All Over

The last ever round of Serie A matches before next season's new "Lega Calcio Serie A" (Premier League style) style format, and Roma left it late to win against Cagliari. Needing to win to have any chance of overhauling Internazionale, they were 0-1 down as Inter were 4-1 up over Chievo, so I was pleasantly surprised that they stuck to their task and won 2-1. Sixteen sackings / resignations this season! (Clarification: That's for Serie A, not AS Roma).

Now it's at Half-Time in England, and Chelsea have won the title. The current score of 2-0 is unlikely to remain that way. Over 4.5 at 2.12 looks value in fact.

Last night saw my biggest ever win on BETDAQ where I decided to trade the Jazz v Lakers Game 3. Lakers were getting 4.5 at 2.06 and were never far off the pace, coming back late to win by 1 in a great game for trading. The liquidity there was reasonable, although for trading I still don't find the BETDAQ interface as smooth to use as Betfair's.

Later today the NBA play-offs continue with the Celtics looking to bounce back from a whooping on Friday at home to the Cavaliers who are giving 1.5 on the handicap and are 1.93.

After that, there is the San Antonio Spurs v Phoenix Suns Game 4, with the Suns up 3-0 and as everyone knows, no team has ever come back from a 0-3 deficit in the NBA to win a series. I suspect the Spurs will win today though.

Zap The Zero

I was reading an interesting piece in Smart Money by Jack Hough about how home sellers should avoid putting zeroes in their sales price. It's not even a question of reducing the price from £400,000 to £399,999. What works just as well is raising the price to, say, £401,298. People tend to subconsciously interpret precise numbers as being smaller than round ones.

"Well-researched by cognitive scientists, this effect has also been documented in the real world. One recent analysis of thousands of real estate transactions in South Florida and Long Island, New York, found that houses originally listed without zeroes did indeed fetch higher final prices than those for which bidding started at a round number."

I'm not sure this research has much relevance to the exchanges, but when time permits, I do tend to offer lays at 1.4, 1.5 etc. on the assumption that this is more appealing to a backer than 1.39 and 1.49, but perhaps I would be better served by offering 1.38 or 1.48.

History Lesson

I spoke a little too soon about the Sports Betting Professor's tips no longer arriving. They are, but for some reason were directed to my Spam folder rather than my Inbox. Just four winners from twelve this week though, so I didn't miss anything. His one NBA pick for this week also went down in flames with the Celtics picked at -1 over the Cavaliers on Friday - they lost by 29 at home.

Football Elite's end of term woes continued with Borussisa Moenchengladbach at 4.7 drawing 1-1 at home to Bayer Leverkusen.

Also in my Spam folder were some more (unintentionally) amusing comments from Anonymous (of course), this time showing a rather limited knowledge of history, English and logic.

I posted on Friday that "..the odds are that it won't be another five years until we get another stab at these markets".

So here's his sharp-minded comment:

I'm unsure why previous coalition Governments, that occurred during the world world 1 & 2, would indicate we'll have to wait another five years. Maybe you could enlighten us all.

Where did I say that we'll have to wait another five years? I said the precise opposite.

Ignore the 'world world' - that could be a typo, but first of all, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland did NOT have a coalition government during the Great War. The nation had a Liberal government for the entire duration of the war, with first Herbert Henry Asquith and later David Lloyd George as Prime Minister.

Secondly, for World War Two, he is somewhat correct, except that at the time the UK government was known as a National Government, and they were in power long before the war started in 1939. 1931 to be precise. The election saw the Conservatives win a majority of seats, yet National Labour's Ramsay MacDonald remained as PM. It is only in more recent years that this government has been referred to as a coalition.

Not too many goverments in the UK run for the full five years, in fact in the last 60 years (16 elections) only the governments of 1959, 1987, 1992 and 1995 have exceeded 4 1/2 years and all had big working majorities so I stand by my statement that it is unlikely to be five years until we see another election. Anonymous then has this to say:

I'm also guessing you've snapped up all that 1.5 available, in the 2 Elections In 2010 market on there not being another election in 2010

Anyone spot the flaw in this man's logic? I hope he is active on the exchanges. Was it he who backed Clegg at 1.5 to be next Prime Minister I wonder?

Take A Seat

A very pleasing result from an investment perspective in the election with the banker "Conservatives Most Seats" winning comfortably, and the "No Overall Majority" coming in after something of a wild ride. Why the price drifted to 3.0 even as the Tories were failing to hit their targets was a mystery and one that I should have made more from, but the trouble with this market was that I worry too much that others know more than I do, and that if the price looks too good to be true, then it probably is. In this case of course, it wasn't, and I should have been stronger, but the concern over tactical voting and the results not matching the polls was a real concern for a time.

