The Cycling Betting Thread

[Red Rick]

Re:

Just put 20 on Contador to win the Vuelta yet @ 7.5

Ah *** me

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re:

Just put 20 on Contador to win the Vuelta yet @ 7.5

Was a good bet IMO. Especially since Nibali wasn't attending.

200 DKK Latour > Meintjens @ 2,40
200 DKK Kennaugh > Konig @ 3,20
150 DKK Valverde > Chaves @ 2,90

20 DKK Yates to win stage 8 @ 29,00

 

[Red Rick]

Agreed. Was almost as bad as me taking a h2h bet on Felline in the AGR and he crashed out horribly before the official start

 

[Red Rick]

Yates>Atapuma @ 1.80

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re:

Agreed. Was almost as bad as me taking a h2h bet on Felline in the AGR and he crashed out horribly before the official start

Its quite a bit lower now, Contador that is.

150 DKK Pardlla > Chaves @ 3,10
150 DKK Sami > Brambilla @ 2,40

25 DKK Quintana to win stage 9 @ 51,00

 

[Flamin]

Stage 10:

For the stage win:
Rolland @ 29/1
Maté @ 51/1

 

[Valv.Piti]

300 DKK Contador > Froome @ 4,75
200 DKK Peraud > Sami S @ 1,75

Pretty insane Contador odds.

 

[IKE]

see this thread just now today idid
sagan-le coq 1.47
mollema-kelderman 1.55
moscon-herrada 1.75
v avermaet-ulissi 1,55
yates-majka 1.50

4 good so far saw yates and majka droping out at 2 KM together fingers crossed now


yessss all good here in holland unibet made a mista have put 100 euro at cummings VS dan martin x2 for the time trial in britain guess they are mistaking dan martin for tony fre money

 

[IKE]

for today

frooma vs quintana 1.40(bit tricky)
contador VS chaves for 1.40
meintjes vs latour 1.95
hermans vs montfoort 1.25

 

[IKE]

we play bet 365,unibet and sisters(888,napoleon),betson and sisters(kroon casino) 777.be,
paddy, and used to play betvictor but kicked out to match profit
i'm doing this with 4 mates we also play bingoal witch is a briljan bookie no limts and top ten bets for a lot of stages
problem is you can only play in belgum but i have belgium friiends
the limts are a problem and it gets harder and harder to get new acounts causse they check better now
we do make a lot of profit this veulta was really good over 6000 with our acounts at 365 and bingoal
realy nice and its a lot of fun

 

[Hugo Koblet]

for today

frooma vs quintana 1.40(bit tricky)
contador VS chaves for 1.40
meintjes vs latour 1.95
hermans vs montfoort 1.25

Ouch this was a bad stage for you

 

[IKE]

yeah somteimes you have those days but live we played latour x26 for 10 at 365 so the damage was small

 

[IKE]

for today we did

greipel x8
cavendish x8

witch are quit high odds

van boy poppel vs barberto x1.8

van genechten vs sbaragli 1.5

sagan vs matthews 1.83(orica site says amdams is the man in montreal)
yates vs majka

and did 3 winners bets at montreal

wellens x34
bardet x41
kelderman x26



for smal stakes

just added some H2H

bardet-aru
greg vs ulissi
roux-haas
mollem-kelderman
manzin-v/d sande

 

[IKE]

looks like a bad day at work


6 out of nine from the H2H and no winners but at the end small profit for the day

 

[changwilly]

Hi I work at betfair exchange and I would be quite into my cycling. I'm currently trying to improve our offereing for cycling events but as is the nature of the exchange people are needed to price up the market so at them moment I'm loading more events than we used to offer but they're not being priced up. I was wondering as a betting product is cycling somehting many people would bet on and does anybody know of people or groups that actively lay these markets? Apologies if this is relevant to this forum if somebody could point me in the right direction of where else I might look that would be much appreciated.

Cheers,

Shane

 

[MADRAZO]

Hi I work at betfair exchange and I would be quite into my cycling. I'm currently trying to improve our offereing for cycling events but as is the nature of the exchange people are needed to price up the market so at them moment I'm loading more events than we used to offer but they're not being priced up. I was wondering as a betting product is cycling somehting many people would bet on and does anybody know of people or groups that actively lay these markets? Apologies if this is relevant to this forum if somebody could point me in the right direction of where else I might look that would be much appreciated.

