Rounding Up the Best Betting Markets
Antepost has been very busy counting its money. The last three months have been kind. Back in July we laid Tiger Woods to win no major in 2007 at 13/8 with Betfair. He duly obliged, picking up the
PGA trophy in August.
Our decision to lay Dublin at 6/1 to win the
All-Ireland Senior Football Championship was vindicated, as the overconfident Dubs got humped out of the
Championship by Kerry in the semifinal stage.
Ricky Hatton also did the necessary business with a killer punch that knocked out Jose Louis Castillo in the IBO Light Welterweight title fight. We went big on the exchanges at 8/13 and felt like champions.
However, one howler stung: the (with hindsight) rather rash decision to go long on the FTSE 100 up to 6,700 and get out at 6,800. Well, we all know what happened there, but one month later we were back in track as the IG Index bucked the stock market calamity. We bought at 308p with a view to mid- to long-term hold, but decided not to ride our luck too hard and got out at 373p a few weeks later.
August continued to be very successful, with a man winning
Big Brother at evens - thank you, Brian Belo - and England's two victories against Russia and Israel in September, allowing Antepost to trade out of its 1.7 "to qualify for Euro 2008" bet at 1.45, for a satisfying free bet.
Cricket proved to be a little disappointing. England was denied victory against India in the First Test only by the intervention of bad weather. Antepost feels justified in claiming a moral victory here.
Antepost also hedged its risk by trading out of the 6/5 "Greece to qualify for Euro 2008" at 30/100 on Betfair.
Overall, it was a very satisfying start to this season's betting campaign. Indeed, Antepost has decided to invest some of its burgeoning surplus into bringing in a few experts to analyse the markets, increase our edge, and ensure that we continue to make a killing. This month we introduce Bobo Mbarga, our Moroccan American Football expert (yes, really!). He didn't get very rich giving bad advice, so pull up a chair and listen for profit.
American Football - Worth a Punt?
I might not be an American, but there is nothing as nice to me during autumn as trekking in the High Atlas Mountains, ripening walnuts, and (wait for it) American football. Ten years ago, I would even journey from Tangier to Algeciras to enjoy a weekend of American football and Spanish cuisine (sometimes perfectly timed to coincide with the Fiesta de los Tosantos). Luckily, satellite television has progressed nicely for all of us around the world to enjoy almost whichever sport suits our fancy.
Clearly, the best teams in the National Football League are the Indianapolis Colts, the Seattle Seahawks, the New England Patriots, and the San Diego Chargers. For top teams such as these, the spread (the number of points that the bettor must win the game by) is usually inflated, since the public opinion is heavily in favour of them. On the flip side of the coin, this shouldn't be more than a half to full point; so as long as the spread isn't increasing on the very important 7 and 3 (that is, the spread doesn't move from 3 to 3.5 or from 7 to 7.5), this shouldn't be a concern. If you think that always betting the favourites is a piece of cake, you've not become accustomed to more advanced techniques such as "steam betting" and halftime hedging or doubling bets.
For now, if you are looking at the favourites at the beginning of the season before their spreads increase, I would recommend system betting. This would require the sometimes counterintuitive task of betting the same team every week. With the top six (be mindful of New Orleans and Pittsburgh as well) or so teams in the league, you can system bet and achieve at least a 60 percent winning percentage for the season.
Ordinarily, large spreads are enough to put the willies up me, since the parity in the NFL is so evident. But it is not as worrisome when betting superior teams. Discounting the last two games of the season last year (top teams usually bench their best players in preparation for the playoffs if they are already guaranteed home-field advantage), Indianapolis went 12-3-1 against the spread. That's an amazing 80 percent winning percentage against the spread - especially when they are also the team that receives the most action.
Barring key injuries, I expect to see three of the four realizing a 10-6 posting ATS or better.
Stay tuned next month for underdog picks and steam betting. Happy punting.
Rugby World Cup
New Zealand to beat South Africa in the final.
At the time of this writing, Antepost has seen all it needs of the
Rugby World Cup to make the confident prediction that New Zealand will beat South Africa in the final. At 3.25 with one week of the competition gone, this looks like great value. Of course, we might get derailed by an upset along the way - South Africa is more likely to falter than the All Blacks - but it's unlikely. New Zealand is a certainty to reach the final, and will win. The price will be atrocious, but stick a couple of ton on them and you'll win the price of a meal in a nice restaurant for you and your other half, buying you some brownie points ahead of the long, cold winter in which Champions League soccer will dominate on your TV.
Financial
Add American Railways stock.
What goes around, goes around, goes around, comes all the way back again.
Warren Buffet, the third-richest man in the world (and arguably the greatest stock picker ever), is making one of the biggest bets of his illustrious career. His Berkshire Hathaway holding company is aggressively accumulating shares in Burlington Northern Santa Fe (NYSE: BNI), as well as other American Railroad companies. Buffet recently was cleared to acquire up to 49.5 percent of the $29 billion company. But why are the American Railroads in vogue again?
1. The market value of railroad companies does not factor in the vast real estate value of where the actual rails lay.
2. The railroad companies have a protective "moat" around them. The costs of entry for competitors are extremely high, as few would again undertake the task of laying thousands of miles of rail.
3. Higher petrol prices for trucking companies, increased demand for coal transport, and the need to move an ever-increasing amount of imported merchandise across the country has seen rail loads and traffic increase by more than 20 percent this year. High demand + limited supply = higher prices. Some railroad companies have even introduced auction-style pricing for their freight space; the highest bidder gets the freight cart.
4. Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. spent $901,000 to lobby the federal government in the first half of 2007. The federal rail regulators are formally supporting a new technology that enables trains to stop more quickly (by applying uniform pressure on all wheels simultaneously). It also will permit trains to travel longer distances between required brake tests (3,500 miles between routine tests - more than double the current maximum distance).
Antepost suggests (and history has shown) that where Buffet goes, wise men follow and profit handsomely.