Anyway, the odds are that it won't be another five years until we get another stab at these markets.

Back to the usual fare of Football Elite and the Sports Betting Professor, and it appears that my unpaid for tips from the latter have come to an end. No e-mails today, other than one trying to sell me another system, so probably someone's figured out I was getting freebies and pulled the plug. I can't say I'll miss them too much, but it was quite interesting tracking his results.

My own MLB selections are actually faring quite well right now, but still down on the season thanks to the (in hindsight) rather ambitious lay of £128,927 at 1.01 which is not going to be recouped in a hurry.

Football Elite's season is fizzling out with three short-list selections on Wednesday all failing to win, and the overall record on these falling to 44 wins from 111 bets for a level stake profit (assuming 5% commission) of 6.909 to a 1 point stake.

My interest in football for this season is most likely at an end. Only my second profitable season from the five that I've been active, and the Elo ratings will be back next season.

Could be another volatile day in the financial markets ahead. Hung parliament, PIGS. Fasten your seat belts.

Fat Fingers On Wall Street

Every so often, you're watching a market, when out of nowhere comes a back (or a lay) that takes out a slew of prices and offers huge value as a lay (or back). The famous 'fat-finger' that slips or backs the wrong side, or thinks he's in a different market. I've done the latter myself. I'm watching a game, get bored and switch to a different market altogether, then see something on the TV that makes me think a bet is in order and I put the back in on the wrong market.

Anyway, usually these mistakes aren't catastrophic, the last time it happened to me I ended up with a nice win although I had to wait a day for it, but someone on Wall Street today apparently made a similar mistake of somewhat more consequence when he/she entered a sell order for $16 billion worth of futures instead of 'only' $16 million.

Shares of Accenture, a company I am coincidentally quite familiar with having worked for the past couple of years alongside several of their employees, saw their share price drop from $42.17 on Wednesday to 4 cents for a brief moment (a value buy), and Proctor and Gamble, a company I am coincidentally quite familiar with having used their soap during my last shower a few days ago, saw their usually stable price drop almost 37% (another value buy).

I'm not sure of the details, but you get the gist. Exciting stuff as the Dow Jones Industrial Index dropped almost 10% in less than 30 minutes, possibly as bot after bot kicked in before the market rallied and ended the day 'only' 3.2% down.

In another parallel with the betting industry, some of the trades during this time will be canceled due to the financial markets equivalent of the bookies 'palpabale error' rule.

Election Day

Yes - it would appear that this is the man who will lead the party winning most seats in today's election, starting about now. A man worth millions by choosing his parents and wife carefully, and who claims to believe in a god, despite his eldest son being born "severely disabled" with both legs deformed and dying in 2009.

"I am a Christian, I go to church, I believe in God, but I do not have a direct line."

Well, thank goodness for that. The last Prime Minister with a direct line to god is responsible for 460 UK deaths, and over 11,000 wounded, and yet the unwinnable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan hardly got a mention in this election campaign, and lives continue to be lost and ruined almost every day.

Questioned as to whether his faith had ever been tested, Cameron spoke of the birth of his "severely disabled" eldest son, saying:

"You ask yourself 'If there is a God, why can anything like this happen?'" He went on to state that in some ways the experience had "strengthened" his beliefs.

Say what? So he believes in a god, by definition omnipotent, despite having a severely disabled child. Is there any logic whatsoever there, or could it be what he thinks people want to hear? Well, we don't.

It's remarkable how the fact there there is a negative correlation between religious beliefs and intelligence is overlooked when it comes to politicians. Are we really supposed to believe that brilliant Presidents such as Clinton and Obama really believe there's a god up there monitoring our thoughts and deeds even though he's already planned our destiny?

Anyway, wrong blog. Back to making money.

The Tories to win most seats, and give you 10% on your money in a day, is a decent bet, if not a scenario many of us would personally like to see.

I had my fingers burned on the General Election of 1992 when I paid too much attention to opinion polls and had an unfortunately timed bet on Labour the day of the now infamous Sheffield rally. The day after that fiasco, the polls showed a drop for Labour, and the cry of "we're alright!" wasn't true for either Neil Kinnock or myself.

The latest ICM Guardian and Angus Reid polls having them at 36% and ComRes: ITV News/Indy at 37%, YouGov and others at 35%, the results are pretty consistent, and the Tories have a litttle momentum too. Usually 1.1 is a price I lay at, but politics isn't basketball and this is value.

I like the No Overall Majority at 1.7 also. Tactical voting could make a big difference in this election, and if it's inevitable that the Tories are going to win most seats, at least a NOM outcome would offer some solace.

