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Angus Loughran on golf betting with Betfair |
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BBC and Daily Telegraph betting expert Angus Loughran explains why golf betting on Betfair adds a new dimension to old habits.
The Open at Hoylake last month showed once again the real value Betfair offers punters everywhere and gave us all the odd reminder of in-running dangers. Tiger Woods was available at 6/1 (7.0) to serious money with the fixed odds firms yet on Betfair was rarely much above that price in the build-up. Evidently Betfair layers were more wary of taking him on. He did drift to 9.0 (8/1) after dropping a shot at the 1st, but after that it was a price that shortened fairly dramatically and was heavily traded throughout the event.
It was his price going into the final round that was the most remarkable. Fixed odds firms were as low as 8/13 (1.61) about Woods winning a third Open title, yet his price on Betfair held firm at over 2.10, touching even higher throughout the Sunday morning. There were two major reasons for this: firstly, antepost backers of Woods were looking to lock in a profit, and secondly, an army of new layers without any previous positions were looking to go against the favourite. Why? They thought the final round looked an open affair and his price was far too short.
But whatever view one takes, there is no doubt that, since Tiger Woods burst onto the scene a decade ago, he has become one of the greatest sporting heroes to so many punters and the biggest nightmare of all time for the layers who have constantly taken him on in huge size and ended up heavy losers.
What about the dangers I mentioned?
An interesting incident occurred on the opening day at Hoylake, concerning Aussie Mark Hensby. According to Unisys, who supply scoring information to the R&A, Hensby began his round with triple bogeys at the 3rd and 4th to go 6 over, and seemingly out of contention, 10 shots off the lead. Unisys were wrong. In fact, the second "triple bogey" was a birdie and Hensby would pick up further birdies to go as low as 4 under. By this time however, the Aussie had been matched at 680 on Betfair, clearly by someone who had seen that first erroneous piece of information. That layer must have been sweating heavily for the rest of the day. Unisys have done an outstanding job in their scoring coverage at the Open over the years, but they will be far from happy with what happened during the first two days of this year's Championship. No matter what the reasons, they will need to get it back to where it was or there reputation of excellence will soon disappear. They were so far behind it was farcical.
Here's another...Last year at the Forest of Arden, Barry Lane had the English Open in his grasp, but hit his tee shot on the 18th into rough right of the fairway. On-course BBC reporter Julian Tutt, (it must be said a decent golfer in his own right), informed viewers Lane could not even see his ball, let alone have any shot to the green. His price on Betfair drifted alarmingly as punters panicked at the thought of another Van de Velde-style collapse. Lane not only found his ball but could reach the green. He holed a putt for a most unlikely birdie to secure a famous win. The message for in-running punters? Statistics and opinions are all very well, but always trust what you can see with your own eyes. Don't necessarily put blind faith in what you read or are told by the experts...
Van de Velde wont need any reminding that the Open returns to Carnoustie next year, eight years after the most dramatic sporting collapse of all time. I wonder what price he would have traded at, had Betfair been around in 1999? Surely a 1.01 shot turned over if ever there was one...
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