ADP

what book did you read saxoboy?

Andy

[Edited by ADP - 7/3/2002 3:10:07 PM]

LG John

You said you use other account names (brother, father, etc) but do you still finance those accounts with the same switch card (i.e. yours)? Surely they are wise to that?

I'm beginning to wonder if you wrote the book i'm reading

Been to tip-ex before but can't make heads or tales of the information....yet

[Edited by Saxo Boy - 7/3/2002 11:16:16 PM]

stevem2k

Here was a beautiful stocks arb opportunity. Pity I missed out

http://www.citybull.com/forums/showt...threadid=38577

and here's it all explained in (near) English :-

Touched on these before but thought I would revisit the concepts after the recent FTSE re-shuffle after the Sept. 11 and the opening of the grey mkt in MMO2 this week.

These kind of events very often offer easy money opportunities for traders.

The Grey Mkt Arbitrage

This requires the trader to have spread betting accounts (ideally, although CFDs can be used but as each account normally requires a certain level of funding it is not appropriate for all).

Some of you may be aware that on the Daily Indices (NAS, DOW, FTSE etc.) the various spread betting firms can sometimes be offering marginally different spreads due to the various ways that they calculate their mkt. On occasions when this happens, if you are fast enough, you are able to go long on the cheaper offer and short the dearer bid, thus locking in guaranteed points that are paid to you at the end of the day.

i.e.
SB Firm A quotes the Daily FTSE at 5150-8

SB Firm B quotes the Daily Ftse at 5160-6

You buy at 5158 with Firm A and sell at 5160 with Firm B.

At this point you have banked a guaranteed 2 points. The only risk is that for the remainder of the day you need to be able to finance your 2 positions.

IF you now look at the grey mkt the same oportunities arise at the opening of the mkt.

When MMO2 trading commenced this week, one firm was quoting 85-95 and another 105-115.

At that point you could have locked in 10 points. You would need to run both positions until Nov 19th when real trading commences and both positions are closed out at the real mkt bid and offer.

Index Re-shuffle Pairs Trades

I think most people know the theory behind pairs trading. Isolate 2 stks within a particular sector (the classic scenario). One stk that you believe to be over valued and expensive and a second that you belive to be undervalued and cheap.

Tesco's and Safeway were allways a good pair as were Glaxo and Zeneca.

The practice is to short the expensive stk as you feel it has a fair chance in falling back in line with its peers. At the same time you go long of the cheap stk as it should increase in value as it climbs towards par with its peers.

The idea being that as mkt parity is found you will profit on both sides.

Should the general mkt or the sector fall then you will gain more on the expensive short than you will lose on the cheap long position. i.e. the expensive stk will fall far more than the already cheap one, which may even benefit from stk switching.

If the mkt rises then the opposite is true, the expensive stk will not rise as fast as the long position on the cheap stk.

So while you may lose on one of the positions you will gain more on the other.

That is the theory

Apply that theory of pairs trades to the FTSE 100 re-shuffle. Short the FTSE 100 stks which are going to be relegated and go long the 250 stks which are going to be promoted.

The question here is timing. It often happens that the stks in question move reasonably well on the actual day of the change, mostly due to tracker funds, but the best time has turned out to be about 3-4 weeks prior.

At this point the media has not started the chat and the hedge funds and scalpers are still sitting tight for the most part.

A list of 350 mkt caps will tell you the most likely 12 stks (6 down, 6 up). The art is evaluating which of those are the ones to take position in and hold for up to a month.

It is probably best to open positions in all 12 and close them out as they are discounted by the media.

It is rarely worth holding the positions to the end. It's like the old adage of 'buy the rumour and sell the fact'


Steve

[Edited by stevem2k - 7/4/2002 12:38:15 AM]

LG John

I've bought a book on arbitrage betting and it has proven to be an intersting read and I've subsequently been pouring through odds on various sporting events to see if I can spot an arb opportunity. So far the best I've managed to find is a 100% return. In other words I could have taken £100 and split it into two bets with two different bookies and irrespective of the outcome I would have returned £100. It stands to reason that if I found two bookies willing to offer exactly the same odds for two different teams that at points it is theoretically possible they would have drifted further apart giving, say, a 5% margin to exploit. Under such as circumstance a £1000 bet would return £50 profit no matter what the outcome. Easy money for one bet on one 2 outcome event. All I have to do is find such an opportunity. Apparently, it is possible (although rare) to find opportunities where you can make up to a 20% return no matter the outcome.

