Cricket trading from John Tuohy

[Gordon McIvor Wilson]

Those nice boys from the Secret Betting Club asked me to write an article about cricket trading.

I had hoped to cut and paste the edited article, but I am finding it difficult to sign on.
No problem there as we are having similar problems with our new website, The Gambling Network www.testPunt.ning.com. So I have cut and paste the original. Apologies if it is a bit long and meandering.

Sports trading on cricket
As I said, those nice chaps from “The Secret Betting Club” have asked me to write an article on sports trading on cricket on the betting exchanges. To be more specific, “Sports Trading Cricket on Betfair”. I have never tried it on BETDAQ or any of the other minor exchanges, but I would be very surprised if there was enough liquidity (cash to you and me) to make it worthwhile.

So what a subject, what a challenge. Some people could write a book about it. Some people have probably done so already, and after you have read this article a lot more will probably try.
So where to start? There are various forms of cricket. Five day Test matches. One day internationals. “20-20. The forthcoming Indian Premier League (‘IPL’). In the UK, the County Championship, various one day tournaments that seem to change their name from one season to another.

Let us start at the top. Five day International Test Matches. This summer we have two touring sides in the UK: West Indies in May and June; Australia for The Ashes in July, August; and the one day international series (‘ODI’) in September.

So here is the first lesson. If you are going to get into sports trading on cricket, get yourself organised. Get those dates in you diary and organise your life, your holidays, pregnancies, unexpected illnesses around them. England play the Windies in the first test on 6thMay. The last ODI is against Australia on 20th September, which is a Sunday. So book your week in Spain from 21st September onwards. Perhaps we could organise a trip. A week or two in La Manga for all us exhausted worn out cricket traders. Comparing notes, and see who has won the most money.

So here is the second lesson. Can you trade on test match cricket if you are a part-timer, or is it easy pickings for the full timers. A good old Betfair forum chestnut. I would favour the full-timers but part-timers, i.e. people who have jobs, have a chance if they can dedicate their weekends to it. This obviously depends on whether you are single, married, have kids, like doing normal things at the weekend, or are a confirmed sports preferably cricket nut. You will be in seventh heaven if you are.

There is probably a third lesson in there as well. Whether you are trading on cricket or any other sport, it is a full time job. I don’t mean you have do it full-time. But when you are doing it, you need to be concentrating on it 100% full-time. Obviously, taking a break to look away from the screens on occasion to avoid morphing into your TV and computer screen, becoming a new form of life. A robotic “Betfair Bob”, a new advanced form of your life, well in your opinion anyway. You may find it a bit awkward when you go down the pub, and all your mates start going “exterminate…exterminate…” but heck what a small price to pay.[ to be continued tomorrow: John Tuohy©2009]

[Today's piece of the Cricket Trading feature starts here. As the 1st Test looks likely to finish early, here's the whole of the piece]


Test match strategySo, back to the cricket. Trading a five day test match: games normally begin on a Thursday; you will have done some research before then which may involve watching a bit of cricket before the start of the first test (on 6th May, too late) against the West Indies. The IPL which started on 18th April. Looks like that will be shown on Setanta Sports which makes it a no-go as far as I am concerned (even if Setanta keep going, from the financial pages).

You may like to keep up to date with who is fit and who is available, whether England have a new coach, whether the Windies boys have been behaving themselves. No late nights, whether Freddie gets off the plane from India without falling off it; whether there are any complaints, discussions in the camps; whether any of these will affect team morale.

It is normally a good idea to pick up a Racing Post earlier in the week to get a quick update of the teams, how they are doing, the location, the pitch and the weather. There is a lot in that paragraph above: let me expand: up to date information is a lot better than out of date information. Get your Racing Post or read your Secret Betting Club or favourite blog like The Gambling Exchange in more detail, where no doubt you will unearth a few nuggets. How they are doing?

West Indies will play some matches against county sides before the 1st Test. Might be worth noting who is making runs, who is taking wickets. Windies won the Test Series in the Windies earlier this year 1-0. That suggests England should be good enough to win the two match series in England by a similar margin. Windies tend to underperform in England; their bowlers are not necessarily suited to the conditions, especially if the weather is not as kind as it could be.

So when do we start trading? Well, whenever you like, really. I would guess most of the action starts on the Monday of the first Test. No doubt previewed in the Sunday papers. Information is Knowledge. Knowledge is Power.

The first Test, as always, is at Lords, world HQ. A difficult pitch to bowl on, especially if young inexperienced Windies bowlers have not bowled there before. An easy pitch to score on, a difficult pitch to bowl out the opposition twice. This lays up the chance for a draw, or maybe an England win. At this point I might favour an England win. The problem immediately is you never get value on an England win. They should be 2-1. They are 13-8. Stuff that. Over the course of a season you will lose money. If you just want a patriotic bet for a bit of interest go ahead, but if you are serious about making money cricket trading, hold your fire.