Pasta Poor For The Upper Body

I'm not sure how many people remember the goal that wasn't back in August when Crystal Palace's Freddie Sears scored a perfectly good goal only for the ball to bounce back out and a goal-kick awarded. Palace went on to lose 0-1 that day, but had the goal stood, as it should have done, Sunday's game would have been meaningless. At least it made for a dramatic finish to the season. Of course, not going into administration would have helped too. Life is never dull as a Palace fan, that's for sure.

Not much doing on the trading front right now. I have a couple of projects which are taking up time - the main one is researching a possible angle in baseball, a sport that certainly doesn't lack statistics.

The Sports's Betting Professor went 0-3 on Monday's MLB games with no selections in the NBA, where I'm hoping that the Jazz can narrow a ten point Lakers lead with one quarter to go. The price is 1.07/1.08 which for me is a value lay since the Lakers have a habit of easing up but they've held a lead in or close to double figures for much of the game.

Football Elite has some short-list bets in France and Spain, but nothing in the Recommended Bets category. Currently (assuming commission at 5%) the latter are down 0.625 to a level 1 point and a record of 34 wins from 80 selections since I signed up in late November. The short-list bets are up 9.909 with 44 wins from 108 including Blackburn's win over Arsenal on Monday at 4.0.

And I found this amusing piece from Neal Widdows on the WSC site:

"I was struck by Crystal Palace captain Shaun Derry's revelation about his side's post-match rituals after they had grabbed a late draw at Derby last Saturday: 'We try to get whatever food we can down us after a game like this. We've eaten all sorts on the way home this season and I'm sure a good KFC won't do us any harm right now. A lot of studies have shown it doesn't really matter what you eat after a game – you'll burn off anything. And to eat pasta, pasta, pasta all the time just does your tits in.' Is the latter a medical term? Arsène Wenger should take note anyhow."

All That Jazz

This is a funny old game. After a month with nothing to write home about, today (Sunday) I have my best day since mid-February, and part of the profits were down to a technical failure. The Over 201.5 points punt in the Lakers - Jazz game came in at 203, and always looked good value. 53 points in Q1, 46 in Q2, and 56 in Q3 combined with a close game meant some opportunities to top up in play, although I had no intention pre-game of doing so.

I also got involved in some trading on the match odds, where the Lakers were just too low (1.08ish), too early, to be value. When the Jazz came back to actually lead for a brief time, and I could lay off for a decent green all over, I could almost feel the confidence flooding back. I actually intended to cover my lay at a much lower price, but the battery on my wireless mouse must have died because there was suddenly no response. After tracking down a replacement mouse, cursing my unpreparedness all the while, the Jazz had narrowed the lead still further so my profit was much increased. Just the lucky break I needed. Although I kept a much larger green on the Jazz (I missed the 1.8 that they hit briefly) it was still a much needed good day.

Now if the Phillies could just pull out a win in the final baseball game of the weekend. Spotting the Mets a 3 run first inning was not the start I was looking for.

Beware The Cusp

Thanks for the comments on my April summary post. The suggestion that I should specialise more may have some validity, but because I don't do the horses or dogs, the sports seasons tend to dictate where my focus is. April is a cusp month for a number of sports, and that could be the problem. We shall see.

A quiet start to May on the investment front, just as the doctor ordered. Only one NBA game yesterday and a couple of small punts on the handicap and over/under markets which came in. The Sports Betting Professor tipped the Cavaliers (v Celtics) at -6.5, and I backed the -7.5 on Betfair at 2.1 (not on the SBP's recommendation, but it reinforced my opinion). After trailing for much of the game, the Cavaliers finally ended up winning by 8 which was a nice start to the month. The Overs bet also came in.

Two games today, and again, no trading - just a couple of punts on the handicap and over/under markets again. Game 7s are always exciting, but Atlanta at home giving 9.5 at 2.2 looked good value, as did the Under 185.5. In the later game I am having a small interest on the Lakers -6.5 as well as a cheeky bet on the Over 201.5 which looks value at 2.28. On 9.December the total was 103.5 and the price was 1.63, and just last month on 2.April the total was 204.5 at 1.96. Both games finished Under, but with a lower total and the Lakers looking to get a good start to the series, 2.28 is just too high to ignore.

Football Elite had a poor weekend. The two Recommended Bets both failed to win, and three of the four Short-List bets lost, with just one winner (Xerex at 2.5). No serious damage because I used my lower 'end of season' stakes just for an interest. St Etienne actually teased by taking a 1-0 lead into HT today before losing 1-4. C'est la vie.

