Profits And Prophets

Competitive football returned to the Elo spreadsheet with the ALBA Challenge Cup north of the border. I am using these matches for rating purposes, albeit with a low weighting, but not risking any money. While some teams may not be too concerned about their results in this competition, 13 of 14 games over the weekend were decided either by penalties or by one goal, with just Peterhead's 5-0 thrashing of Montrose the exception. Given that Montrose are the bottom rated of all the teams I track, their defeat wasn't a surprise, although the ratings predicted a margin of just two.

I received something of a complaint from Anonymous (who else?) in Dublin, upset at my mention of religion in this blog. A handful of posts, perhaps five, out of 726 since March of 2008 have touched on the subject, with the most recent concerning the Christian right in the USA and their attempt to upset the passage of The Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection and Enforcement Act (H.R. 2267) - an issue that I would suggest is of interest to most traders on the exchanges, and thus justifiable for a post here. The United States is a huge gambling market, and liquidity in several sports should be much improved if restrictions there are lifted.

Anonymous suggests that I should stick to writing about betting/sports, but fails to understand that by the same logic, Christians should stick to writing about their fairy-tales, I mean religion. When they try to impose their ideas on the general public, that is when those ideas are fair game for comment. I'd love nothing more than for religious people to allow the more free-thinking among us the freedom to live our lives as we wish, without interference, but simply ignoring issues is not the answer, something that most people in Ireland should be well aware of. Looking the other way works as well as Prohibition.

One thing I've noticed is that the Anonymous (negative) commenters are among the ones who visit this blog the most often. For example, Dublin man has made no less than six discrete visits here in the past seven hours! If he is true to his word, and he decides to read elsewhere, my hit count is going to take a serious (pun intended) hit. Somehow though, his 'threats' ring hollow. There is no other blog out there that is as interesting as this one*, and part of its appeal is that you never know what you are going to read about. While it is primarily a blog about sports betting, my posts will continue to touch on other related subjects where it is appropriate.

* If there are, please send me the link so that I can update my blog roll. And please don't take me too seriously.