Football World Cup 2014

[Calaen]

So this is the World Cup we're going to get is it? Don't piss off the Brazilian fans in case they riot. This ref is bullshit.

Can you imagine them going out early. Itll be fucking carnage. Personally I'm just pleased the stadium hasn't collapsed!

 

[old.user4556]

So that's two average strikes resulted in goals.

Croatia looked promising, but too much lethargy and average goalkeeping. Score line flatters Brazil.

 

[Shagrat]

#robbed

as the kids would say

Croatia have looked tidy. Oscar was Brazil's best player.

disappointing that the ref has been this bad in the first game

 

[Raven]

I thought Brasil looked average for most of the game. The ref was terrible though.

 

[Shagrat]

Brazilian mob trying to kill Adrian Chiles. There is hope for the world cup yet!!!

 

[ileks]

Brazil were really lucky tonight. They won't win it if they carry on like that. What a shit ref as well.

 

[CorNokZ]

As I read on Twitter: good to see all parts of the world represented at the World Cup, but couldn't the refs just be from the best leagues?

 

[Hawkwind]

most one sided ref display since Sir Alex stepped down at Utd Actually made me wonder if it was intentional. Imagine the protests tomorrow if Brazil had lost a game. Certainly would not have improved the situation.

If that was Rooney instead of Neymar on Modric it would have been red.

 

[ileks]

Has anyone found a good reliable stream for the WC btw? It really annoys me that the live stream on Iplayer or ITVplayer isn't HD. You really need HD for football.

 

[Hawkwind]

cost me 450 Dirhams or about 70 GBP to get World Cup Matches Live in HD on TV. Daylight robbery by the qatari tossers than have the rights. At least the game had English commentary so a big improvement over the last WC.

 

[megadave]

I hear those Qatar tossers pay well though

 

[Raven]

cost me 450 Dirhams or about 70 GBP to get World Cup Matches Live in HD on TV. Daylight robbery by the qatari tossers than have the rights. At least the game had English commentary so a big improvement over the last WC.

Can't you watch UK stuff over a proxy or something?

 

[Olgaline]

Drogba was asked to react to the refs performance yesterday.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7ox7-npBvQ

 

[Raven]

Can't you watch UK stuff over a proxy or something?

Edit! Have a look at Hola, Chrome (and I presume firefox) plug in. I use it to watch US Netflix.

Disclaimer about weird country laws.

 

[Olgaline]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/world-cup-2014/world-cup-opening-match-referee-3684571

 

[Hawkwind]

Can't you watch UK stuff over a proxy or something?

Yeah can watch iPlayer and such via UK proxy. Also, used my Mum's Sky subscription to watch the sport for a time. But it can be hit and miss, BBC in particular started blocking all the Proxy IP's they could find. I already use Hola but again hit and miss, a lot of streams get taken down quickly. Basically, we have little choice if you want to guarantee getting the games in HD.

We just have to accept that as expats we get ripped off so the locals get everything cheap and very well paid to do very little. 500 GBP for water & electricity a month! Meanwhile they pay a government clerk 12K plus GBP a month to work from 7 am to 2 pm. They create meaningless bureaucracy like National ID, Housing Agencies and such just to create jobs for locals at the expats expense. Every company in Dubai who employs over 100 people must employ a local to act as an agent of the government (PRO), these guys basically do naff all except pick up a pay check. Huge joke here in Dubai but companies accept it as a tax.

 

[DaGaffer]

Just turned down a job in Dubai for this very reason; on the surface the tax free salary looked good, but then I looked at accommodation, utilities and schools and realised I'd only be a few hundred quid better off. They were like "but....tax free!" And I was "it hardly matters if I have to pay three times as much for a house...."

 

[Chilly]

ok, so first few bets (including the one I had on Brazil v croatia)

Brazil v Croatia : £2255 back @ 1.33, won £729.27
Against my better judgement, I've backed England for £983.61 @ 3.05 in the Italy game.
Agentina v Bosnia Herzelolercopter layed Argentina for £476.19 @ 1.47

The size of the stakes might sound strange, but they take into account my estimated edge to the market and the price at which the bet is placed. Not betting on any games today, couldn't find a decent edge.

 

[CorNokZ]

http://www.goal.com/en/slideshow/7997/1/title/how-to-pronounce-every-world-cup-player?ICID=OP

 

[Chilly]

Oh and I jused spotted a cheeky bit of value on the

Uruguay v Costa Rica lay Uruguay for £1020 @ 1.47

 

[Raven]

I had £10 on Brazil to win 4.1 and Neymar to score first, 145/1 special on skybet. The own goal wouldn't have counted as first goal scorer so 1 goal away from a tasty £1450.

"free" money to bet though, just whats left over in my account from the premierleague season.

 

[Chilly]

France v Honduras lay France £547 @ 1.37

 

[CorNokZ]

How much do you reckon you'll make over the course of the world cup?

 

[Chilly]

Ivory Coast v Japan backed Ivory Coast £556 @ 2.7

 

[Chilly]

How much do you reckon you'll make over the course of the world cup?

It's really hard to say. However, I'd expect to bet maybe £100k in total and, as an average, hope to make between 5% and 10% return on that. Now, because there are not that many games, it could well be that I lose or win as much as 50% of that. Mixed in with my other betting, it all evens itself out, though. That's why I said CAVEAT EMPTOR. Tournament betting is inherently unstable and risky because there's so few games and the competitive environment is so different to normal. It makes it very hard to model.

 

[Chilly]

Oh and there's the automated betting I'll be doing on the matches, too, which I'll probably do upwards of £20m volume on, but the margins there are wafer-thin.

/edit, actually, probably not that much. Maybe £10m.

 

[soze]

That is massive massive money. Do you have a figure of if Iose £xxx I will stop betting?

 

[Moriath]

You won the lottery @Chilly

 

[Chilly]

That is massive massive money. Do you have a figure of if Iose £xxx I will stop betting?

It's complicated.

Certain strategies we (my syndicate partner and I) run are very low risk, very high volume. Others are pure position taking where we do some research and then decide the market has it wrong and then punt on our opinion. The former is a low margin cash cow, but the latter is where the real money is. If you can tolerate the losing streaks, then the overall margin can be very high. Our low risk stuff is of the order of 1% margin, the high risk would be minimum 10%.

Stop if we lose £x? Well, we manage our bankroll such that we adjust staking according to how much we currently have in total. Eg: lets say I have a bank of £100 and I want to bet on brazil and I think I have an edge of 15%, I can use a formula called the kelly staking criteria to work out how much of that £100 to bet on that one bet. It optimises bank growth over time and factors in both winning and losing variance. The real problem is that the 15% figure is an estimate, and may be wildly wrong. Ultimately, yes, there is a point at which I'd stop, but it's not defined in stone. shrug.

Oh, and for that brazil bet, you'd not bet more than 5% of your bankroll, tops.

 

[Chilly]

You won the lottery @Chilly

I assume you're referring to the Brazil Croatia game? Yeah, that was a bit of a nightmare. Win's a win.