I guess my question is simple, has anyone else tried this and if so how successfully. Have you found an arb betting opportunity and exploited it?

stevem2k

you can get arb situations with the spreadbet firms on grey market prices on new share issues - IF you know what to look for and IF you are quick enough to spot the opportunity.

Ususally the value of the arb'ed amount is quite small ( in points ) , so you have to be able to call on a decent amount of funds at short notice to make the most of the opportunity and you have to have funded accounts with all the firms.

Haven't got time to do all this..... there are plenty of other ways to make money.

Steve
Steve

Fast_Blue_Scooby

Saxo Boy,

I do this all the time. Best bets are the 'in running' bets. Usually for cricket, I usually get odds of 1/2 for Team A and 3/1 for Team B at different bookies. Easy money guaranteed. Sometimes on the American sports like baseball, basketball etc. These usually only have a 105% makeup, but if you hunt around, this can be usually taken down to 95%. Best bets I have had include a 5/6 and 9/4 taken about a basketball game.

Sometimes you can take a chance, buy the outsider at say 2/1 and hope that they start off well, ie in tennis or cricket. Then instead of the favourite being around 1/3, because they are struggling against the outsider, you can usually get 4/6 or 4/5 for them. Making a book which is less that 100%. This example requires a lot of skill as you need to study the form and see if you can spot a weakness.

I have been doing this for well over a year now and pulled in almost £20k. The secret is to have loads of accounts, know the betting limits at each bookies, have the money ready and away you go. The satisfaction when you complete the bet AND you know you are guaranteed a profit brings a smile to my face everytime. All you have to do is to wait for the result and whatever way it goes, you collect a nice profit.

Only thing worth warning about is that different bookies have different rules, ie in tennis some will pay out whoever goes through, even if a player pulls out, some will pay out so long as 1 set has taken place, others will void the bets and you get your money back. So be careful.

Another thing you can do and this requires more skill, is to sell your bets on these betting exchanges. If you took 5/1 about Player A and he was doing well in the game, then you could sell your bet to someone at a betting exchange, the bookies might have him marked down as evens but you have the option to sell say at 2/1 and hedge your bets etc. Buying and selling on these sites is also a good way of increasing your money that you win, however you rely on someone buying your bet off you which is not always guaranteed.

Anyway good luck!

12LEE

stevem2k - what do you trade & with who?

I'm rather into equities @ CMC.

stevem2k

Lee,

spreads with fins & IG , small caps with Hargreaves & Lansdown.

I'm about on citybull when not around here, & the iii mailing list ( though it ain't what it used to be ).

You know Alex C ? He's been trading with CMC for a while ..

Steve

12LEE

Alex C - don't know him.

Must check out the trading boards now I'm 100% wfh.

Technical? Fundamental? Bit of each?

I'm into BBs at the moment.

stevem2k

charts & fundamentals .. have a mate who's big into scary p&d plays. Not my bag.

Most BB's have a real bad signal/noise ratio. Hemscott is the worst imo. Where do you use ?

S

12LEE

None really. Like you I got bored of the s/n ratio. I also find that I know my trading system and:

a) don't want to be distracted by noise
b) while happy to discuss it, don't really want to enter into debate on it after 10+ years of playing in the markets.

Good to feed the trolls every now & then tho'

stevem2k

got any interesting shorts running ? ccc and pym doing well ...

S

12LEE

if only...

haven't traded for 4 weeks - too busy setting up a new biz. will be getting back into it over the next week or two. fascinating times.

stevem2k

I know how you feel ... just getting back into it after having a bad start to the year, & now have a house move to organise at the same time - plus the day job. Not enough hours in the day at the moment.

S

LG John

FBS and advice on how to find these opportunities. I've done a fair bit of hunting around and have came close but still not quite there!

