Diary of a professional punter

[redarmi]

The posts on bots from Keith is a good one.  One of the most important things I ever taught the trainees mentioned above was that modelling and stats were very important, in particular a good understanding of Poisson distribution in relation to football, but the most vital thing you can understand is those rare occasions when they no longer work and how that affects the pricing of derivative markets.  For example the market will tell you that the alleged bent draws in Italy at the end of every year games with a goal expectancy of 1.5 and a supremacy of 0 have a 50/1 chance of finishing 2-2 and a 3/1 chance of finishing 0-0.  In these situations though it is binary.  It is either bent or it isn't and if it is bent and both teams expect a draw it will finish 0-0 almost everytime unless a fluke goal is scored and then it will finish 1-1.  3/1 about 0-0 would be insanely good value if the draw is evens or something but poisson says it is the right price.  Bots, of course, can't make those distinctions and if their owners aren't smart enough to realise they need to be watched over by someone that understand when they don't work.

[The Camel]

Have you ever had a blog Camel? Judging by your posts it would make for fantastic reading...

http://camelpoker.blogspot.com/

Some fun stuff in there if you look far enough back.

[The Camel]

The posts on bots from Keith is a good one.  One of the most important things I ever taught the trainees mentioned above was that modelling and stats were very important, in particular a good understanding of Poisson distribution in relation to football, but the most vital thing you can understand is those rare occasions when they no longer work and how that affects the pricing of derivative markets.  For example the market will tell you that the alleged bent draws in Italy at the end of every year games with a goal expectancy of 1.5 and a supremacy of 0 have a 50/1 chance of finishing 2-2 and a 3/1 chance of finishing 0-0.  In these situations though it is binary.  It is either bent or it isn't and if it is bent and both teams expect a draw it will finish 0-0 almost everytime unless a fluke goal is scored and then it will finish 1-1.  3/1 about 0-0 would be insanely good value if the draw is evens or something but poisson says it is the right price.  Bots, of course, can't make those distinctions and if their owners aren't smart enough to realise they need to be watched over by someone that understand when they don't work.

Also, when something crazy happens in a game, the bots are beatable.

Barcelona went 1-0 down to a team they were 1/50 to beat a couple of seasons ago.

With half an hour to go it was still 0-1.

What are the correct prices here? Barca were at home.

[tikay]

"Camel Ruminates" was the greatest, along with Phillips "Extempore".

Mr Shallow presumably alludes to The Poker Bastard, which Camel, of course, always denied responsibility for. Oddly, that blog would probably go down a storm now in the golden age of trolling.

[Dubai]

1/3-1/4? If they were genuinely  1.02/1.03 on bf

[The Camel]

He's had 2, he just never admitted to the latter

Honestly, hand on heart, it wasn't me.

He emailed me once, and offered to put up any story I wrote but felt unable to put on my blog on his site.

I was tempted, but declined.

[Solaris]

Have you ever had a blog Camel? Judging by your posts it would make for fantastic reading...

http://camelpoker.blogspot.com/

Some fun stuff in there if you look far enough back.

Excellent, cheers. Will read that during my lunch break tomorrow.

What's this other blog then? Anyone got a link? I do love a bit of high quality trolling.

[tikay]

It was entitled, iirc, "The Poker Bastard".

[The Camel]

Have you ever had a blog Camel? Judging by your posts it would make for fantastic reading...

http://camelpoker.blogspot.com/

Some fun stuff in there if you look far enough back.

Excellent, cheers. Will read that during my lunch break tomorrow.

What's this other blog then? Anyone got a link? I do love a bit of high quality trolling.

http://pokerbastard.blogspot.com/

[NoflopsHomer]

It was entitled, iirc, "The Poker Bastard".

A truly awesome blog.

[tikay]

"The Poker Bastard" iirc.

[The Camel]

1/3-1/4? If they were genuinely  1.02/1.03 on bf

Betfair was 7/4 barca 2/1 the draw 9/4 the minnows

The one bookmaker who lays me a bet was 2/7 barca 7/2 draw 7/1 minnows.

I nearly broke the rule of my gambling life and became an arber for one night only lol.

Instead I had a lump on the 7/4 and saved on the draw.

[Solaris]

Cheers fellas. Got some good reading material methinks.

Whilst we're all here, what was it (those of you who did it seriously) that you all bet on?

Feel free to give a life story, I'm intrigued!

Edit: Sorry for thread hijacking redarmi...

[Dubai]

See no trading software needed, just random guess haha

[bobby1]

traders won't exist in 10 years time, maybe less.

the game is changing in front of your eyes.

That depends how you classify the word trader. Football games are bet using programmes now but some sports are impossible to trade that way. If you mean pre game then yes I agree.

Which sports? Traders won't exist in terms of people who actually understand what there lines mean or how they are compiled, you'll just need to be able to click a button or type some data.

That already happens now, well golf is one sport you could never write a programme to compile and the BF market doesn't have enough runners priced up correctly to scrape from anyway.