Best market to bet on

In my opinion, tennis because the odds are moving very quickly, so you can win a lot (or lose a lot) in a few minutes. The facts that it is a one vs one game and that there are only two possible results (unlike football match odds) make it more easily predictable too.

The best sports to bet on are the ones that are most difficult to price up at any given point.
Also those that have enough turning points/scoring to get plenty of swings in price.

Tennis and football are way too easy to price up to get enough opportunuities imo
American Football and Basketball are the 2 standouts for me

5f sprints

I guess curlywurly doesn't bet on tennis...otherwise he wouldn't be making the most ridiculous statement I have seen on here in a while.

tennis and football. never managed a ain on horses

Football correct scores. I only occasionally dabble but you do sometimes see odds that just look wrong. e.g. Yesterday in fulham liverpool 1-1 and 1-2 were both around 7/1, two easy lays. (Which I couldn't get on because it was too much liability, I prefer to keep liability under a tenner.)

Football in general actually. If everyone down the pub is saying "ah well chelsea are gonna win this 3-0, 4-0 no problem" it's worth laying chelsea.

Football (popular games anyway) has a huge amount of naive money going in.

laying on football the only way

Very interesting question and if thought about logically the question arises
is a formula possible to indicate how good certain markets can be in terms of
exchange investment.

This boils down to IMO

inversely proportional(deviation from price implied chance against standard form disciplines implied chances) X

average BSP price implied chance deviation from exotic form disciplines implied chance X

average market deviation between average hi-low price X

liquidity of market.

Along these lines it would be football and horse racing best and greyhound racing the worst
which is why liquidity or market volumes reflect the above conditions.

The fact you can profit from either worst or best examples if applying logical conditional betting /trading
proves that all markets can be profitable on a sporting exchange, its all down to how you work or play the exchange markets.

Without football I'd be in loss, although that's partly because not all my Xfactor bets have been settled yet, I'm still expecting another £2 from that:


Cricket: -£2.04 | Horse Racing: £0.00 | Soccer: £11.29 | Special Bets: £2.75 | Tennis: -£0.96  Total P&L:  £11.04

regarding my last post, the reason the first component is inversely proportional is because all prices
and markets are based on traditional form compiling thus the deviation from returned accuracy indicates the reliability of the market performers.

A typical example of this would be the large difference in market accuracy of a maiden race where few had raced before against a handicap race with exposed runners means that a more assured result and profit will emerge from the
handicap example than the maiden race on average(disrespecting stable horse training reports)

it's a ridiculous question since every event is a zero sum game with as many winners as losers.  If you bet in running be aware of the effect that time advantages can have.

If you want an adrenalin rush a sport that involves a race up to 4 minutes gives the biggest buzz.  Swimming is brilliant from that perspective as you have some great tense finishes.  For a longer stint the biathlon is my favourite.

There is nothing more boring than betting on snooker

If you want to make a success from betting then you must detach yourself emotionally from the events that you bet/trade in.

higher cortex activity only acceptable.

Tennis - prices change after every point

If you want to make a success from betting then you must detach yourself emotionally from the events that you bet/trade in.

Disagree entirely.  Something has got to stir your interest and emotion for you to get stuck into it.  That mebbe purely the maths for some people

Superb point clydebank, some emotions are very important to drive a person positively into advancement
but the more automated and less involved with tedious and stressful activity in any workplace the more
productive you will become.

bff its getting heavily involved in tedious and stressful activity that makes people successful, unless you want to improve your golf............then again Gary Player was famous for saying...

I understand the point you are making though, being too stressed isnt good for anyone.  That's why the god of betting invented trading and hedging.

Trading and hedging is perhaps much more tedious and stressful than simply putting on a pre-matchbet and then going out to the pub and coming home hours later to find out what happened ?

Sure it is more tedious if you just did trading although I dispute it's more stressful (If you want to become a succesful staright gambler mind you have to do loads of tedious groundwork which can often lead you nowhere, indeed even if you trade you should do but less so), I was really meaning the option to trade and hedge in relation to relieving stress.

I never mentioned trading and hedging as a way of relieving tedium only of relieving stress as it goes.

^ FAFH - "Trading and hedging is perhaps much more tedious and stressful than......"

Based on that statement, I don't think you fully understand the difference between trading versus betting.

A successful trader/hedger will typically have an account that shows a straight upward line of consistent/persistent profit - very, very tedious but not at all stressful.
His mirror image counterpart that is a bettor would have an account that (long term) shows the same consistent/persistent profit - but it wouldn't be the same straight upward line! - it will involve significant "ups and downs" along the way - so potentially much more stressful.

