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This was posted by Nero Tulip on the Bet Devil forums:
I've traded tennis for 5/6 years almost full time. At the beginning it was relatively easy to trade, volatility was fantastic, I could get out easily, predictability of human tendencies was easy and most importantly, there were very few peple sat at the side of the court.
Now the markets have changed out of all recognition and your technical understanding of what in play trading actually means needs to be beyond that of mere mortals.
Firstly you are up against a £multimillion technological arms race. At virtually every tournament there will be several people sat in the stands with mobile devices programmed to enter bets with a single button push. These people are 6-8 seconds ahead of satelite tv - you should never ever leave a bet up during a point. Cancel at least 1 second prior to the server serving.
Some of these people are resellers, they play a speed game, taking the money off those unfortunate enough to leave bets up during points and reselling them at a discount to the market - ie. Not at the correct odds movement for the point, but slightly less. The market for this is probably worth in excess of £1m a year.
Other people sat courtside are match-readers. They use their position at the game to make judgement calls on the odds of who will win the match and punt accordingly. There are many subtleties that become apparent sat in the stands which you cannot see on television. Body language, poor fitness and requests for the trainer are always picked up first by these people.
If you think that's not a big deal, then you are also up against a lot of clever mathmaticians who have sophisticated tennis models. These aren't your standard probability trees either. It's OK saying there's a lot of upside here, or downside there, but do you really know the probability of the odds getting there, or the match progressing down such a path so that those odds become likely to be matched.
It's easy to forget that there is not just the probability of winning the match that's important. There is the probability of anything else occuring during the match, and the probability of the market reacting in such a way that makes your actions have a positive expectancy. Intra-match value is very different to match winning value.
I've traded tennis for 5/6 years almost full time. At the beginning it was relatively easy to trade, volatility was fantastic, I could get out easily, predictability of human tendencies was easy and most importantly, there were very few peple sat at the side of the court.
Now the markets have changed out of all recognition and your technical understanding of what in play trading actually means needs to be beyond that of mere mortals.
Firstly you are up against a £multimillion technological arms race. At virtually every tournament there will be several people sat in the stands with mobile devices programmed to enter bets with a single button push. These people are 6-8 seconds ahead of satelite tv - you should never ever leave a bet up during a point. Cancel at least 1 second prior to the server serving.
Some of these people are resellers, they play a speed game, taking the money off those unfortunate enough to leave bets up during points and reselling them at a discount to the market - ie. Not at the correct odds movement for the point, but slightly less. The market for this is probably worth in excess of £1m a year.
Other people sat courtside are match-readers. They use their position at the game to make judgement calls on the odds of who will win the match and punt accordingly. There are many subtleties that become apparent sat in the stands which you cannot see on television. Body language, poor fitness and requests for the trainer are always picked up first by these people.
If you think that's not a big deal, then you are also up against a lot of clever mathmaticians who have sophisticated tennis models. These aren't your standard probability trees either. It's OK saying there's a lot of upside here, or downside there, but do you really know the probability of the odds getting there, or the match progressing down such a path so that those odds become likely to be matched.
It's easy to forget that there is not just the probability of winning the match that's important. There is the probability of anything else occuring during the match, and the probability of the market reacting in such a way that makes your actions have a positive expectancy. Intra-match value is very different to match winning value.
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