Can't remember the name of the book I bought but the publisher is Streetwise Marketing and it's green. I've bought stuff from Streetwise before and didn't like it and they accepted my request for a refund so I know they are not being run from a shed and if the arb betting turns out to be bullsh1t or not realistically implementable I can return it for a full refund.

Alpine

Can someone give an example with odds so I can try and get my head around this...

cheers

LG John

The way it works is that at certain times the bookies don't agree on odds for an event. Also they adjust the odds to balance their books so that they always make a profit so if punters are putting lots of money on one guy/team they will give favourable odds on the other to attract bets to balance things out. Take an example of a boxing match between a Brit and an American (tyson V lewis for example). The Americans (being american) probably would put more money on Tyson at american bookies. Us brits support our local boy at our bookies. Bearing in mind it's a two outcome event you might find that you can place a certain stake with one bookie and a certain stake with another and win no matter what the outcome. I'll give you an example with odds if I ever find one

carl

How does betting tax figure in this? Surely you've got to make a better than 10% return to break even?

stevem2k

No tax on internet betting - since spreads are technically bets on movement rather than underlying assets then they are also tax free ( no CGT either ).

Steve

LG John

Tax on betting was abolished in the UK in Oct 2001. That, and the internet are essentially the only reason that arb betting is available to meer mortals. You can use the net to quickly compare odds of many bookies and place bets tax free.

carl

Shows how much gambling I do

Fast_Blue_Scooby

Try http://www.oddschecker.com/ for a range of odds offered by the majority of the bookies.

Also here is an example, one of the best bets of last year. Plus you can check with the firms involved with the prices they were offering.

Basketball: Milwuakee were priced at 5/6 with Ladbrokes to win the play off against Philadelphia last June. However Philadelphia were priced at 2/1 at Chandler.

It was in fact Ladbrokes who had made the mistake with their prices, the series was tied but out of the remaining matches left, Milwuakee had one extra home match so 5/6 was a really good price. The fact that Philadelphia won was by the by.

The bet placed was:

4 x £250 = £1000 at 5/6 to win £1833.33 at Ladbrokes through various accounts.

4 x 152.78 = £611.12 at 2/1 to win £1833.33 at Chandlers through various accounts.

Whoever won, I collected £1833.33 and because I had only placed £1611.12 on, I made a lovely cool profit of £222.21.

Not bad for a few minutes work!! And this bet was advised to loads of my mates. Suffice to say within a few hours Ladbrokes had suspended the betting on the game and brought out new prices to fall in line with the rest of the bookies.

So it can be done and this is just one of many bets I have had over the last year. No tax to pay on the bets, no tax to pay on the profits and you are guaranteed the cash as there are NO RISKS!!!

LG John

Sweet How easy are they to spot? The book ('The Risk-Free Betting Handbook' BTW) suggests with a fair bit of hunting and using sites like odd checker you should find 1 or 2 of these opportunities a day if you average it out? I'm a little scared of betting a couple of grand on a full proof opportunity only to have the match abandoned or for me to have screwed up placing the bet

paulr

I guess you can only do it on events where either team A or team B MUST win.A draw or extra time is no good,ie UK football,as it introduces a third element.

LG John

Apparently it still exists with 3 outcome events cause sometimes you can cover all three bases and still come out on top. Need to make sure its a bet to win or qualify as opposed to win in 90mins like most of the world cup events!

Fast_Blue_Scooby

Sometimes it is very hard to spot, also most of the bookies on oddschecker usually get it right and the prices do not vary by much. If you do spot it then get on fast.

However the best opportunities come when you bet in running, eg this March, the cricket game between Australia and South Africa, the one where Australia batted first and went on the rampage.

Odds in running: Australia 4/9 at Sporting
South Africa 7/2 at Bet365

So once again the money went on, 2X£500 on Australia at 4/9 and 2x£160.50 on South Africa. Money placed was £1321, money returned was £1444.44, profit was £123.46.

