Bad Sport

Average Guy writes on his blog that he:

placed bets on Snooker and Basketball (not real sports IMO) for a few mates during a particularly mental drunk night during the week.

While I am with him to some extent on Snooker, (I like my sports to require some kind of physical effort beyond walking around a table and sitting down), he clearly has absolutely no idea about Basketball, the world's second most popular and widely viewed sport. As the BBC reported:

When Dr James Naismith invented basketball in 1891, he couldn't have dreamed that the game would become the world's second most popular sport, played in more than 200 countries, and a multi-billion dollar industry.

It's also one of the finest sports for pure trading, as I have written many times before. In fact, it is probably the finest, with the possible exception of tennis, which for me has several limitations. While football markets move predictably given the current game situation, basketball markets do not. Basketball is very much a game of momentum, and markets ebb and flow accordingly. If you study the game, watch how markets move, and take the time to learn some of the nuances of the sport, it offers far more in terms of trading opportunities than a low scoring sport such as football.

In fact, most nights see at least one game where you can look back and say that:

in this particular match you should have struggled to lose money if you were trading.

But it's good to know that money is coming into these markets from ill-informed and inebriated sources!

I jest with my suggestion that any game all but guarantees a profit, and anyone following the discussion between The Sultan and Peter Webb will know what I am referring to. From my own experience, there are games when you read everything close to perfectly, and there are games where you get every decision wrong. It's all too easy after the former to get carried away with the thought that every trader must have been like you and made money, but for every entry point of yours, someone was exiting, and vice-versa. On an exchange, we can't all be winners, and the trick is to maximise your winners on a good day, and limit your losses on a bad one.

And on that note, it's time to set up for the NBA double-header on Sky Sports in a few minutes, featuring the Boston Celtics v Miami Heat, followed by the Los Angeles Lakers v Oklahoma City Thunder. If the Thunder don't drift higher than their 1.66 price, I shall be quite surprised. The Lakers like the spotlight, played far better in their last game than they have been, and the Thunder have the best record in the NBA, which augurs well for a closer game then the price suggests. Dwight Howard's shoulder may yet be an issue though, and one negative against basketball is perhaps the effect on the market that one player can have.

Update: Hope you took my advice. The Los Angeles Lakers won, in a game that you would have struggled to lose money on if you were trading ;)