Utopia

Racing Victoria's Mark Constable appeared to be confused about 'delays' when trading tennis in-play writing:

I'm not sure what "the" statement refers to, both James and myself have made several statement, but yes we can agree that all in-play markets have a delay for entering new bets, typically five seconds but not always, but that fact is completely irrelevant to the topic that was being discussed, i.e. tennis trading and court-siders.  

It later transpired that what was "ridiculous" about this was that Mark doesn't actually know anything about tennis trading, as he tweeted in a reply to Betfair Pro Trader James :

I'm glad that's cleared up then. For a while there I was thinking that Mark had found a way to beat the court-sider advantage in tennis, which would have made for an interesting read. 

What did make for an interesting read was Betfair Pro Trader's latest post "It Doesn't Get Any Easier". Yours truly gets a mention or two...

As Cassini points out, trading tennis in-play is only for syndicates with court-siders plugged into algo-bots. Sitting at home with a delayed video feed will do little more than earn trading profits for the syndicates and subscription profits for the vendors.

... but there's a lot more to James' post including his thoughts on the financial markets and a utopian future:

The AI of the future, which creates efficient markets that are difficult to lose money in will probably be powerful enough to ensure that nobody needs for anything and there will be better things to do than risking money for gain. Maybe money itself will become obsolete. Until then, you have to hope that you are on the side of the informed and not the uninformed (or misinformed).

Of course, some sports exist solely as a conduit for gambling. Horse racing being the most prominent. There is nothing I can say that would console those who would mourn the loss of horse racing, but if given the choice I'd rather live in a world without want of food and shelter than one with a want for horse racing.

Deep stuff, and I fully concur with James' thoughts on horse racing. I used to enjoy the occasional day out at the races, and my daughter still loves her Royal Ascot, but for both of is, it's the social (ok, drinking) side of the day that appeals. That horses are running around is merely the excuse.

Tony Stephens, possibly his real name, finally found time to comment on my response to his question, writing:

Thank you for the detailed responses. I have been too busy to respond until now.

As you can imagine, there has been a massive uptake of my latest book as a result of some recent publicity. The warehouse has been shipping them out 24/7. At times I’ve been on the shop floor myself and giving the lads a hand. This has unfortunately taken me out of the trading arena so you may have found the markets to be a little thinner than usual.

Skimming through the musings I eventually found what I believe to be your answer: “..writing is fun . I enjoy it; it’s relaxing …and interesting.” So you could nearly fill a full line with this information.

What I did also find was quite a lot of supporting evidence that the older generation now have the basic concept of how to use a search engine. I must write to Which? Computing to congratulate them on the success of their campaign to raise computing standards for the silver surfers.

On a slightly more serious note, I would be wary of anyone that gives out information on sports trading unless you have absolute confidence about their motives, character and their real name.

That includes even me!

Yours in trading, Tony Stephens

That was actually quite a good response from Tony, and I feel rather mean now about my digs at West Ham. It's not as if I'm in a good place to tease others about their football team right now. When the book is ready, please ship me an advance (complimentary) copy from the back of the warehouse and I shall give it an honest and impartial review.

Finally, when I see Tweets on my timeline from the respected Joseph Buchdahl, there's usually an interesting article or topic to look at. 

After reading James' article John, possibly his real name, said:

interesting , although each " sport " a small % of elite will always ' win ' .So why not trading?

Joseph's response was spot on as usual:

Some readers may recall the name Daniel Kahneman from this blog, but I appear not to have mentioned his 2011 International Bestseller "Thinking, Fast and Slow" which sits on my bookshelf at home and which I can highly recommend.  

It's a fascinating read, with the Financial Times reviewer describing it as: "One of the greatest and most engaging collections of insights into the human mind I have read". 

Steven D Levitt of "Freakonomics" fame described the book as "a lifetime's worth of wisdom". 

I'm not sure if the Nobel Prize winner came up with the term "zero validity environment" perhaps f.k.a. a random walk, but it as where I first saw the term and as Joseph says, trading does fit the (near) zero validity environment. 

Paraphrasing Jason Kelly, author of "The 3% Signal":

What we learn from past experience can help us in future experiences. This is not so in the sports betting markets, where fluctuations follow no patterns precisely, despite what you might have heard.

The lessons you learned in the last event won’t necessarily help you in the next one. Experience in the sports betting markets doesn’t accumulate to create disciplinary wisdom the way it does in other walks of life. In fact, the very lessons we learn from past markets can lead us astray in future markets.

Anyone read The 3% Signal? Reviews as to its efficacy appear to be mixed.