Betfair Market Efficiency
By and large Betfair and other betting exchanges have efficient markets. In most sports, even in play, the price is generally right. For example in a football match if there is 17 minutes to go, the home team is 0-1 down, playing with ten men, with the ball in the opposition keeper's hands - the price you get at that time for backing either team or the draw is pretty much correct. Peoples' opinions count.
The only area where I want to put this to the test is in the in-play horse racing markets. You can see that at times in this market - it is not efficient. It is a market driven by high emotions. There is a short amount of time to make decisions on competitors often crowded into a small area of the racecourse.
The book percentage is jumping around all over the place. The problem most of us have is deciding which of the horses is at the wrong price or which horse is value at that moment in time? I for one have no idea!
I have developed a bit of betting software that will help me decide if there is an edge - at certain stages of the race. It will take a long time to determine this. The software has some good bells and whistles and there is nothing like it out there at the moment. In the main though, it will just place bets automatically on every single race of the day (something I do not have time to do) .
After a few thousand bets we will see how it is going and if there is some kind of edge or pattern. Then we move on to slightly different criteria and start again. It could take some time!
It is a bit of an extravagance I suppose because I am not expecting much - however it will satisfy a curiosity I have and we'll see if there is even the tiniest edge, to relaxed criteria, betting blind.
posted by Betting Exchange Trader
