24 Saturday, August 28, 2010 racingpost.

com

ADVERTISING FEATURE

GUIDE TO TRADING
Tennis Trader the key
speculative shots can pay
Betting exchange expert exceptional dividends in the
Peter Webb, of Bet Angel, ninth game.
with the fourth in a series If the game is 30-30, you are
on the art of trading only potentially two points
away from a good chance of

to serving up a profit
being a set up. If your
opponent sends the first serve

M
AKING money by
trading sports is
all about
volatility, the
movement in
odds. Lay at a lower price than
you can back at and you will
make money. The bigger the
gap between your lay bet and
your back bet, the bigger the
profit.
One of the most volatile and,
therefore, the most potentially
profitable in-play sports is
tennis. There are many reasons
why tennis odds are so
volatile, but the key reason is
the unique scoring system
which lends itself well to
significant changes of fortunes
for the players.
It is quite easy to go from
being 2-0 up to 2-3 down, just
by failing to hold your serve
once. Failing to hold your
serve could be down to a fluke
or a bad call that goes against
you at just the wrong moment.
Matches can also last, in
theory at least, for infinity; one
almost did at Wimbledon this
year. This means the chance of
a large shift in odds is much
more likely.
In order to profit from these
swings in odds you need to
understand where the odds are
going and what creates the key
moves in a tennis match. How
do you do that?
Fortunately, help is now at
hand as the team here at Bet
Angel have invented a unique
tool to help you profit from
tennis, the aptly named Tennis
Trader.
Tennis Trader allows you to
model and profile each match
and identify key moments at a
glance.
Using it, you can easily
identify where your upside
profit is at its highest and
potential losses low. Best of all,
How Tennis Trader (above) works out percentage probabilities and how the French Open women’s final fluctuated (right)
it’s free if you are a Bet Angel
subscriber.
While statistics are very
useful, psychology and fitness
also play an important part in
trying to trade tennis
successfully.
Struggling to hold serve and
then seeing three aces blasted
past you in the next game is
demoralising no matter how
well you have played, or how
unlucky you have been.
Therefore, probabilities of
winning can vary quite a bit
from game to game.
There are other factors that
you can take account of. There
is evidence that winning the
previous point, game or set
increases the chances of
winning the next.
This statistic is generated at
least in part by the underlying
psychology of getting the
upper hand over your
opponent. There is also strong
evidence of a ‘first game
effect’.
Specifically, the first game of
a match is the hardest one in
which to break serve. Lots of
sports-related guidance is
based more on myth than
reality, but this fact is
academically proven.
Another common occurrence
is that players who are one set
away from defeat also tend to
perform better at the start of
that set. At that point, it’s a
do-or-die situation for the
player, so they may as well
give it a good try when there is
little to lose.
If you want to profit from
tennis then the best entry into
the market is a break of serve.
Breaks of serve are obviously
key turning points and if a
break occurs, the odds will
move rapidly.
Using Tennis Trader, I looked
at two players who were
evenly matched and priced at
evens, or 2.00 in decimal odds.
If the server wins his first
game in the match, their odds
will drop to 1.91, a nine-tick
move. If they lose serve, the
odds will drift to 2.52.
I have based these odds on a
five-set tie-breaker match.
Wind the model forward to
the fifth set and if the server is
broken here, the odds will drift
to 4.55. You can see that
anticipating what will cause
that break of serve is the key
to successfully trading a tennis
match.
Whether your cue is fitness,
psychological or statistically
based, a break in serve is
always going to be significant.
As we have illustrated,
breaks of serve occurring later
in the match have a more
pronounced effect on the
market odds, especially when
the match is a close one.
So if you are aiming to get
the largest possible movement,
a close match in the final set is
where you will find the biggest
opportunities.
Earlier sets also present
opportunities, but these trades
are not as profitable because
the odds will move much less.
However, you will be taking
less risk at this point.
In a competitive match, you
would expect both players to
try to play out of their skin.
But you would also expect that
both would try to avoid doing
anything stupid in the first set,
as it’s important to get off to a
good start.
It is also equally important
not to blow it early on. So a
game of cat and mouse,
probing your opponent and
holding serve, is quite a likely
occurrence in a big match.
Backing the server to win
their serve with a view to
trading out at the end of the
game is a good tactic. If the
match goes to 4-4 in the first
set, then an opportunity will
open up in the ninth game to
switch strategies and oppose
the server.
At this point, if you can
break the serve of your
opponent, you then serve for
the set. So stepping up your
game by trying a few
out, you can step inside the
baseline and look to get to
only one point away from that
important break of serve.
You can look to the French
Open women’s final for
evidence of what happens if
the serve is broken in that
ninth game. In this case you
could have taken the risk of a
small downside for a massive
payoff.
While breaks of serve are
always important, some are
more important than others,
and that’s where statistics can
play a key role.
‘Reading’ the match,
watching it closely and
understanding all the
dynamics, is also a key skill in
tennis as this allows you to
pinpoint key moments more
precisely.
A lot of tennis traders
examine previous rounds and
performances which can give
important clues to a player’s
state of mind at certain points
in a match or any potential
injury problems.
Seeing how often a player
who loses the first set goes on
to win or vice-versa, can tell
you a lot about their ability to
fight back or snatch defeat
from the jaws of victory. It can
also help identify slow or fast
starters.
You should also look at the
court surface. Clay favours
fitter, younger players who are
shot makers. Grass favours a
power, serve and volley game.
As tennis is one of the most
volatile sports in terms of odds
movement, it makes for an
excellent trading market. The
only downside is that matches
can last for a long time.
However, tennis still remains
one of the most popular sports
trading markets.