Cheers,

Shane

Betfair Exchanges 2 biggest problems are one that you too often miss too many relevant riders for many races. Like in the recent Lombardie when you did not include 2 topfavourites like Valverde and Aru for instance and second that you stopped voiding nonstarters some years ago. No one want to put out serious buyoffers for several riders and for bigger stakes if they risk that a rider gets sicks or just wont start and then someone quickly just buys the bets after they have lost all chance, before you get the buyoffer removed. I used to put out many offers myself but has just been losing way to much like that and therefore your market only apeals to big layers with huge bankrolls now instead of both normal custumers and layers. And I think you need to make a balanced apeal to both groups if you want a decent revenue.

 

[changwilly]

Hi I work at betfair exchange and I would be quite into my cycling. I'm currently trying to improve our offereing for cycling events but as is the nature of the exchange people are needed to price up the market so at them moment I'm loading more events than we used to offer but they're not being priced up. I was wondering as a betting product is cycling somehting many people would bet on and does anybody know of people or groups that actively lay these markets? Apologies if this is relevant to this forum if somebody could point me in the right direction of where else I might look that would be much appreciated.

Cheers,

Shane

Betfair Exchanges 2 biggest problems are one that you too often miss too many relevant riders for many races. Like in the recent Lombardie when you did not include 2 topfavourites like Valverde and Aru for instance and second that you stopped voiding nonstarters some years ago. No one want to put out serious buyoffers for several riders and for bigger stakes if they risk that a rider gets sicks or just wont start and then someone quickly just buys the bets after they have lost all chance, before you get the buyoffer removed. I used to put out many offers myself but has just been losing way to much like that and therefore your market only apeals to big layers with huge bankrolls now instead of both normal custumers and layers. And I think you need to make a balanced apeal to both groups if you want a decent revenue.

Many thanks for the response. I've only began to look to improve the cycling in the last two weeks as it appears to have been neglected for quite a while now. I understand the frustration with missing big favourites this is a simple error that shouldn't happen and this should be completely eradicated as I will be briefing the rest of the team on how we need to better manage these markets. As regards the non-starter issue this is something I can raise with my managers to return to it's previous state. At the moment I'm trying to gather all the information on what people don't currently like about it and what we can do to improve it (i.e. better market management/rider v rider markets) so any criticism/suggestions is more than welcome. There aren't too many more races to go this season after the worlds so hopefully will have eradicated the simple issues for those and then for the beginning of next season have a much better product on offer for people.

 

[Eyeballs Out]

I've been a player on Betfair cycling markets pretty much since they started and even now I still wouldn't bet anywhere else for all the reasons that makes an Exchange better than bookmakers

10 years ago Betfair cycling markets were actively managed and as a result much stronger IMO. By actively managed I mean a single market would only start with 30 - 60 riders - all the favourites. Then if it was managed well, additional riders would be added if necessary - say they got in the break or made an attack. Inevitably there would be occasions where it was not managed well and somebody would win who wasn't listed. Hence, complaints and ...

The next idea (which didn't last long fortunately) was again a limited number of riders and an "Any Other" option (and no market management). "Any Other" was rarely an option that anyone wanted to price up or bet on and it was common for in-running to be dead on obvious breakaway stages when it became clear most of the contenders were in "Any Other"

Finally came the idea that all runners would be listed for every market. Sounds great in theory but ....

- once you get 200 riders in there the main site grinds to a halt once you've had a few bets. Anything more than a few bets requires using other software and the API
- In-running is more difficult. Who wants to leave reasonable prices up when you have to sift through 200 names to cancel a bet when something happens like attack, crash, mechanical ?
- pricing up every rider takes so much longer
- BF software seems to be unable to sort a cycling market with 200 riders. For some reason you end up with half the favourites at the top, half at the bottom and all the no-hopers in between
- half the time the 200 riders is full of non-runners, duplicates and omissions anyway so what's the point ?