My bank statements are just one big list of bookies firms, pages and pages of them but as long as the money going in is more than is going out, then my bank cannot complain!! I opened up extra bank accounts to keep it all separate from my main one. Well worth it. However it takes a lot of time, you need to know what events are on, which bookies are betting in running etc and know which sports are on where match bets prevail:

Here is a typical breakdown of my betting habits:

January: Tennis, Darts, FA Cup involving the little teams!!
February: Cricket International , Snooker, Tennis
March: Tennis, Snooker Thailand Open
April: Snooker Scottish and World Championship
May:Basketball, Rugby Finals, Football Finals
June: Tennis French Open, Wimbledon, Baseball, cricket Sunday league, WORLD CUP(knockout stages only) this year
July: Tennis, Wimbledon continued, Cricket Sunday league
Aug: Tennis USA Open, Cricket, Football
Sep: Tennis USA Open continued, Snooker, Cricket Finals
Oct:Tennis, Snooker, International Cricket
Nov:Tennis, Snooker
Dec:Basketball, Baseball, American sports, Snooker

So in the year, there are a lot of opportunities especially tennis and snooker. Usually the low key tennis events are the ones to go for, also american bookies and european bookies may disagree about certain odds. You need a lot of time, a lot of patience, sometimes staying up to the early hours, American sports for you!! but at the end of the day, it is free money once you have spotted the odds.

Just looking back at my records, my total amount staked is well over £50,000 per year, quite frightening but when I look at the returns total of over £70,000, then it is not so bad! They key however is to have loads of accounts at all the bookies, have accounts in your name, your sister's/brother's name, wife's name etc. Give them the money to deposit into the betting accounts and then you take control of their betting accounts. This way you can put more on than some bookies allow, as you are using several accounts and you can put the maximum bet on 6 or 7 times!! Most I made was in Jan this year when almost £2000 was made on American sports. However I have calmed down since then and apart from the World Cup where Brazil were a tasty price to beat England when they were 1-0 down, I am having a bit of a rest!!

Just a few tips to help you on your way BUT be prepared waiting for ages for the bet to come up. Sometimes I just have feelings the odds certain bookies are going to offer and that helps, apart from that, you need to be on the pulse and need to quickly check across several bookies what odds are being offered, then get on without hesitating. The fingers can get quite sweaty and until you close that final bet, your heart is pounding but as soon as that final bet is bought, you can punch the air as you are guaranteed a profit.

LG John

Clucking Bell! Sounds like it is possible with a bit of patience and practise. I'll keep my eyes peeled and try not to do anything stupid that gets my fingers burnt. How did you first find out about it all? I spotted a bet double (a normal, risk involved bet) at 40 to 1 on Ronaldo for Golden boot and Brazil to win the world cup before it started. I was going to stick on a tenner but chicked out!!! That £400 would have been sooooooo useful now that I'd trying to buy a scooby!!

Fast_Blue_Scooby

Been betting for years, ie normal betting. As a student many a profitable afternoon was spent at the bookies. Also after uni, I took a year out and lived purely on my betting income, horses, greyhounds etc. Yes there was a risk of losing but I won more than I lost and that was the aim.

Also spent ages looking into value betting, wrote my own software to calculate the true odds of every single football match in England and Scotland week by week. A few lads at work joined my syndicate after I proved them what we could make by applying all of the season's football results to my software. We started one August, everyone put in as much as they could, by December, we had all doubled our money. Those were in the days when singles were not allowed, except live matches. I used the good old halftime/fulltime double results. It was such a success that my bets were banned from the local ladbrokes.

Then as soon as I heard of internet betting, no tax to pay, well I needed no hesitation. They used to be a football site that used to advise of guaranteed win bets, they highlighted home win, away win and draw at each of the bookies along with the book % and how much could be won per £100. However I only do pure match bets where there is a definte winner. Football home, away, draw usually add up to over 111% which is difficult to get to less than 100%. Most match bets come to 104 to 107% so there is a better chance.

If I spot anything I will post on here for you, but only after I have secured the bets for myself!!!!

tweenierob

How ironic is this thread!!! i am looking into this at the moment, an example that has been used is presidential elections etc etc, the bush / gore election was a good one.
Rob

tweenierob

You can sign up to an internet co. that spots all the arb chances.
Bit pricey at 1k for a years subscription, but when you split that price between 10 of you its not so expensive......
Time for new thread for me...
Anyone using telebet??
Rob