Sport is made for betting

No marvellous green book to show off this year, although it was a decent profit on turnover considering how little liquidity was on Betfair. Being on Premier Sports for the first time didn't help since very few people have subscribed to it, plus the Betfair site has been dodgier than the BBC's 'The Real Hustle' recently. It was easy enough to get a live stream but I doubt many others would have bothered. It's not the most popular sport outside of the US anyway, and also having to deal with a toddler who didn't want to go to bed before 11pm made it incredibly difficult to trade! I'd emptied most of my acct recently, so I'm more than happy with a £45 green book from a £60 balance. Same old theory for low liquidity, many runner events. Just keep putting up half-decent offers for small stakes. Increase the size of the lays as you create more green on the other runners. Don't get over-competitive (let someone else jump ahead of you in the queue if they...

Brilliant drive Jamie McMurray. Never in front until the last two laps. Call me a redneck, but I do love the Daytona 500. With results like this, how could you not? It's not the first time either, that's three years in a row for me, I blogged about it last year as well. Haven't had time to do much trading of late, glad I made the effort tonight :) Low liquidity events with multiple chances work best for me. The event unravels slowly over a few hours (events of similar style include televised LPGA and Seniors events). Not many punters, and the ones who do get involved will take a reasonable price for small amounts, but still allowing to keep a decent over-round or margin. I laid 26 of the 38 selections and just kept on doing it throughout the race. So if keep your mind on the job, you can keep laying and laying without taking much risk. And speed of the pics here made no difference at all, I watched most of the race off a live stream which was probably 20secs behind. But un...

I think I've earned a pat on the back with this one - best laying effort for a long time. Take a look at my posts on NASCAR for advice on how to trade a market like this. Bit-by-bit, plenty of margin, try to lay the field. But you must get in early, when the fat margins are there. FWIW, I've laid Norway and the UK for small in the winner market.

I love the Daytona 500. I'm a petrolhead at heart, my father used to race cars many years ago so I'm used to getting excited about cars going 'round and round'. This is the flagship for NASCAR racing, and unfortunately, the betting peters out after this race - at least for live trading on Betfair. The best part about Daytona is that all cars are on restrictor plates. The straights are so long and these cars are so powerful, that they can lift and that gets very dangerous. So the racing is very close together at about 180mph, and drafting and team blocking means anyone is capable of winning. It wasn't quite as exciting as last year's race (see Feb 08 archive) which went down to a two-lap dash between about 15 cars. This time the rain came and stopped the race with about a quarter of the distance to go. Usual policy, laying as many drivers as possible for small liability and just keep building up a nice book. It's the same strategy I use for other weak liquidi...

Covers.com is a great website if North American sports are your go. Proper stats and previews for the gambler rather than the bland stuff in the papers where pundits aren't gauged on their results. Tonight's the Daytona 500. It's the big one in NASCAR and I'll be trading the Betfair market trying to lay them all low and watch for big prices with a chance back in the pack.