Me, The Bookmaker

[Evertonboy]

I would like to introduce you all to my new venture. Playing the role of the bookmaker. First, a little bit about myself. I currently work for One of the big four bookies as a shop manager. I have been in the industry for 3 years. In this 3 years I have picked up some valuable knowledge that I aim to capitilise on in the future. I have also read Nick Pulliens guide to betting on football as well as his articles in the racing post. Now that yu know a little about me, I'll explain my new experimental venture... I aim to capitalise on 2 things. The bookmakers and the fact that they have to lay a price for virtually everything sports related, where as me, the punter come bookmaker can pick and choose what I lay a price on through betfair. And second, the punters stupidity to accept unfair prices on certain events. At the moment, I will solely be concentrating on football matches. Like I was saying, I have read nick pulliens book. This inspired me to use his formulas and create a spreadsheet to work out 'true odds' on things such as total goals, corners and bookings. Once I have input the data and created the fair odds. I will look at the lay prices on betfair to see if any outcome on that particular Market is being laid at unfair odds, then I too, will lay that price. Eg under 2.5 goals: calculated value odds of 2.2, actual lay odds on betfair 1.8 then it becomes a lay. At the minute I'm going to paper trail it (to see if the fomulas are accurate and Which are most profitable etc). I would also like to add a loss recovery mechanism such as laying 2 outcomes to gaurentee a little income regardless. Obviously depends on how many possible outcomes there are. Any suggestions?

[muppet77]

Re: Me, The Bookmaker That sounds like a great investigation. You may have to be quick to knock up the spreadsheet as the matches are running out. I am sure that it will be pretty simple to create and could read the data from a couple of results columns from football-data.co.uk. A few seasons worth is all that you would need as I think most of the formulae operate within the last 32 games or so and you may have to discount promoted teams from august until they build up a history. Be sure to post your findings and picks on here. This is something that I have always wanted to try if I had bit more time. Give us a shout if you need excel help at all.

[KThom]

Re: Me, The Bookmaker I tried and failed on this. I created a whopping great spreadsheet which could basically calculate the odds on anything (1X2, over/unders, bookings, corners etc) and backtested it with little joy. I even went as far as entering the referee data as advised by Kevin pullein. Don't let this put you off, you may have more luck than me but I have completely parked the sheet now

[Evertonboy]

Re: Me, The Bookmaker Sorry about the delay. And thanks for the heads up about football-data.co.uk. I have spent the past day tweaking my spreadsheet to match betfairs goals/ corners and bookings matches as well as creating a sheet that can translate the football-data spreadsheet so it suits my own. I am going to paper trail it until the end of the season and possibly use it during the world cup (depending if I can get my hands on any data) Any more suggestions?

[Lardonio]

Re: Me, The Bookmaker I think you can make money on this if you have the patience. Personally I've done the same but felt the whole thing was too boring. Also, it's important to be aware of the obvious fact that history is history and while history can be used to predict the future it is by no means certain, and you may have to stick with it for years to get the average profit you're looking at when glancing at a huge Excel sheet. But by all means, I think the right person could potentially make big money off laying stuff like correct scores etc. where silly odds are often requested.

[muppet77]

Re: Me, The Bookmaker Any picks?