Neither activity is more tedious and stressful - one is more tedious and the other is more stressful.

I would imagine that many successful players do both - i.e. betting to accelerate the gains and trading to smooth the variance.

I would imagine that many successful players do both - i.e. betting to accelerate the gains and trading to smooth the variance

Indeed..that's exactly what I do and exactly why I do it

Me too Clydebank. I am happy/confident to be a straight bettor during the flat season (horse racing) but much less comfortable/confident with the jumps. So i usually resort to trading for the jumps/soccer in order to either enhance the net prices taken on my bets - or to just trade.

Summer = miss most of the sunshine outside, longer hours and stress!
Winter = shorter hours but cold and tedious!

Does that mean you are gay when it comes to jumps betting?

In your dreams Jimmy! In your dreams!

MM
I think I might just understand the difference.
One thing that always bemuses about the trading game, is that inorder to trade out of something you have to take a position in it first.
So I can position take without trading, but not vice versa.
So how can the latter be less stressful than the former ?
Just because it smooths out my net performance curve ?
Is that enough to compensate for sitting watching a game /race, hopefully waiting for the opportunity to arise to trade out ( and worse than ever, then being distracted when it does - the phone goes at a vital moment ).
Remember in all that time, in my example I'm in the pub downing a few with my mates.

FAFH - If you are "hopefully waiting for the opportunity to trade out" - yes I imagine that would be stressful! But that statement applies to a guesser rather than a trader. If you know (with a fairly large degree of certainty) which way the market is going to go - then imo it is pretty stress free (tedious - but stress free!).

You are correct that both traders and bettors have to take a position - but one (the trader) is only taking a position on the price - the other (the bettor) is taking a position on the outcome.

All traders are guessers aren't they? They can not predict the future.

When the racing has finished - I will exemplify the dilemma (that I sometimes face in the winter) between betting versus trading.

If you knew which way the market would move, the market would already have moved there.

ror - can't chat at length right now but I said "with a fairly large degree of certainty".

If I consistently "guess" correctly (eight+ times out of ten) which way the market will move over a sustained period of time in certain markets - I feel comfortable in saying that I know!

Dec 7, 2011 -- 8:52AM, Methane_Magnet wrote:

You are correct that both traders and bettors have to take a position - but one (the trader) is only taking a position on the price - the other (the bettor) is taking a position on the outcome.

as the price is a probalistic definition of the outcome, i think both traders and gamblers are taking a postion on an outcome. however the difernce is the a gambler do not have the mentality or the access  to react on the changes about the expectancy of the outcome.

if a market was going to move a certain way 80% of the time, well that's not actually very impressive if what you make in those cases is less than what you lose on the other 20%.

As for a punter. (or "gambler" but I'd say Gambler is a term for both punters and traders, so prefer punter/trader to mark out the difference between someone betting in play and not.).

I'd say a winning punter will have an opinion on the price too. Sure, there are a lot of thickos who just want to back it at any price because they think it'll happen, but they're not the winning ones. Any winning gambler must be taking an opinion on both the price and the result, as is the trader.

Traders are gamblers too. If you don't trade on the fundamentals (the current price relative to the probability of the final outcome) you won't make money trading. Or at least not in the "take a position, change position later, change position later" style trading).

Laying a 1.01 because "well you don't think it wins 1 in 100 but you think it'll go to 1.03" is such bad value. If you think it'll go to 1.03 that means you think the odds in the future will be a 1 in 30 (roughly) chance of that outcome. If you think in the future it'll be a 1 in 30 chance then you must think it's a 1 in 30 chance of that final outcome now.

If you think it doesn't win 1 in 100 from here you should be backing the 1.01.

Always trade on the fundamentals.

ffs - where did I suggest that the losses where the market moves against you should/would outweigh the profits from where it moves for you????

Obviously that wouldn't be very impressive - have you got a degree in stating the bleeding obvious?????

No need to reply - I now know the answer!

You said that you feel comfortable knowing where the market is going to move 8 times in 10. I said this ins't impressive because unless it makes up for the 2 times in 10 you can't, then it's an unprofitable strategy, and therefore worse than or no better than guessing.

Put it this way, I'd happily say that 8 times in 10 a 11.5 will drift to 12. 8 times in 10 it'll probably ALSO go to 11.0.

