Fertile Imagination

Typic'Big'al

There's always one.

Among the positive comments on the last post, there is of course someone who thinks its clever to be different.

Apparently, the suggestion that everyone losing money "entered their bet fully aware of what they were doing" is "absolutely not true", and similarly the statement that "if you lose more than you can afford to lose, you have only yourself to blame" is "similarly absolutely not true".

The individual having problems with this is, as you might have guessed, Mr. Difficult - BigAl himself, who although offering nothing to substantiate his opinion, no doubt has some technically possible, but in reality, rather unlikely scenario in mind. If previous form is anything to go by, he will repeat his statements for a few days, before finally sharing some idea to justify it. Unfortunately, the supporting 'evidence' finally proffered is so unbelievable, that he makes Joseph Smith seem credible in comparison, and the Book of Mormon a reliable historical document.

You may recall BigAl doing something similar in the past, offering nothing to back up his foot-stamping and shouting "Not true", "I'm sure you can work it out", "think about it" etc. before finally offering some bizarre reason as to why the draw price might lengthen as the Unders price shortens - something along the lines of all the forwards of one team being wiped out by an alien attack or something equally silly, while the remainder of the team, fortunately for them, stays intact.

Yes, all very probable Al, happens most weeks I'm sure, and it would be churlish of me to mention that under such circumstances, one might reasonably expect the game to be postponed, but BigAl has never been one to worry about reality too much. Why spoil a good story?

There are signs that history is repeating itself already. When the author of a very average sports trading blog, certainly not one even close to this one in any way, Soccer Dude, suggested that BigAl might want to back up his 'not true!' comments with a little substance, Al came back with this snappy retort:

 "I think even Cassini can work out what I mean by my comments this time".

'Even Cassini' - brilliant! BigAl probably has some Mayan 'end of the world Calendar' theory in his back pocket, and I won't be going there, but it is true that people do make mistakes, which includes trading under the influence, so technically, although they 'think' they know what they are doing, they perhaps, by BigAl's definition "don't know what they are doing", but I was really looking at this from the point of view that any time you are logged into your account, you risk losing your entire bank, or up to the pre-set limit, as I'm sure most readers bar one understood. If you don't understand the bet you're making, you really have no business getting involved.

I'm sure most of us have made mistakes in our trading. Tales of backing instead of laying, fat fingering in an extra zero, cats stepping on to the Submit button etc. can be found on the forums, but my point that any speculative activity, be it stocks, options, sports betting, raffles, lotteries, should be undertaken with money that you do not need, stands. 

Incidentally, even the more experienced among us are not immune to mistakes. Just this week, I was puzzled as to why, when I went to adjust a price, the bet was immediately submitted. It wasn't a feature I liked too much, and it was a full three minutes before I noticed that Mrs. Cassini had placed my dinner plate too close to the keyboard, and it was depressing the 'Enter' key. Which in turn depressed me, and when I told her off about it, she was depressed, and now I have to get my own dinner which depresses me again, so it was a pretty depressing few minutes, all things considered.

But before you even get to the stage where losing is even possible, you have to have gone through the process of opening account, and agreeing to the acceptance of risk as part of that process. No one is forced into opening a trading count against their will, although I'm sure BigAl will come up with a story of how this might be "absolutely not true". I wait to hear of some story he read in the Daily Mail about a 78 year old pensioner who was forced by an armed gang of Nazi cross-dressing aliens journeying from the centre of the Earth to open a trading account on pain of death, and lost her life savings - or if not, he has a vivid imagination for a similar scenario, but such a situation is so unlikely that it wasn't really worth delving in to. Perhaps he also has an amusing anecdote about a somnambulist friend of a friend who awoke one morning to find that he was now the proud owner of a betting account, but when writing my posts, I tend to cater to the real world rather than BigAl's fantasy land. But he does keep coming back, which is the sincerest of compliments I am told.

Money in your trading account should always be expendable, and if it is not, it is up to you to reduce your exposure. I do look forward to BigAl's story of how someone can have a funded account, lose money, and yet be blissfully unaware of any of it. The Secret of the Lost Funds, a Nancy Drew mystery by Big Al. If he posts anything sensible, I shall certainly let you all know, but don't hold your breaths.

In other news, I've also had a small dabble on the US Presidential Election and an Obama win. I've written a piece explaining my thoughts which will be published over at BettingExpert shortly, and in the course of looking at the numbers, convinced myself that at 1.47, Obama was value. Since then, the the decision by the Federal Reserve on Thursday to keep interest rates low for as long as necessary, has helped Obama's chances, and his price has dropped from 1.47 to 1.39 this week. As one writer put it on Yahoo!Finance yesterday, writing on the Federal Reserve's move -

"Also, the president just got re-elected. But that's a for a different column."

That was good to read, but probably not as good as BigAl's next offering. I look forward to it.