The Sports Betting Professor's baseball selections started the week poorly with three consecutive losers, but 4 of the last 5 have won so he's slightly in profit for the week. I've been reading up on the favourite-longshot bias, and with regard to baseball, the results suggest that the reverse is true. More on that in a future post.

The Lakers game is about to start and I need points, more from the Lakers though!

Glad All Over

Well, that was exciting.

The odds on Sheffield Wednesday winning had drifted over the past few days to 2.4 last time I checked, so the odds were on Palace surviving, but if betting odds were always right, we would all be rich and sport would be very boring.

Which is something that Crystal Palace are not. One thing about supporting Palace is that there's rarely a season that sees them end in mid-table. If it looks like we're headed towards that, we go into administration just for the drama.

My first visit to Crystal Palace was at Easter 1967, taken there by Bernard Ingham (now Sir) and it was one of those life-changing moments. From then on for the next 23 years or so, it's probably not an exaggeration to describe myself as "Palace mad".

It was a good time to become a Palace fan. I had no sense of history at that time, no understanding that it wasn't too long before that we were applying for re-election and becoming founder members of the Fourth Division, but things turned around fast.

Two years after my 'debut' we were in Division One for the first time, struggling every year, and certainly the majority of the seasons since have seen us have something to play for on the final day.

Anyway, perhaps now the club can find a buyer as we look forward to the visits of Hull City, Burnley and Portsmouth next season. OK, so maybe not the most illustrious of names, but better than re-opening the faded rivalry with Brighton and Hove Albion, and seeing the likes of Notts County, Bournemouth and Rochdale on the hallowed turf of Selhurst Park.

Tough times ahead by all accounts, but for the next few days this result will lift my spirits. A solid win for Chelsea means my son will be happy too as they continue their inexorable run to their first Double.

Snooker Accused

I am running out of sports to bet on that are free of match-fixing or cheating scandals.

The News of the World tomorrow publishes a fairly damning expose on John Higgins, although this is nothing new for snooker and the "fear of the Russian Mafia" excuse may have some credibility. I remember accusations from way back in the 1980s. This news follows cricket and its "spot-fixing" rumours, as well as the perennial concerns about horse racing, tennis, Italian football, non-league English football, boxing and no doubt other sports that don't spring to mind immediately. If it turns out that wrestling is fixed too, I may well lose faith in sports altogether.

My involvement in snooker is very much small scale. I don't care for the sport too much, if it is even a sport. (It seems to me that for a sport to be a sport, rather than a game, some reasonable level of physical fitness needs to be a requirement, but that's another topic.) Snooker is boring and just all too easy to fix. As with tennis, just the one player's cooperation is needed, and for someone unlikely to win the tournament, the sums of money mentioned in the News of the World article would be very tempting.

So what sports can one bet on with a reasonable certainly that the result will be genuine?

Leaving aside the possibility that the referee is untouched (no sure thing as evidenced by Portuguese, German and Brazilian football as well as the NBA) the top leagues for team sports are a pretty solid choice. At the end of the season, there may be little incentive for many teams to try their best, but in England at least, the chances of a league game being fixed are slim at best. Not trying too hard and settling for a mutually beneficial result is something else, and that has been going on since 1898. Before I was born in fact.

The problem for the fixer is always going to be that of hiding their "unusual betting patterns", something that sticks out like a sore thumb in a game where liquidity is usually relatively small.

The big four American sports seem to be free of fixing accusations, although it hasn't always been that way, and tanking remains an ongoing issue, even if steps have been taken to minimise the 'rewards'. When the post-season seeding arrangements are known ahead of time, even play-off teams sometimes resort to this, but a blind-eye is generally turned to this practice, and smart betters know the risks.

The problems there are more related to performance-enhancing drug use than throwing games, although it is true that College basketball is susceptible to point shaving which can affect the result of handicap / totals markets, if not the money line.

Not a major betting sport, but cycling is just so riddled with drug use that it's become pointless to watch it any more. I remember staying up into the early hours watching Ben Johnson 'win' the 100m in a world record time, only to be stripped of the medal a few days later, but that was just 9.83 seconds of my life wasted. To follow the Tour de France for three weeks and a day, only for the 'winner' to be stripped of the title months later was a lot more annoying.

Golf too has had it's rumours of drug use, although it's hard to see how a performance enhancing drug would really help in a sport that requires a lot of walking and 30 plus 'big' hits. The prize money on offer would be a deterrent to most players from deliberately throwing a tournament, but maybe Tiger (Cheetah?) was offered a cocktail waitress to miss the cut this weekend. (His wife's not expecting him home until late Sunday and since he's admitted to 120, another one isn't going to make any odds.)