This isn't actually profitable, because of what you lose when it doesn't. If you get caught the wrong side of a "train" then actually you lose more than the few times you steal a tick or two.


So no you don't know where the market is going to move, even if you predict it 8 times in 10, it just makes you someone who's guessing 1.1 shots.

Very impressive - not only a degree in stating the bleeding obvious, also a masters in missing the point and a fecking Phd in going off on a tangent.

Maybe you'd like to explain what you meant by "if I can predict where the market will move 8 times in 10 I think I know".

Because I've stated when I think it is nonsense.

The point was, that nothing is certain (not 100%, not cast iron, not guaranteed) - I hope that is clear? - but if you know much, much, much, more often than not (not all of the time, not 100% - just the vast majority of the time) which direction a price is going to move in then you can profit in one of three ways:

1) From Betting only
2) From Trading only
3) From a combination of the two - i.e. using the trading element to enhance your bet price.

To my original point (back in the 19th century before you joined the conversation) - I am comfortable just betting (gambling) on something where history tells me my profits are high and my variance is low. Whereas in other areas where my variance from just gambling is higher - I prefer the surety of trading.

I think I also mentioned  - back in the mists of time, that I personally (that is me, myself) find one more stressful than the other - and one more tedious than the other. Whereas I am finding conversing with you both stressful and tedious!

Come back Jimmy - all is forgiven.

Again Methane, if you don't have an edge it doesn't matter how certain you are, it's already priced into the market, which means you're just effectively backing a 1.01, so if you do lose you lose big, or you make very little profit.

It doesn't matter whether you trade, punt, whatever. If it's priced into the market it's priced in.

You need to develop an edge, without one you will not make a profit.

If you're happy having a 99% strike rate then fine, keep going, but you're just storing up your bad luck for a very bad day.

This is all excellent stuff.

^ wtf?

I do this full time - I have been here 11 years (almost to the day) - I think I might have an edge.

I think you might be too busy thinking about what you are going to write next - it might be better to slow down, have a read and have a think.

Jimmy - help me please, please somebody help me - I can feel my life ebbing away ffs

Hmmm

Methane Magnet
Joined: 08 Nov 11


So why the new account?

That could be for any number of reasons - is it relevant????

fwiw - I bet Love Divine on here when it won the Oaks! - but that has no relevance - does it??

Getting back to the opening question,  I believe the best sport
to bet in, is the one you feel you know best, in my case football.
Sometimes the market is slow to recognise that the play is not
matching the expectancy, the outsider perhaps performing better
than their illustrious opponents, especially when at home etc

MM
I trust that my old persona/role has now been suitably replaced and I can continue in retirement knowing that my  replacement has well and truly arrived. ?
Or would even the old me coming back be preferable to what you are facing now ?
You sound distressed.

Fafh - this lad has got you beat hands down. You sometimes used to frustrate me a little bit (reading things that weren't there, misinterpreting the odd statement, being a bit pedantic, going off on a tangent) but this lad is something else!

A new star is born...it's nearly Christmas after all

Yep.
On another thread he even beat me the master at my own game.

Maybe we could borrow 3 wise men from de football forum and put on a nativity

OK this is to help MM

Say you are a trader and you only trade pre-match. Generally you get 8 out of 10 correct. When you are correct you generally trade for 4 ticks and when you are wrong you are generally wrong by 6 ticks (because you always trade out before the event turns in-play).

Each tick equates to about £10 profit or loss. So for 10 games

£40 x 8 = £320 profit
£60 x 2 = £120 loss.

Total profit for 10 markets is £200. So "knowing" which way the market is going to go is your edge. Seems pretty straightforward to me.

Is this what you were trying to convey to ROR MM.

ror let me explain....if you can predict the way a market will move 8 times out of 10 it would be hugely profitable (provided there are enough markets where you can predict)

It doesnt mean you will lose the two times you don't.  Either you trade out at a loss on those bets or let the bets run.  If you let the bets run they dont necessarily lose!!

There is nothing like hands on experience when it comes to the betting game.
Theoreticians like ror who either hardly ever bet or when they do they do in only very small amounts, are essentially irrelevant as commentators.
I know this from personal experience.
I am somewhat embarassed by my early forays on this forum.
( of course some might say that I should still be embarassed by some of my current forays ).
I find that as my actual betting experiences grow ( particularly on the BF platform) the more my eyes are opened up to what some of the older hands have been saying all along.
That is not to say that they are always right, but they do know more about how things actually go down.