The weather: probably the most important factor in deciding the result of a Test match. Your most important resource is the Met Office website, see http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/uk_forecast_weather.html Determining whether it is going to rain or not, whether bad light will affect play is crucial in making a profit or not. The Met Office website will tell you everything you need to know, occasionally looking at the BBC website weather page is a quick alternative. You also have your eyes and ears. Some of you may be familiar with David “Bumble” Lloyd ex-cricketer, commentator and a jovial man with a slightly “wicked” sense of humour. He has a phrase “It is raining in Reading”. I can claim to be the man that came up with that phrase. I live seven miles west of Reading. I noticed that when it started raining in my garden, about one hour and ten minutes later it would start raining in Lords. Similar with heavy cloud cover. I used to send Sky Sports or Bumble an occasional email “It is raining in Reading".. It quite quickly became one of “Bumble’s” catch phrases. He owes me a pint, but I doubt if I will ever get it

More about the weather
At this point I can tell one of my favourite cricket related weather stories. I think England were playing Pakistan at The Oval. It was a Saturday evening/night and play had finished for the day. One of the teams was in a dominant position, and a result looked likely. A draw had been discounted as a possibility. It was trading about 9/1 on Betfair. The weather forecast up till that point was quite clement. I lived in Fulham at the time in a pleasant two bedroom apartment overlooking The Thames, about two miles from Vauxhall, the location of The Oval. Looking out my window I noticed the sky starting to paint pleasant unusual pictures through my balcony windows. This caught my attention. I started to wonder whether the weather was about to change. I checked it out on various websites and TV and radio. Tuning in my weather satellite etc…The good news: it was. For some reason there was some very unpleasant weather heading in. The other good news was it was a Saturday. I knew a few of the full-time Betfair cricket traders, as “Nashwan” a good old BF forum favourite used to organise social drinks at The Chandos in Trafalgar Square on an occasional basis. I knew most of them were younger than me, and as it was Saturday night most of them would be out on the lash celebrating their winnings after “greening up” after day 3 of the Test match. I was in my 40’s quite happy to stay in with Mrs G. Have a nice dinner and settle down and watch TV. Maybe popping downstairs for a quick lager or maybe not. Tonight was my opportunity. I was the only “cricket trader” in town and the market was all mine. I was not too greedy. I only had about a grand on the draw at 9/1. I am surprised that I did not have more, but more might not have been available. I hoovered up all the best prices and went to bed. In the morning I got up and the word had spread. The draw was trading about 2/1. I very kindly let some of the lads have bits of 2/1 the draw, which I dripped onto the market as I felt fit. Occasionally doing a bit of trading, backing at 9/4 laying off at 2/1, thinking what a lovely day, what an easy way to make tax free money, even though at this point it was pouring down. Very pleasant to be looking out the window knowing that as the weather changed outside my door, it would do the same at The Oval less than ten minutes later.

So there you go, lesson of story. Betting on test matches in the UK particularly is more about betting on the weather, than betting on the cricket. You learn something new every day. Writing this article has been an education for me, and has already highlighted on or two things I knew already. I hope my readers are picking up one or two clues along the way.
The BF forum, in particular the cricket forum can be a useful source of information. You have to work out who the bad guys are, and who the good guys are. This is for you to determine, as I cannot remember their names. The bad guys are the ones who supply “bad information” trying to manipulate the market for their own profit. Losers would be a polite expression. The “good guys” are the ones who place their bets, give an honest appraisal of how the game is going, and other external information such as weather, injuries, scandal or whatever. You basically have to check it out yourself, and work out who you trust, and who you do not.

So where are we? I still have not answered one of my original questions. When do we start trading? I guess it depends how busy we are the week of the first Test match, and how volatile and liquid the market is behaving. If for example it starts raining in London on Tuesday you may get some sudden changes in the market that may result in a small profit to be made. If however the sun is shining all week, maybe just sit in the garden and enjoy it

The day of the first Test: get up early, breakfast, bath. dressed suitably for the occasion. MCC tie optional. Silly blazer mandatory, and of course a pair of khaki shorts, and one of those hats they used to wear in “Some mothers do ‘ave ‘em”. Punker wallah and tea wallah on duty. Large screen TV in garden in case it turns out sunny. Large selection of cold beer, real ale, pimms, cucumber sandwiches, salmon sandwiches, egg cress(?), bbq in place attended by bbq wallah, in case any unexpected guests turn up in need of a cold beer and a sausage sarny. Sounds pleasant; back to the cricket.