Bouncebackability

Another long-running blog hits the end of the trail tonight with JP calling it a day after 800+ posts and 350,000 visitors. (That's more than me!) After two successful years, and a few months off at the end of 2009 into early 2010, his recent return to betting has been notable only for it's almost complete lack of success. The services he uses, and their results, are all detailed in his blog, but only four are in profit, the top two being Equine Investments and Football Elite. Sixteen show a loss, and the other two of the four profitable services are only just profitable. It was primarily as a result of following JP's blog that I selected Football Elite as the one service I follow, although I do still get the Sport's Betting Professor's selections despite not having paid for them.

But as one door closes, another opens. The Gambler is back after a gap of close to eight months. Quite a coincidence that the two events should happen on the same day. Is JP really The Gambler? Funny that you never see them in the same blogosphere at the same time...

And in another amazing coincidence, back after two months away is Betting For a Living (BFAL) who is aiming to do exactly what JP was trying to do, make a living from betting. Interesting day. Rather ambitiously in my opinion, BFAL is aiming to make £2,500 a month mostly on horses, but without having any edge, or at least not one that he is revealing. Most readers know my views on horse racing, and this is that it it most probably the toughest sport to make a living from unless you are on the inside. I look forward to being proved wrong though, but starting the year with a loss of £545 in two months doesn't bode well. He is also a Football Elite subscriber.

Maybe I'm just doom and gloom right now, because it's not only JP and the Gambler who have had a bad time lately. To say that April was disappointing for me is, to borrow David Icke's phrase, a bit like saying that it's a littly chilly at the North Pole. The pounds came off, but more from my balance than from my body.

My second worst month ever, April was my first losing month since last April, and I suspect that's not a coincidence. In fact, three of the last four Aprils have seen losses, and when you consider that 'only' 9 of 56 months have seen overall losses, for three of them to be April suggests that a long Easter holiday at this time of year is called for. I'm beginning to wish I hadn't moaned so much about the Premium Charge. I almost miss it these days.

So April comes to a close, and I draw a line in the spreadsheet and start again, battered and bruised a little, down but not out. Handling losses is still a tough nut to crack. As much as I tell myself that I still have a very healthy balance, and try to kid myself that losses are from 'house' money, and not 'really' my money, losses still hurt. (And it really IS my money!) Losing is unsettling. Every time I have a bad run, I fear that the markets have changed and the profits aren't there any more, but every time (at least so far) I've been proven wrong, and there's no reason why this time will be any different. There will be a certain re-grouping taking place though. Yes, to win £129,000 would be nice, but as my son pointed out - £1,290 is still a lot to lose if it doesn't work out and it's time to get back to basics and rebuild a little confidence before throwing four figures around again.

May will thus most likely be a quiet month. Currently it ranks 11th best month, which combined with April's 12th place suggests a really long Easter break next year, although May is at least profitable. Domestic football is pretty much done for the season, and if Palace lose on Sunday they could be pretty much done for a lot longer than that. Perhaps the answer is a big bet on Crystal Palace to go down. At least then if they do, I'll have the consolation of a nice pay day, but that's not my style. Hard to believe that 20 years ago, Palace finished the season with a Cup Final appearance and are now trying to stay in the Championship.

I'll try to bring the Elo ratings up to date ready to hit the ground running in August, and there's some tournament going on in South Africa pretty soon. Incidentally, between 10am and 11am today (MayDay), I hear that Paddy Power are offering 10/1 on England to win the World Cup. Layable at around 8.0 on the exchanges, that's a decent arb, though I'm not sure what the terms or limits of the offer are, so don't blame me if you can't get more than a fiver on them.

The NBA play-offs will continue through the month with good liquidity, but no such good liquidity for the NHL or for baseball. At least not yet. Once the NBA season is over, interest in baseball usually picks up though. I hope so. Right now, the relative calm of trading a baseball game or some Tigerless golf perhaps seems very appealing.

Au Revoir Betfair

A new country is now added to the list of countries from which Betfair no longer accepts bets. Somewhat bizarrely, it is France, and likely home to several thousand Betfair accounts belonging not just to ex-pats, but Frenchies as well.

The French Government's attempt to protect their monopoly on gambling will, of course, ultimately prove futile, but in the meantime the consequence is that Betfair and several other mainstream companies will be pulling out of France. As Mark Davies of Betfair says it:

The arduous task of contacting our French customers with this unhappy news begins immediately; and we will set about closing accounts and blocking French IP addresses when it becomes necessary to do so. With great regret, we're pulling out of France.

Absurd and ridiculous, though, it unquestionably is.