I think the bottom line is if you don't have markets actively managed by someone who knows the sport then it's bound to be a worse product. Someone who knows the sport would know that there would be empty markets for the Tour of Britain because everybody is watching the Vuelta but they would provide a market for the Womens World Championship Road Race. One thing that seems to creeped in recently is misnaming of riders especially spanish riders - it must look pretty unprofessional for anyone considering a bet to see Lobato named as Juan Jose Valle. If you look at Oddschecker you can see that many of the bookmakers don't seem to have a problem pricing up 30-60 common riders with properly identifiable names and some sort of chance of winning each day.

 

[MADRAZO]

Re:

I've been a player on Betfair cycling markets pretty much since they started and even now I still wouldn't bet anywhere else for all the reasons that makes an Exchange better than bookmakers

10 years ago Betfair cycling markets were actively managed and as a result much stronger IMO. By actively managed I mean a single market would only start with 30 - 60 riders - all the favourites. Then if it was managed well, additional riders would be added if necessary - say they got in the break or made an attack. Inevitably there would be occasions where it was not managed well and somebody would win who wasn't listed. Hence, complaints and ...

The next idea (which didn't last long fortunately) was again a limited number of riders and an "Any Other" option (and no market management). "Any Other" was rarely an option that anyone wanted to price up or bet on and it was common for in-running to be dead on obvious breakaway stages when it became clear most of the contenders were in "Any Other"

Finally came the idea that all runners would be listed for every market. Sounds great in theory but ....

- once you get 200 riders in there the main site grinds to a halt once you've had a few bets. Anything more than a few bets requires using other software and the API
- In-running is more difficult. Who wants to leave reasonable prices up when you have to sift through 200 names to cancel a bet when something happens like attack, crash, mechanical ?
- pricing up every rider takes so much longer
- BF software seems to be unable to sort a cycling market with 200 riders. For some reason you end up with half the favourites at the top, half at the bottom and all the no-hopers in between
- half the time the 200 riders is full of non-runners, duplicates and omissions anyway so what's the point ?

I think the bottom line is if you don't have markets actively managed by someone who knows the sport then it's bound to be a worse product. Someone who knows the sport would know that there would be empty markets for the Tour of Britain because everybody is watching the Vuelta but they would provide a market for the Womens World Championship Road Race. One thing that seems to creeped in recently is misnaming of riders especially spanish riders - it must look pretty unprofessional for anyone considering a bet to see Lobato named as Juan Jose Valle. If you look at Oddschecker you can see that many of the bookmakers don't seem to have a problem pricing up 30-60 common riders with properly identifiable names and some sort of chance of winning each day.

I can only agree to everything above. And indeed the chaos with the alhpabetic order of the 200 riders is a big problem also where it often gets hopeless to find riders quickly enough inplay. The "find" function in browsers does also often not even work anymore, and you often have spellingerrors too, or same riders twice under different names. Previously you just copied the riderlists included with the other bookmakers that features the relevant riders and made sure to keep up with their changes plus adding relevant riders inplay, and you ought to be doing that again. And as mentioned in my earlier post, not voiding nonstarters would still be the main problem as I see it.

 

[search]

Re: Re:

And as mentioned in my earlier post, not voiding nonstarters would still be the main problem as I see it.

personally I think this is no issue at all. In my opinion it's a logical part of the concept of a betting exchange, that those bets are not voided.

You also need to take into account that bookies (those from the UK with a horse betting background - most other bookies don't void outright bets at all) don't do this to do the bettor a favor, but to be able to adjust the odds of other participants in case it's the favorite who doesn't start the race. In the long term this is nothing the customer necessarily profits from - same as on Betfair, you sometimes can make money by laying a non-starter, and sometimes lose money if your horse fells sick

 

[MADRAZO]

Re: Re:

And as mentioned in my earlier post, not voiding nonstarters would still be the main problem as I see it.

personally I think this is no issue at all. In my opinion it's a logical part of the concept of a betting exchange, that those bets are not voided.

You also need to take into account that bookies (those from the UK with a horse betting background - most other bookies don't void outright bets at all) don't do this to do the bettor a favor, but to be able to adjust the odds of other participants in case it's the favorite who doesn't start the race. In the long term this is nothing the customer necessarily profits from - same as on Betfair, you sometimes can make money by laying a non-starter, and sometimes lose money if your horse fells sick

The "rule 4" where they change prices is used so rarely that I dont think it matters much. I have seen it happen once in 10 year or so (Kittel not starting a sprintstage in the Giro I think) So I definetly think its an advantage if normal bookies are voiding nonstarters.