Thanks UA - I had intended to post something along those lines (when the racing was over) but by then I had lost the will to live! - so thank you, my numbers would be a bit different to that but the principle is the same.

Clydebank - thanks also.

Clyde: But they must by definition lose!

Let's say I back at 1.9 hoping it moves to 1.8.

8 times out of 10 it gets to 1.8.

If it doesn't get to 1.8 it must by definition have lost, or it would have got to 1.8 on it's way to 1.01!

If the times it didn't get to 1.8 it has a chance of getting to 1.8, then it will be getting to 1.8 more often than the 8/10 specified!

Maybe we're talking about different forms of trading. I guess you're talking of ante-post trading where you're trying to get on a "free bet" or green pre-race, then at the off you just either red-out when you don't make it or let it run.

I think I'm talking about cricket trading where you just trade throughout the whole race. (A bit like in-running trading).

I get what's being said UA, but I'd speculate that it's possible that actually if you could predict movement 8 out of 10 times you're not making 4 ticks when you'd win if you applied a 6 tick stop loss.

As for all the ad-hom "you only bet small stakes", why should the stake amount matter?

I'm not going to pretend that betting large is no different to betting small, it is because of liquidity, but my experience is still experience, and I'm still showing a 3 month and 30 day profit.

I'd argue that liquidity doesn't matter under 100 quid, so really I could be better 10 times the amount I do easily and have made 10 times the profit.

What makes you think your experience is an edge? Perhaps my lack of experience and ability to look rationally at markets is an edge.

ror - I think we are all talking about pre-off and you are talking about in-running.

Not sure how you could interpret any of my earlier posts as relating to in-play trading - but at least that explains the tangents!

Personally whilst I don't find it too hard to believe that certain people can predict to a pretty high percentage which way a market is likely to move, I do find it hard to believe they can equally regularly turn that into either reasonable profits given that they have to overcome always the bid and lay spread.
This is compensated in part by the commission offsets availabe in trading, but it's never enough imo.
However this is exactly a subject where my last post particularly applies.
I don't actually trade and so I am essentially talking theoretically here.
If I did start to trade in volume like MM and others, then I might in fact find out that things turn out to be quite different in practice.

ror - I think we got off on the wrong foot (albeit because you went off on a tangent) - but hey, bygones!

However - I have to correct this.........

ror     07 Dec 11 17:41 
I'd argue that liquidity doesn't matter under 100 quid, so really I could be better 10 times the amount I do easily and have made 10 times the profit.

If only it were that simple. I get matched at some unbelievable value (I mean truly unbelievable)...... for peanuts. If I could scale that up I would have retired years ago - sadly you cannot. It is much easier with small stakes - the smaller the stakes the easier - but you cannot always translate that directly to larger stakes.

So ror is now claiing that he has an edge in being able to look rationally at markets.
Is that implying that we ( others) don't ?.
If so then that is hubris personified.
You're getting to be a bit of a worry ror.

Geez MM, you didn't let me off so lightly in the early days of our head to heads.
Why the favouritism with ror ?
I'm insanely jealous.

lol - i think the whole misunderstanding centres around - he has been referring to in-play trading for the last 2 hours, whilst I (and I think everybody else) were discussing pre-off trading.

If he does it again - then I will send the boys round - fair enough?

FAFH: I'm not claiming I do, I'm claiming it shouldn't be used as some kind of insult when the possibility is there. :)

MM: Oh, I wasn't suggesting it was possible to go from £20 stakes to £200 and make the same money, but the markets I bet on I reckon I could go from £2 to £20 and still get the same odds. :)

p.s. I agree about mixing up what "trading" means. I come from cricket (and football), where trading almost always means in play, because the odds rarely move more than 1 or 2 ticks pre-game.

I see in horse racing that odds move about a lot in the 10 minutes before the off and you could make money in that period, although I still don't really accept that it's more than just guessing because it's all so fast, what information can you have that others don't, but perhaps you have experience to know when odds have edged out further than they should from what's going on.

p.p.s. Here's a cheerful story to cheer everyone up: I just won 46p backing Murphy on the snooker! Almost greened when he was 5-0 up (out of 11 frames) but the odds were 1.01/1.02;

No way I was losing 4pence removing my liability! To win 6 games at a row even at evens would be 1/64th chance, and being 5-0 down it was clear he was a dog in the frame betting too!

Of course what do I know, he came back to win the next 4 frames in a row, the 55 backer probably traded out for a nice profit then.