The simple fact is that we know, and customers know, that there are plenty of work-arounds for IP blocking, should people chose to use them; and without operator co-operation, the chances of the French government enforcing their legislation - short of sending the police randomly into people's front rooms and catching them on their computers - is zero. Operator co-operation will only come from those with brand names to protect, so the law will shut out precisely the sort of company that ought naturally to be welcomed in.

Anyone else who wants a bit of the action in defiance of the French government has the playing field wide open, so the black market will flourish. By France's own estimates, it already equates to around 5,000 sites, even before the addition of new rogue operators which are likely to pop up in the way that music file-sharing sites did when Napster first got banned. The music industry has struggled to recover from that position ever since, but the French have chosen not to learn from past mistakes. Instead, they will deny people proper choice and competition and force those who want it to find it in the illegal market. They are failing their citizens in consequence, and it's a shame to see it.

Perhaps they have other priorities right now. The AP and UPI reported that the French government announced that it has raised its terror alert level from Run to Hide. The only two higher levels in France are Surrender and Collaborate. The rise in the alert level was precipitated by a recent fire which destroyed France’s white flag factory, effectively disabling their military.

Update 1.5.10: A couple of comments have informed me that the post in question has now been removed. I can't say I'm surprised. The post in question was certainly a little more revealing about about at least one topic than perhaps Betfair, or Mark in hindsight, were comfortable with.

Enda Fractions?

A rather embarrassing error in this piece from Enda Brady for Sky News. No Irish jokes please:

British gamblers are making history today when bookies use decimal odds at a racecourse for the first time.

Until now bookmakers have always priced up horses using fractions but a campaign aimed at getting more young people interested in the sport claims their methods are "outmoded and unfamiliar".

Racing for Change says that using decimals will give customers better value by improving competition and offering a wider range of prices.

"We need to attract a younger audience and to do that we need to overhaul betting language that is alien to anybody who went to school since the UK went decimal in 1971," said Chris McFadden, chairman of Racing for Change.

Punters at Ascot racecourse today are able to use the new betting system, which could spell the end for much-loved racing phrases like Burlington Bertie (100-30) and Double Carpet (33-1).

"There are some dinosaurs in racing who won't want this, but we'll give the gambling public whatever they want," bookmaker Paddy Power told Sky News Online.

Under the new system - widely used already in Australia - odds like 9-4 would be priced up as 2.25.

Clay Million

Roger Federer's defeat today cost one Betfair client £1 million. Backing at 1.06 and 1.05, he lost out when Ernests Gulbis won 2-6, 6-1, 7-5 in the Rome Masters.

As the Guardian reported it:

It was a weird match, Federer coasting early on but then disintegrating under pressure at the end against a strong young opponent who kept blowing one golden chance after another through impetuosity and nerves. "When I was missing all those match points I was shitting in my pants," the Latvian said. "Sorry to be so rude. I was so nervous. I was shaking. It was a terrible feeling."

Rude words that could most probably be attributed to Mr Marigold as well, although as I have said before, amounts are all relative - a million to me is not the same as a million to someone else. I hope not for this guy's sake. To me, that's a lot of money! There's certainly some big amounts appearing (or disappearing) these days.

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator

I've written about this book before, and if you haven't yet read it, it is an interesting read with many of the ideas contained within it relevant to trading sports markets. The style is archaic to say the least, and some of the later chapters drag somewhat, but it gave me a few ideas, and Yahoo!Finance has this on it today:

Ask any Wall Street trader over a certain age (say 22) what books help readers best understand the market and "Reminiscences of a Stock Operator" is certain to come up.

Written in 1923 by Edwin Lefèvre, "Reminiscences" is the fictionalized account of real-life speculator Jesse Livermore, who made and lost several massive fortunes in the early part of the 20th century, most famously by shorting the market in 1929.

"The newspapers all blamed the crash on Jesse Livermore - he was heavily short [and] made a fortune," says Jon Markman, Marketwatch columnist and author of a new annotated version of LeFevre's investing classic, which marries actual events with the fictionalized account.

If that "blame the shorts" mantra sounds a lot like the current brouhaha over the role John Paulson, Goldman Sachs and others allegedly played in the 2008 credit crisis, it's no coincidence, Markman says. "There is nothing new on Wall Street."

Although the original "Reminiscences" was written in 1923, "all the events in that are described in that book have analogs to what's happening today," he continues. "All of the advice that's given by the great Jesse Livermore...is as fresh today as when it was articulated in 1923."

Although Livermore was a noted short-seller, he was fond of saying "when you're in a bull market you have to trade with the bulls," says the very bullish Markman. "That's something very relevant today. Jesse Livermore would say: ‘As long as the trend is up, you got to stay with that trend. Don't fight the tape.'"

