over) and it wasn't that long before the game was over in straight sets and I could have greened up at 1.0x.

Maybe I should play with smaller amounts (I put £900 on and wouldn't have been happy to lose that!), or lay-off part of the bet. Maybe I should have let the bet run, and traded out at a loss only if the market moved against me. In the end, I came away with £47.23, about 5% of my initial investment, but I can't help feeling I should have made more. But a win is a win.

One of the problems with Betfair, when compared with the stock market, is that there is no ability to put a stop-loss bet into the market, for example a bet to lay at 2.0 to close my 1.73 position for a controlled loss, since that would be immediately matched if I didn't want it to be taken (the bet is still in good shape) or would remain unmatched if I DID want it to be (the bet is awful and no one is interested!)

Anyone any thoughts, comments or ideas?

Friday Baseball

Slight after-timing here - I didn’t realise the game started so early, but I am on the Detroit Tigers (1.7) with Nate Robertson pitching to finally get their first win of the season against the Chicago White Sox. I can’t see the Tigers’ losing run continuing much longer, and as I write this, the game is tied at 2, top of the 3rd.

Update: Should have just kept quiet. The inept Tigers fell short again, and now have a less than impressive 0-4 record to start the 2008 season.