He almost won 5 in a row too, but thankfully Murphy got incredibly lucky with a few missed shots he made and took the frame.

46p nailed on.

ror - fair enough - each to their own.

I don't play the cricket markets but I have to disagree with you about the lack of odds movement on the football markets prior to kick off. I have been watching (and trading in a small way) three of the Champions League match markets today (and the respective HT/FT markets) - there has been a massive amount of movement in all three - and this is not unusual.

I only dabble in soccer, so maybe it's just the soccer markets I watch then (prem league and big4 english in europe).

Even then it's never like the craziness 2 minutes before the horses are off when they're gating them up. (Don't know the correct term sorry.)

Man City have contracted 13 ticks in the time it took me to eat my dinner

I hope you were on the right side of that move MM.
Otherwise you might have expelled your dinner just as quickly ?

As a matter of general interest, do you know why this mkt. move has occurred, and was that a reason you cleverly forecasted it in private ( of course) ?.

" ---and was that the reason---- "

It's at this point I smugly point out I got my city bet on with Sky @ Manchester City @ 1.67, (equivalent to 1.705 here) which seemed big at the time.

All they have to do now is win, otherwise whatever price you got on at was irrelevant ( although please don't say that to the " value" bettors - then all hell will break loose on here.)

Fafh - I would "guess" that it is because BM have not only already qualified but have already qualified as Group Winners. As such it would be easy to speculate what kind of team they would put out and how motivated that team would be.

But is that really " new " news or insight.
Surely the mkts. would have input such basic stuff hours ago ( or even days in this case in point ).

Fafh - your question is inviting me to after-time, so I open myself up to abuse.

But in the Man City game I was mostly playing in the HT/FT market at average 2.80 - with a fairly strong opinion that that price could only go one way - inwards! - it is now 2.40 which is ridiculously short (imo)

But the same question would arise.
Why the extreme move and how could it ever have been reasonably forecasted, based on the information at hand, either in the last few hours or the last few days.
No matter really if you don't want to respond.
It happened, you apparently for whatever reason saw it coming to a certain extent ( if not to the degree it did) and you were on the right side of it ( and more importantly it didn't ruin a good dinner ).
Well done.
As a trader you now don't care what happens. Just relax and watch the game without any stress at all.
Ah life is just beautiful sometimes.

FAFH - i am not really a trader, it's a case of needs must in the Winter.

Roll on summer time, with some sunshine and them lovely 2 year old maiden races.

Perv...

Gayer

Well he did say races jimmy, thank god.

Btw you can certainly tell who are the position players on here.
They're the only ones with the time to post during the CL games.
And probably the only ones really enjoying the TCV pictures ( unless all the traders have successfully greened up, which goes without saying).

TCV ?
A new fast pic service available only to a select few ?
Nah, just a typo. Relax all.

Today pretty much sums up the Dilemma  - to trade or to bet.

I traded 3 games at what were very wrong/favourable prices (imo) - all HT/FT

Man U/Man U @ 2.80/2.82 - a bit surprised it only went off at around 2.76 but it was never going to lengthen from 2.80.
Real Madrid/Real Madrid @ 4.40/4.50 - that price was way too big and it went off at 3.80/3.90
Man City/Man City @ 2.80 - was only ever going to shorten and went off at 2.38

Having traded - I have made a slice of bread and will suffer no variance or stress. If I could stand the variance (I know I would win long-term at the prices secured) I would have made half a loaf tonight. Obviously I am after-timing (again) but it sums up nicely the dilemma I face when there is no flat turf racing!

Tedium and no stress - but I still feel dirty.

Tough titty MM.
The point is can you achieve this sort of success time after time ?
If you can forget about felling dirty and start getting and felling rich.

"--feeling dirty---"

"---feeling rich ".
Just for the pedants on here. Like to be neat and tidy I do.

Btw any FT prices now wrong at HT ?

Obviously on an after time basis will have to do now.
I wasn't looking at them I'm afraid to say.
Too fcking busy posting on here.
Priorities man.

FINE AS FROG HAIR     07 Dec 11 20:54 
The point is can you achieve this sort of success time after time ?

I can identify a wrong price when I see one, that is no problem - finding enough of them and getting sufficiently matched is another matter. Like I said - tedious.

Oh well, it will soon be March!

Watch out MM.
Some on here might start to call you arrogant and elitist.
For many, no way of making even a few bucks on here would ever be too tedious to be bothered with.