Of course, poor old Jesse Livermore ended up taking his own life, so don't follow his example too far.

Thunder and Storm

A 90th minute penalty saw Football Elite’s one short list selection Getafe win 4-3 today at 3.0. After trailing 2-3 to Sevilla with 76 minutes gone, it wasn’t looking too promising, but luck evens out, and today it was my (our) turn.

The Sports Betting Professor’s baseball selections are looking a little brighter with seven winners from the last nine since Thursday, and with the Los Angles Angels currently leading the New York Yankees by four runs (8-4) in the eighth inning, it’s looking more like eight from the last ten. With six of these eight winners starting as underdog, now might be a good time to start following the selections with money. Actually, last Thursday might have been a better time to start! Small stakes only, for a bit of fun and added interest.

In the NBA play-offs yesterday, he also had a winner with the Milwaukee Bucks easily covering the -1 spread at home to the Atlanta Hawks. No selections from today's four games where wins by the Spurs and Jazz would put the higher seeds in both series in serious danger of elimination. I also have a feeling that all is not well with the Lakers these days. Oklahoma City have all the momentum right now, and the Lakers are looking vulnerable having been backed as low as 1.05 to win the Series after going 2-0. Game Five is always key, and if Kobe Bryant continues to struggle, the younger Thunder could well eliminate the number one seed in the West.

Also soon to be elimnated in the USA is the repressive Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act passed in 2006.

Two Democrat Representatives (Barney Frank and Jim McDermott), are leading a group that proposes to repeal the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which is set to go into effect June 1. Their plan would legalize and tax online gambling.

"We have an activity going on illegally in this country and we’re pretending it doesn’t exist," McDermott said. Internet gambling "people have said 'We want to be legal and we’re certainly willing to pay taxes,' and we need the money. On every count, this is a net positive."

“American adults want to be able to do what they want with their own money without the government interfering,” Frank said.

You think?

As a poster on the Betfair forum commented:

An English-speaking nation of over 300 million suddenly being allowed to gamble on here should lead to interesting times

except that the 300 million figure can be reduced to those with Internet access (86.8 million homes) and then adjusted for the 79% who are "Christian or Muslim" and who obviously won't be gambling with their chances of going to heaven by, well, gambling. Would they? Surely there are no hypocrites in the religious community.

And in Australia, from 250 to 1.01 in the blink of an announcement (although someone knew several days ago it seems)

Melbourne Storm were stripped of premiership wins in 2007 and 2009 and fined $500,000 for breaching the NRL's salary cap by $1.6 million over the last five years.

The NRL also ruled Melbourne will not earn any premiership points in 2010. Sportingbet Australia reacted by slashing Melbourne's wooden spoon odds from $250 to $1.01.

"Melbourne have gone from $251 to $1.01 for the wooden spoon in the space of six hours which has to be the biggest betting move in history," Sportingbet Australia's chief executive Michael Sullivan said.

Don't Eat All The Pies

According to the Yahoo!Finance site, not only does being good looking help you to earn more, but being thin helps too.

A study by the Ohio State University Center for Human Resources Research found that the obese accumulate only about half the net worth of non-obese Americans, and gender and ethnicity make a big difference. Overall, a one-point increase in body mass index dropped net worth by $1,300. But wealth increases are nonlinear; that is, a 10-point change from a highly overweight reading means much more.

Now for earnings: The Ohio State study found that a typical woman earned $314 less annually for every one-point increase in BMI while a male counterpart earned $161 less. Another study by a New York University sociologist found that, for women, a 1% increase in BMI led to a 0.6% decrease in income, a 0.4% decrease in job "prestige" and a 0.35% decrease in the likelihood of marriage. To keep this simple, assuming this is true, just a one point increase in a man's BMI could lead to a drop in savings over 30 years by as much as $10,700 (assuming a 5% annual return if these earnings were not otherwise lost), while for a woman, a savings impact of over $20,000.

To please Anonymous and satisfy his desire for figures, from now until the end of July, I shall update at least once a week with my weight - the idea being that by going public with the numbers, I will be extra motivated to hit my goal of 13.5 stone (189 lbs). The trading lifestyle isn't conducive to good health but I'm told (thank you dear) that it's important.

Starting weight 15st 4lbs (214 lbs). Oink oink.

Changing Seasons

Football Elite have decided to take a cautious approach in the final days of the season so there were no Recommended Bets today. The two short list selections both came up short with Schalke '04 winning at Hertha Berlin and Mainz held to a 3-3 draw by Eintracht Frankfurt.

