Daily Result: £360.45
A pleasing daily result which puts me back into profit for the month - this time hopefully for good! Most the profit came from the 2nd test between South Africa and Pakistan which Pakistan wrapped up with an easy win in only the second session of the 4th day.
Of course such an early finish was set up by the fall of 15 wickets on the first day after South Africa won the toss, elected to bat and were all about way before tea. With a clear weather forecast it was really just a question of which team would win from there. And as I'd layed the draw at the start I simply kept both results (as opposed to the draw) on side. I did manage to add a little to results over the weekend, and a little more today, but most the money was made during the first day's play.
So many wickets in the first day isn't the norm of course. But the fact remains that laying the draw in test matches seems to be as profitable as ever. For years I've been checking the weather and laying the draw in test matches. In fact I can remember shortly after I first started using Betfair a friend who worked for a bookmaker explaining the idea to me. The question that's always puzzled me is why the draw price is often so low at the start of a match when so many factors point to a result. Don't think I've ever come up with a definitive answer so if you've got one...
Anyway, I thought the lay the draw idea had seen its heyday a few years ago but it seems to back with vengeance. Sure, the price you take is obviously important, but we just seem to be on a long run now with very few draws I can remember - certainly in the games I've actively traded. I don't know. I may be wrong but just out of interest I've decided as part of the research / review process I regularly go through on my trading activity to have a quick look at recent tests and see just how many are ending in results. I'll pop the findings up sometime soon. I hope they make for interesting reading and may help make us all some more money.
As well as the cricket I finally had a look in on the Australian Open tennis today. Given it a wide birth this year. Obviously I've been busy but I also don't like the increased delay in the Australian wallet. Easy enough to get around - it just takes a change in approach - but I haven't had time to think it through properly and figure I don't really need to. Just wait until the matches move on to somewhere else and do the cricket in the meantime.
Anyway, I made a fiver on the Murray v Nadal match. Only placed one small trade. And then levelled out. Decided to just watch the match instead. But the trade was noteworthy because it's the first time I've got involved in a tennis match since early December time. Sure there will be a lot more to come later in the year but for the time being I'll be concentrating on the cricket.
Talking of which I'll stick those test match draw results up soon. In the meantime best of luck if you get involved in this New Zealand v England game overnight.
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1 comment:
I've followed your blog recently and just started to attempt to trade instead of bet. Laid the draw in SA v Pak 3rd test at 3.4 before the start and never bothered to trade off !
Your entry here lead me to check out cricinfo.com data on draws
Here's some interesting stats
All time test matches to end of Jan 2007 Played = 1830 Draws = 646
Draw Probability=35% or 2.83 deci odds).
All Tests from 1 Jan 2000 to end 2006
Played 345, draws 79, 23% or 4.37.
Perhaps the long term historical likelihood of draws affects odds at start of tests. Clearly the recent data strongly supports laying the draw at 3.5 or less. I'm new at this, but I imagine the odds are quite stabe on the first day unless a clatter of early wickets occurs. Is this true ?
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