Sky Sports on all morning listening for up to date news. Radio 5 live on, or Radio 4, as their sound is ahead of Sky vision. The big moment arrives. The toss. You will normally hear this a few seconds before on the radio, before you see it on TV. In fact if you are following the odds on BF you will pick up the result of the toss even quicker. The odds will change before the coin hit the ground. This raises another host of issues, which are applicable to in-running sports trading in general, not just cricket trading.
What information are you trading on? How “live” is it? When the odds change before the result of the toss is announced on radio, it is obvious some people are trading on the ground. Sports journalists might be the first in a long list of suspects? Need I go on? I could, but I won’t at this moment in time.

Then we have the time gaps between radio, terrestrial TV, satellite TV, and god help us all Setanta “pigeon post” TV. The pictures were live when we took them, but the pigeon got lost over “The Irish Sea”. An article on its own methinks going into all that detail.

One Day Internationals (‘ODIs’ to you, now you’re an expert)I had intended to write about ODI’s and 20-20 but as you can see this article has gone on enough already, probably setting myself up for a follow up article on the “shorter” versions of the game for next month. Could be quite interesting as we have a lot of ODIs and 20-20 game over the forthcoming summer months, which might be more suitable for “part-time” cricket traders as the “time” commitment is not so big. The financial risks can be greater, and the profits or losses higher rather than lower, but you don’t have to follow the game for five or six days to supplement your “daily wage” (assuming you’re still getting one in credit-crunch Britain).

So where does that leave us? 5 day test matches are possibly more suitable for “full-time” traders rather than “part-timers”. But “part-timers” can still turn a profit if their weekends are free and don’t mind “bunking off” on the occasional Monday. 5 day Test matches can be more like betting on the weather than betting on the cricket. As one of my fellow traders commentated on the BF forum one day: “if someone said to you in a betting shop ten years ago you would have been spending Saturday night studying Met Office radar maps you would have thought they were nuts. It was probably “The Betfair Trader”. More about him later. But the sad reality is it was true. Eventually it all became too much for me. If I had wanted to be a meteorologist, I would have taken it as a degree. More of that later, too, maybe.

Finally, almost. As I write this article it becomes more apparent that if you are going to trade on cricket, you need to make it your major priority, in all senses of the word. Forget the wife, forget the other sports, forget the summer, forget your life. Live eat enjoy cricket, and at the end of the day you might make a profit. You will have no friends. Your family will think you died secretly a few months ago. You will have a serious drink problem. You won’t be able to sleep outside of the coffin. You will be living off “pot noodle”, cans of Budweiser and the occasional “cup of tea”. Your wife will have left you, and after a few months you might notice. What a day, what a year, what a life. Wish someone would take all these empty “pot noodle” cartons out of the way. I can’t see the TV, and the ODI between Afghanistan and Scotland is live on Setanta TV in five minutes. Why is it dark outside? Has it been raining, or did someone put the clocks back again.
So there you have it. Still want to be a cricket trader? Careful, you might end up like me.
More next month. Meanwhile, http://www.cricinfo.com/ or feel free to hit Comment below and I will do my best to answer.

A word of warning: I have been banned by BF for one reason or another for the last nine months. All this information is therefore nine months out of date. Make sure the markets have not changed in the intervening period.

And another one: be aware of the Asian influence. A lot of Indian bookmakers use BF for hedging. This normally forces the draw lower than it should be, but more of this later. More on how you place your bets/trades later as well, but this is probably part of another article. I have gone on too long.. Some of you probably want to go to bed. Bye for now. Good luck and more later.

[end: thanks to John Tuohy©2009, more to come from this high-value gambler]

[Gordon McIvor Wilson]

Mooders, he's a member here too, tells me that the two captains of opposing Test teams are each given the official detailed weather forecast 10 mins before the toss, to allow final team selection (spinners if damp and so on, I suppose, I'm a tennis player...). But there have been instances, with some of the more distant nations, maybe, where early news of this gets out to betting rogues allowing some inspired punts. Tut tut. Steward, another pink gin here please!

[NEIL RUNKEL]

Hi John looks like a certain draw at lords, forecast doesn't look good and the wicket at lords in recent years has been too flat for a result. the only time this my change is if there is lateral movement through the air. Don't be too dispondent about the last test. the only day there was any lateral movement was the first day and that is why england were so optimistic with their first day score. As we know the rest of the match saw virtually no lateral movement which culminated in the unlikliest of batsmen surviving. the aussies looked good but any decent batsman would have made good scores in those conditions. the flintoff factor matters a lot as does harmy.