But otherwice the big difference regarding nonstarters with Betfair compared to other bookies not voiding is that custumers can put out offers for days on riders and not just buying the "correct" offered price at the time of the bet. If the rider then does not start, the price I got was still correct when I got it with the normal bookie)

But if one lays out offers on Betfair and a rider then will not start and that is suddenly published then almost always some other customer sees that and sells the bet (with no chance to win) before I get to remove the offer. Therefore it means that custumers (like me) gets reluctant to lay out bigger offers for riders because that might happen and that is a big reason for the low revenue in my opinion.

 

[Eyeballs Out]

Re: Re:

And as mentioned in my earlier post, not voiding nonstarters would still be the main problem as I see it.

personally I think this is no issue at all. In my opinion it's a logical part of the concept of a betting exchange, that those bets are not voided.

You also need to take into account that bookies (those from the UK with a horse betting background - most other bookies don't void outright bets at all) don't do this to do the bettor a favor, but to be able to adjust the odds of other participants in case it's the favorite who doesn't start the race. In the long term this is nothing the customer necessarily profits from - same as on Betfair, you sometimes can make money by laying a non-starter, and sometimes lose money if your horse fells sick

The "rule 4" where they change prices is used so rarely that I dont think it matters much. I have seen it happen once in 10 year or so (Kittel not starting a sprintstage in the Giro I think) So I definetly think its an advantage if normal bookies are voiding nonstarters.

But otherwice the big difference regarding nonstarters with Betfair compared to other bookies not voiding is that custumers can put out offers for days on riders and not just buying the "correct" offered price at the time of the bet. If the rider then does not start, the price I got was still correct when I got it with the normal bookie)

But if one lays out offers on Betfair and a rider then will not start and that is suddenly published then almost always some other customer sees that and sells the bet (with no chance to win) before I get to remove the offer. Therefore it means that custumers (like me) gets reluctant to lay out bigger offers for riders because that might happen and that is a big reason for the low revenue in my opinion.

I would actually agree with Betfair on this one. I don't bet with bookmakers so I don't know what their own rules are on cycling non-runners. However, the Exchange is (by its nature) a place where you bet without anyone holding your hand. I would expect most serious punters having a bet there to check the latest news on the rider they are betting. I would prefer Betfair prices to be the highest they can be. Twice in the Giro I've been caught out with Kittel withdrawing on the morning of a sprint stage. However, I'd rather do my money that way than effectively have no market which I think is what you are left any time there is an odds on favourite (250% overrounds ? - no thanks).

There is also at least one very good practical reason why this way is better - being able to settle a market once the podium positions are confirmed. Betfair are seemingly unable to even identify riders who withdrew 5 stages ago - do you really want to wait for them to compare the final confirmed start list (whenever that appears) with all the riders they had in their market before they can finally pay you out ?

 

[MADRAZO]

Re: Re:

And as mentioned in my earlier post, not voiding nonstarters would still be the main problem as I see it.

personally I think this is no issue at all. In my opinion it's a logical part of the concept of a betting exchange, that those bets are not voided.

You also need to take into account that bookies (those from the UK with a horse betting background - most other bookies don't void outright bets at all) don't do this to do the bettor a favor, but to be able to adjust the odds of other participants in case it's the favorite who doesn't start the race. In the long term this is nothing the customer necessarily profits from - same as on Betfair, you sometimes can make money by laying a non-starter, and sometimes lose money if your horse fells sick

The "rule 4" where they change prices is used so rarely that I dont think it matters much. I have seen it happen once in 10 year or so (Kittel not starting a sprintstage in the Giro I think) So I definetly think its an advantage if normal bookies are voiding nonstarters.

But otherwice the big difference regarding nonstarters with Betfair compared to other bookies not voiding is that custumers can put out offers for days on riders and not just buying the "correct" offered price at the time of the bet. If the rider then does not start, the price I got was still correct when I got it with the normal bookie)

But if one lays out offers on Betfair and a rider then will not start and that is suddenly published then almost always some other customer sees that and sells the bet (with no chance to win) before I get to remove the offer. Therefore it means that custumers (like me) gets reluctant to lay out bigger offers for riders because that might happen and that is a big reason for the low revenue in my opinion.