After going 5 for 5 in early April, the short list selections have since gone 1-8 with 4 of those losers actually losing rather than losing by drawing if you follow my drift.

The Sports Betting Professor's week didn't go too well either. His 13 MLB selections went 6-7 but for a small profit. Overall 23-36 this season, for a loss to 100 points level stake of 1297.14. Tuesday was notable, only because his four selections all lost, and scored just 1 run between them, and giving up 25!

In the NBA, his play-off record stands at 3-3 for a small (after commission) loss of 11.2 to a 100 point stake. Still up overall on the NBA since I joined though, but only by 30.95 on an outlay of 2900 points. Not a huge ROI, but at least it's in profit.

I should stop receiving these selections any day now, since they haven't been paid for, but they continue to hit my inbox, so I shall continue to follow them. The end of April means the domestic football season is all but at an end, but in baseball it's the opposite with teams getting into their stride. And of course the NBA is at an exciting stage of the season with (usually) plenty of close games, and consequent trading opportunities.

Why We Gamble

I was reading an interesting article about the “Real Reasons You Gamble” by Dr Maurice Farber from the Department of Psychology at the University of Connecticut.

In his opinion, there are six vital factors.

In my opinion, some of his opinions are a little out there, but here they are:

1) To relieve boredom. Many people feel desperately bored and empty. Gambling offers excitement, an antidote to boredom. Playing the game makes the hours go by like minutes.

2) The challenge of a battle. To many, gambling is a “war,” a battle of wits between the gambler and his opponent or “the system”. While gambling, we can attack, conquer or retreat without the deadly effects of real battle. Money adds interest to the battle. If the stakes are not too high, no one is really hurt. Thus, gambling can be a way of having your cake and eating it, too.

3) You can dream a little. Gambling is often related to the secret wish of many of us that something wonderful will happen, solving all our problems. Our ship will come in. Gambling small stakes for large winnings is a manifestation of the wishful day-dream aspect of gambling. It may explain why so many sweepstakes tickets are sold and why there is so much long-shot betting. Undoubtedly, there are people who never really expect to win, who know that the odds are heavily against them, but gamble only so they can dream luxurious dreams.

4) The feeling of power. The cravings people bring to gambling sometimes involve an unconscious or conscious magical belief that they are all powerful and cannot lose. They believe the horse they bet on is sure to win, the speculative stocks they buy sure to go up. This is a complicated emotional side of gambling and even may be related to deep unconscious sexual feelings. Perhaps to the extreme gambler, winning is something akin to sexual experience; to this gambler, losing becomes associated with sexual punishment.

5) The “family enemy” explanation. To some gamblers, the opponents stand for family members against whom the gambler feels hostility. For instance, the opponent may symbolize the gambler’s father, who for various reasons may be resented by the gambler. Or the opponent may be seen as the brother who the gambler believes was favoured by his parents. Thus the gambler seeks to “defeat” family members against whom he has harboured ill feeling since childhood.

6) The desire to lose. Perhaps the most curious paradox about gambling is that some gamblers really have an unconscious desire to lose. These gamblers seem so controlled by hidden guilt (which may arise from childhood experiences) that they actually play to lose as a means of relieving their guilt. People who persistently bet on very long odds often are of this type. They may protest long and loud about losing, but unconsciously they are deeply satisfied.

As a trader rather than a gambler, I’m rather pleased that few of the factors apply to me. The first three I can identify with a little. I do find trading and investing a challenge, but an intellectual challenge rather than anything resembling a “war”. Trading is exciting, but without it I certainly don’t feel “desperately bored and empty”. Do I dream a little? Perhaps occasionally. Certainly last weekend when I backed at 100-1 to win £129,000 the thought did cross my mind as to what I might do with it, but I don’t usually play for life-changing amounts.

To the last three factors he lists, this is where he lost me a little. While it does sometimes seem that I can’t do a thing wrong, there are other times when I can’t seem to do a thing right. It’s all part of the game, and nothing whatsoever to do with sexual feelings. The “family enemy” explanation? I’m not buying it. My opponents are other exchange users, not my parents or siblings.

As for the desire to lose, the people I know who fit this description are more attention seekers than sufferers of some hidden guilt, or at least I thought they were. Reminds me of a childhood friend who at around age sixteen spread a story around that he had discovered a note in his father’s desk, revealing that he (the son) only had a year or two left to live. I believe the term pity-f**k came into existence around this time, just for him. When I saw him in the pub last Xmas, he looked remarkably well for someone who should have died nearly 40 years ago. It just dawned on me! My childhood feelings of envy are being played out on the exchanges with my hostility directed at him!