Tennis Trading for newbies.

Just thought I'd share a few things that people should know before they jump into trading tennis.  I'm not going to detail strategies in this posting, my intention is to post a few noteworthy things to consider... consider these the equivalent of tennis trading health warnings.

If you are used to trading horse racing or similar, then you need to be prepared for the fast paced nature of the game.  (We are talking about trading the match during it happens.) 

Unlike pre-race horse racing markets, the movement of the odds is going to encompass the full range of possibilities, from 1.01 (1/100) to 1000 (999/1).  I'ts not uncommon for a short odds favourite to drift out several times or indeed go on to lose.

The odds are going to be volatile.  It's easy to get on the wrong side of things quickly if you don't know what you are doing.

Get used to cancelling those bets!  You post up a bet before a point is played, the player you are backing loses the point - cancel it very quickly!  Otherwise your bet will be pinched off the screen faster than you can blink.  Why does this happen -

• The point was lost and this, no matter how small a factor it seems to you, affects the probability of winning the match and hence the price.
• There are people that make a living (not me) by "hoovering" up out of date bets on players as they lose the point.
• They do this by either having a faster satelite feed, by being courtside or in a location where it is being shown on terrestrial tv - debate is rife about which of these it is.  All you need to concern yourself with is making sure you are not giving them free money by being slow to react.
• There is absolutely nothing wrong with cancelling your bet on every point - remember you want a bet that's good for you, not one that's going to feed someone else's family after every single point.

Get to know the players, their strengths and weakness and their personality.  Watch body language.

Look at the scoring system, notice how it works and notice how it affects the probabilities of each player winning, this is important.

The surface they are playing on is important, the players cope differently with the different types - clay, grass, synthetic, hard, indoor and outdoor.

As with any market, be warned you are up against some people that do this for a living.  They have very quick reactions, they are very good at reading the game and knowing the probabilities.  It's a big market, and it attracts the big players because of that. 

Comments

[g.clucas]

First things first, i have only just found your blog courtesy of 'the betfair trader' and i have to say at first glance i'm impressed! It's great to see so much discussion on the Psychological aspects of trading which i think fail to demand the attention required by the average punter. I have not read through the entire blog yet, but i fully intend on doing so.

Anyway a quick question that i put to the betfair trader, that he suggested i put to you.

Last night i was watching the Murray/Daveydenko match. Murray was broken in the first game of the match. Now the pre match price to back Murray was 1.75 after he got broken he was trading at 2.20. My question is surely this must be a value trade?
A pretty big shift in the fav's price as the result of one poor game and the first in the match, surely that does not warrant that kind of movement? Your opinion appreciated.

Lokking forward to your responce and having a read through this excellent blog!

[Matt]

Hello, glad you found the blog and thanks to the Betfairtrader for sending you my way. He's a nice chap over there. I hope you've enjoyed the rest of the blog and apologies for the slow reply, it's not gone unnoticed, just a few niggling things occuring away from the PC at the moment leaving me only time to work and not much energy left to put into the blog. It's nice to have another tennis trader reading..

The murray / davy match I did well on this week. And you would be right in saying that that price moved way too much. Firstly in purely technical terms, it should not have moved to that price. And secondly / thirdly - it's the first game of the match, and it's Murray that is serving.

First game of the match - he's still warming up, and so is Davy to some extent. Murray is known as not the greatest server in the world (though he is improving). More importantly, Murray IS one of the game's best returners of serve - and that's what he is doing next game, on a still to warm up Davy service action. Being first game in the set means Murray has plenty of go's at breaking Davy back.

That said, the price is indeed value on Murray but not massively. I would take a position on it, but not a huge one. More likely I would be looking for greater value on him if Davy took a string of points in the next game. This would leave me with value, with a large upside if Murray came back to win the set and a bit less of a downside if Davy took it. As it happened Murray took it, but was still tremendous value at end of first set, so I ran the position out. Thank you Mr. Murray !