I would actually agree with Betfair on this one. I don't bet with bookmakers so I don't know what their own rules are on cycling non-runners. However, the Exchange is (by its nature) a place where you bet without anyone holding your hand. I would expect most serious punters having a bet there to check the latest news on the rider they are betting. I would prefer Betfair prices to be the highest they can be. Twice in the Giro I've been caught out with Kittel withdrawing on the morning of a sprint stage. However, I'd rather do my money that way than effectively have no market which I think is what you are left any time there is an odds on favourite (250% overrounds ? - no thanks).

There is also at least one very good practical reason why this way is better - being able to settle a market once the podium positions are confirmed. Betfair are seemingly unable to even identify riders who withdrew 5 stages ago - do you really want to wait for them to compare the final confirmed start list (whenever that appears) with all the riders they had in their market before they can finally pay you out ?

You have a good point regarding potential problems with the settlement, however they did manage it fine some years ago when Betfair also voided nonstarters and just like other bookies voiding nonstarters they should be able to find out the nonstarters fairly easy after the race with a little effort, and a small delay would not matter much in my opinion.

Besides that sure betting at the exchange is at once own risk, and that is fair enough. My point is just that I dont want to put out big buyoffers on riders when I risk that rider withdraws so someone quickly after that sells me my offers (after they have lost all chance, and this is something that has happened a lot to me as I used to be one of the most active laying out buy-offers before races) Not voiding nonstarters therefore means that it only makes sence to "lay" rider-prices for others to buy as that dont have the not-starting-risk, and that eliminates a lot of the revenue.

 

[search]

I can't remember Betfair ever voiding non-starters - that must be 10 or more years ago?

And I don't agree to the point that "Not voiding nonstarters therefore means that it only makes sence to "lay" rider-prices for others to buy as that dont have the not-starting-risk", I just see it as part of the "game". If you want to get those bigger odds at Betfair, you need weigh up if it's worth the risk to end up with a non-starter. And in my opinion, in long-term it is.

But I also don't use (or in other words: I am not able to use) any bookmakers that void bets on non-starters. So for me it's an easy choice. And the money made due to Kittel not starting in the Giro should compensate for another couple of years of occasional lost bets on non-starters I guess. Personally, I definitely prefer it the way it is.

 

[MADRAZO]

Re:

I can't remember Betfair ever voiding non-starters - that must be 10 or more years ago?

And I don't agree to the point that "Not voiding nonstarters therefore means that it only makes sence to "lay" rider-prices for others to buy as that dont have the not-starting-risk", I just see it as part of the "game". If you want to get those bigger odds at Betfair, you need weigh up if it's worth the risk to end up with a non-starter. And in my opinion, in long-term it is.

But I also don't use (or in other words: I am not able to use) any bookmakers that void bets on non-starters. So for me it's an easy choice. And the money made due to Kittel not starting in the Giro should compensate for another couple of years of occasional lost bets on non-starters I guess. Personally, I definitely prefer it the way it is.

Dont forget the reason we discuss this in the first place is the lack of revenue at the moment. So even if some prefers it like that it is not working because there is a lack of people offering bets. And for me the reason I dont contribute to the revenue is that putting out buyoffers has lead to a lot of loses when riders has not started and my offers has been avaibable for someone to buy quickly after the notstarting news. I could ofcourse only lay bets so some not starting would be an advantage, but for most custumers that just demands too big a bankroll, if it should be done enough to make sence, and its also just more interesting for most to buy odds on those you think wins instead of laying all you dont. Ofcourse as you say there is also a risk with normal bookies not voiding, but there the bet you get is still correct at the time you make the bet, instead of just a instantly lost error at the time of bet, and that is a huge difference. And yes I also dare lay out offers for highodds at smaller stakes still, even with that risk, but big bets at larger stakes, for instance on some of the favourites is simply to risky when its not voided.

Conserning when betfair voided nonstarters I recall it as maybe 6-7 years ago it happened, it might be even more though, but it has been the practise before.

Edit: Thinking about it I think one of my biggest loses with the nonstarterbets were with Pellizotti in the Giro 2010 where I had big buy offers out for top 6 and top 3 that someone then quickly accepted when he was removed before I got the offers removed. And I do think this was the first year they had that new practice of not voiding the nonstarters and with me not starting to become more cautious with such offers due to that new risk .