Betsender
www.gruss-software.co.uk
Betting Assistant
The BOT with staking plans for Betfair.
Free 30-day trial!
Free 7-day trial
● UNIQUE features to help you trade
Alternative software to the Betfair site. Place your
✔ Betting is fully automated
● Includes predictive tools for football and tennis
bets more efficiently, develop your own strategies.
✔ Over 30 lay and back staking plans
● Comprehensive spreadsheet betting
One-click betting on all 3 back & lay prices

✔
Continually updates potential profit
Works with UK horse races, greyhounds and

www.betangel.com
● FREE versions available
Take profit & minimise loss with one-click
other Betfair markets ... and much more, see our website for details
✔ Easy to use intuitive user interface
Download now!
www.betsender.com

FairBot – Trading Software One of the most advanced Betfair approved automated betting tools
Provides an enhanced interface to Betfair BetBotPro is a brand new Automated Betfair API Software
available to the Horse Racing market and has been wholly designed specifically
for people with busy lifestyles.
Convenient for: which will supercharge your betting activities even while you sleep, are away It features a simple, easy to use interface which you can set and forget
● Trading ● Betting ● Dutching at work or simply want to spend time with your family. leaving the Bot to do all the work for you!
You can bet on UK, US, AUS, RSA Horse Racing and UK, AUS Greyhound ProBot uniquely features a 3-in-1 Robot (bot).
It offers both classical Grid and popular Ladder interfaces and has a racing, what ever takes your fancy. You can select the ordered 1st - 24th Bot 1 Back a single selection
very fast refresh rate. Includes a wide range of sophisticated features favourite, individual or multiple horses or greyhounds to win or lose in that Bot 2 Option to Dutch 2 selections and hedge a third
race. Automatically apply staking plans and stop at a profit or loss. Bot 3 Lay using a single selection
such as hedging (‘‘greening up’’); professional trading tools like
automatic stop loss, Bollinger bands, Bet volume, graphs, and many ✔ FREE 5 Day Trial ✔ Unlimited Email Technical Support • Unlike other bots you do not need to use your • Place bets below the Betfair minimum of £2.00
whole betfair balance from as little as 1p to test your own systems
other useful options. Betdaq version also available. ✔ Access to private secret ninja Members ✔ Video Tutorials - to get you up and running fast • Use ProBot Live or in Demo Mode (paper Trade) • Built in optional Stop Loss set by user
forum - discuss systems & strategies Special Report - How to access your PC • Lay or Back in a race without conflict (safeguard your Bank)
One off low yearly Fee ✔ Professional ninja configuration tips ✔ desktop from any other internet PC • Choose your own selections or systems to use • Import/Export (Personalise your own ratings
with the bot and share them with friends)
www.binteko.com www.
www.betbotpro.com
Racing Post Saturday, August 28, 2010
‘I was an instant convert to Probot’
John Duncan, a
developer of gambling
systems for more than
seven years, and with 30
years-plus of gambling
experience, explains why
after resisting the urge to
use software he changed
his opinion completely
when he encountered
Probot for the first time
I
HAD convinced myself
that software was for
those other people that
didn’t understand
gambling and didn’t have
the discipline to do it properly.
How could a piece of software
ever make the decisions that a
gambler needs to make? So to
say I wasn’t an instant convert
is like saying Attila the Hun
could benefit from anger
management.
