The Heat Is On

It turned out that I was right on the Miami - Atlanta game, as noted by 500-5000:

Got that one right as well! Miami went on to win the game! Good call, but a close call. You're like a guru of somekind Cassini.

And Rudy was of the same opinion as me:

I saw that earlier on too...took some of Miami at 2.8 and then at 3.5...closed out at HT for a nice bit of green. Looking at Dallas now and even though they are 26 pts behind at HT I think a lay of spurs at 1.02 could be a good play. Hope all works out well for you tonight!

Early on, Miami started well and went ahead, but Atlanta came back and looked easy winners trading at 1.02, but this being the NBA, the Heat came back and won in triple overtime, after trading as low as 1.07 in the first overtime. Which is all a rather log-winded way of saying that this was a great game for trading. If you want sensible advice, don't read the Betfair Forum, where individuals seem to be totally clueless about the sport. One sensible piece of advice, albeit tongue-in-cheek, on the subject of how injury news gets out was this from Numer0ne:

Normally, how it works:

1. Trainers/ players know
2. Insiders know
3. Pro gamblers in Las Vegas/ Betfair know
4. Fantasy basketball sites know
5. Networks (like ESPN) know
6. Mugs on Betfair know

In other words, if the price looks too good to be true, it's because it usually is, but as with any game-changing event, the tendency is for the market to overreact, as in this case. A poster by the name of tinkyvinky, on hearing the news that both Wade and James were out, wrote:

I make Hawks somewhere around 1.26 now

This may be his first NBA game, and he won't last long if that is a typical example of his idea of value. Birchola chimed in with:

Atlanta should pisss this. Ive taken 1.54

Well, perhaps. Then there was the not unusual question (this time from sullen) about the Points Total market from someone unable to read the Rules:

the total points bet is about regular time or counts also for extra time?

And to cap the night off for trading, even though there were just the four games, the Milwaukee Bucks held a 21 point lead, and lost by three in Sacramento after trading at 1.04.

If there's a better sport for trading than this, with more clueless competition, please let me know.