Most readers of this blog will already be aware of my views on trading tennis, but just to be clear, if you are trading any market where there are court-siders, and we know for a fact that a top tournament such as the Australian Open has court-siders, then you are gambling and long-term, will lose.
From January 2014:
A few more details emerged at the court hearing in Melbourne yesterday, notably that Sporting Data employ six people to travel to tennis tournaments around the world, and that Mr Dobson had previously been kicked out of a tournament in New Zealand.To be blunt, you are delusional if you think that you can get up in the wee hours of the night, pick a tennis match, and trade with a positive expectation in the face of such a disadvantage.
Caan Berry blithely writes:
Instead of trying to predict what will happen ahead of time, they [best tennis traders] focus on what has happened previously and what’s happening in-the-moment. While being select and disciplined in where they enter or exit the market.
That last bit is crucial.
Only entering the market in opportune places in terms of numbers as-well-as on-court opportunity massively increases your chance of success.The bit that is crucial, is that you will always be several seconds behind the play. Even if you trade [enter or exit] only between games or sets, you are still several seconds behind. Whatever money is available for you to take, it's there because it offers no value to you. If it had value, it would have already been taken.
Unless of course you think these syndicates are charitable foundations, that perhaps don't know what they are doing, and are failing to identify value while you, several thousand miles away, have the skill to spot what they are missing.
Again, this is simply delusional. Sure, give some people information before others, and they won't know how to use it optimally, but tennis court-siding syndicates have been around for years. Do you seriously think they don't know what they are doing by now?
I too noticed Mr Poolside and Webby discussing the Australian Open on their blogs. A little winter filler, something to say, to let their acolytes know they are still thinking of them.
ReplyDeleteIn Webby's blog he added the ability to get live scores direct from the umpire's chair. But you still need visuals for an edge and only a court-sider will be seeing the action live.
I doubt that either of these two will be trading the tennis. Maybe a little to get a video of their genius. Assuming they profit, otherwise the video gets deleted. An exercise in survivorship bias. Still, the acolytes will get taken in.
Of course, we should expect a winning video from Webby. After all, you'd be an idiot not to profit in the curious positive-sum trading market that is tennis. (Of course, we shouldn't really call any trading zero-sum when you factor in commission and other costs.)
And yet the acolytes take the rubbish that these two write as the gospel truth and never question it. "I don't need to test anything. Sir says it is possible so I am going to throw myself into this without a strategy. If I fail then it's because I was stupid and was not doing what Sir told me to do."
I have looked at tennis, decided it was an interesting mathematical exercise (Markov model) but that I would need a syndicate to make it work. And, even then, I might step on toes and get more than I bargain for.