I wanted to find fault with
every piece of software I
encountered and I tested pretty
much everything I could find.
Once I had tried Probot,
unlike the others, I finally
realised I needed this and so
did anyone looking for an
easier life.
Automated betting software
does something that most of us
find extremely difficult – it
deals with losing bets and
moves on. It doesn’t change
the game plan midway in an
attempt to second guess what’s
coming to try to accelerate
recovery of losses and, perhaps
most importantly for busy
people, it allows us to get on
with other things.
The reason that Probot got
through to me where the
others couldn’t, came down to
a combination of things.
All automated betting bots
are the same, right? Wrong,
they are not because they are
all born out of an individual
need that is driven by the
developer.
In the case of Probot, that
need was to come up with a
way of backing or laying
selections made from a ratings
system that Probot’s developer
[Steve] had refined over 20
years. As he introduced his
ratings service to more people,
he became increasingly
frustrated at their seeming
inability to apply sensible
staking plans. No-one can win
every bet, so you need to know
how to control your bank and
make it last when the losers hit
you. This is one of the harder
things to get right.
You either know how to
assess value through odds with
a bet and, accordingly, keep
betting the value until your
profit exceeds your loss, or you
have to come up with a system
that stakes correctly. You can
also do both, of course.
Ask any two people about
their view on staking plans,
and they’ll give you a different
answer. So Probot came from
the need to find a solution to
the problem of sensible staking
in an automated way.
As a result, Probot has now
become an ingenious piece of
programming that still has me
in awe, especially that I can
switch it on, click the mouse
two or three times and leave it
for the day. It is the
combination of what makes up
Probot that sold me.
It can be used on horse
racing and/or greyhound
racing. It can back the best [the
most popular in the market] of
a number of potential
selections. It can Dutch
[multiple bet] two horses in
one race and hedge a third to
produce a profit on any of the
three. It can lay an individual
selection and it can do all these
three things at once on one
copy of the bot.
Probot has infinitely variable
staking plans on each of the
three-in-one betting solutions
and includes the ability to stop
after one winner or pre-stated
multiple winners.
It can even be set up to find
[for example] ten winners but
stop when 50% or 40% or 60%
of the profit target in monetary
25
terms has been reached.
Probot is the most incredible,
versatile and ingenious [Betfair
approved] software out there
using the Betfair API platform.
It goes much further than most
to the point where a whole
family of systems, The Master
Plan Family, have been
developed to run with it.
The entry system, Master
Plan Lite, can be added for just
another £5 per month and is
designed to pay for the
software each month using a
system that utilises the power
of compound growth and
targets 0.35% of your betting
bank as a return each day.
Daily growth of just 0.35%
will treble a betting bank in
315 betting days and, more to
the point, would pay for the
system and software for a year
and still leave you with double
your starting bank if it hit just
that tiny 0.35% target.
I can only scratch the
surface. Probot converted me
and I haven’t even discovered
half of what it can do. There
are training videos that show
you how very easy it is to use.
For more information, go to
www.probotuk.com