Wednesday, 18 January 2012

Volume

I made a couple of (very rare) errors in my last post, both now corrected. Soccer Dude is Eddie, not Pete, not even close really, so apologies for that, and yes, of course I meant that a Wigan Athletic win would have been a better result for someone betting on Wigan than the Manchester City win that actually occurred.

 Thanks to Shevy who suggested the best bookmakers for Asian Handicap bets were SBOBET or IBCBET. I shall check those out.

 I was also sent a very interesting spreadsheet showing the total volume on Betfair in the nine months between March and December last year. Only markets with a matched volume of 200k plus are included, which will obviously lessen the visibility of the more fringe sports such as baseball, ice hockey and basketball, as well as 'soccer' where many markets would fail to reach this threshold. Nevertheless it is interesting reading, and I have added a column showing the percentage of the total that is comprised of in-play trading. Sorted by Total volume, the numbers are:
Not surprisingly, horse racing leads the list, but drops to third behind soccer and tennis for in-play. The sports with less scoring (e.g. soccer, ice hockey, rugby, baseball) tend to be those with a higher percentage matched pre-event, while the more volatile sports (e.g. cricket, basketball, volleyball, tennis, darts, snooker) see more matched in-play.

This does mesh quite nicely with my opinion that it is hard to win trading soccer given that the price movements are so well known and follow predictable paths, while sports such as basketball are far better suited for trading over the treacherous pre-game punt where one late injury can ruin your bet.

Many thanks for sending those numbers my way.
at

4 comments:

  1. BotTrader18 January 2012 at 13:06

    Interesting to see the financials only taking 259K, which should really be in the In play volume btw :)

    I remember the financials used to be one of my early markets back in the day and the turnover whilst not huge was decent and playable. As usual betfair started to tinker with the markets brought out tradefair and completely killed off the financials. Wonder if the same will happen with their own fixed odds arm due out soon.

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  2. AL18 January 2012 at 13:46

    Cass, is picking a 75-1 winner today just luck?

    Cheers
    AL

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  3. undergroundtrader18 January 2012 at 16:11

    great thanks to you for your write ups. They inspired me to start a blog, where i m going to provide hopefully useful trading experiences over 20 years now in stock and sport markets.
    In terms of your considerations about volume: for profitable trading you need volatility and liquidity and marginal price movements preferably without greater gaps.Thats the reason for increasing matching in-play in basketball, tennis and so on. Btw. just four ingredients lead you to a constantly "green" trader: It s all about 1) discipline 2) value picking 3) money management 4)to do the opposite of what human mind and emotions of your own and the other market player want to mislead you (i.e. exaggerations, cutting profits to early, let losses slide.....). Thats the reason why just 5% of the traders (in stock or sports trading) have a positive ROI. The key is "undergroundtrading" in terms of looking under the ground of your mind and emotions as well as the other players.
    i ll point out this subject in one of my first upcoming posts.
    Cheers undergroundtrader

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  4. Unknown20 November 2012 at 12:07

    Casss, could you please add me on Twitter?
    @matchbookallan

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