Battle of the Premiership Pundits pt.8
April 30, 2010
The season is drawing to a close and there’s a few dead duck fixtures this weekend, but here’s how the pundits call it:
| Match | Lawro | Andy Gray | Huw Davis | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Birmingham v Burnley | 2-1 | 3-1 | Birmingham | Bet Now |
| Man City v Villa | 2-1 | 3-2 | Man City | Bet Now |
| Portsmouth v Wolves | 1-2 | 2-0 | Wolves | Bet Now |
| Stoke v Everton | 1-1 | 0-1 | Stoke | Bet Now |
| Spurs v Bolton | 2-0 | 2-1 | Bolton | Bet Now |
| Liverpool v Chelsea | 1-2 | - | Chelsea | Bet Now |
| Fulham v West Ham | 1-2 | - | West Ham | Bet Now |
| Sunderland v Man Utd | 0-2 | - | Man Utd | Bet Now |
Become (or refer) our 1000th member and win £50!
April 28, 2010
We’ve been enjoying a huge increase in our sign ups and traded volume over the last few weeks and we’re fast approaching our 1000th user milestone.
To add a little cash incentive, in addition to our standard £10 bonus for all first deposits, our 1000th sign up to deposit will get a £50 bonus! Sign up for a chance to win.
What about existing members?
If you’re already a user, you can still win by referring your friends. If you refer our 1000th sign up to deposit then, as long as you’ve deposited before, we’ll give you £50 too.
Don’t forget you’ll also get 50% of the commission on their winning bets too so refer your luckiest, richest friends! Refer a friend right now.
Ok, there’s a little bit of small print. The 1000th user will have to deposit a minimum of £10 in order to get the £50 bonus. We’ll count the 1000th user as the first new deposit after 1000 users sign up. If you’re the referrer, you must have deposited before we can credit you a bonus. It’s a fraud thing. We’ll credit the money into your account as a free bet, so you can’t withdraw it until you’ve bet with it. That seems fair, it’s free money after all!
Battle of the Pundits Pt.7 Results
April 26, 2010
Good week for Lauro, but the other pundits are still floundering under 50% accuracy. There’s not much of the season left to pick up their average either…
| Match | Actual Result | Lawro | Andy Gray | Huw Davis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Man united v Spurs | 3-1 | Correct | Correct | Incorrect |
| Bolton v Portsmouth | 2-2 | Incorrect | Incorrect | Incorrect |
| Hull v Sunderland | 0-1 | Incorrect | Incorrect | Incorrect |
| West Ham v Wigan | 3-2 | Correct | Correct | Incorrect |
| Wolves v Blackburn | 1-1 | Incorrect | Incorrect | Correct |
| Arsenal v Man City | 0-0 | Correct | Correct | Correct |
| Villa v Birmingham | 1-0 | Correct | - | Correct |
| Burnley v Liverpool | 0-4 | Correct | - | Correct |
| Everton v Fulham | 2-1 | Correct | - | Correct |
| Chelsea v Stoke | 7-0 | Correct | - | Incorrect |
| This Week | 7 of 10 (70%) | 3 of 6 (50%) | 5 of 10 (50%) | |
| Rolling | 28 of 51 (54%) | 21 of 44 (47%) | 29 of 61 (47%) |
Battle of the Premiership Pundits pt.7
April 23, 2010
As the premiership draws to a close we wonder if our pundits can recover from their recent abysmal performances
| Match | Lawro | Andy Gray | Huw Davis | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Man united v Spurs | 2-0 | 2-1 | Draw | Bet Now |
| Bolton v Portsmouth | 2-1 | 2-0 | Bolton | Bet Now |
| Hull v Sunderland | 1-1 | 1-1 | Win | Bet Now |
| West Ham v Wigan | 2-0 | 2-1 | Wigan | Bet Now |
| Wolves v Blackburn | 2-1 | 1-0 | Draw | Bet Now |
| Arsenal v Man City | 1-1 | 2-2 | Draw | Bet Now |
| Villa v Birmingham | 2-0 | - | Villa | Bet Now |
| Burnley v Liverpool | 1-2 | - | Liverpool | Bet Now |
| Everton v Fulham | 2-0 | - | Everton | Bet Now |
| Chelsea v Stoke | 2-0 | - | Draw | Bet Now |
Fractions, Decimals & Percentages
April 23, 2010
Smarkets is the only betting exchange to enable users to bet with their favourite odds format. We default to percentages, but users can switch to American, decimals or fractions. Yesterday we ran a query through our users to see which format was most popular.
From the users who have deposited money and placed a bet, 65% use percentages, 25% user decimals, 9% use fractions and not a single one uses American.
Interesting stuff. I’m running a poll on this blog on the right hand side for you to give your preference too.
I’m pleased to see percentages are popular as we think they make the most sense for new bettors. We also have an excellent new feature in the pipeline which works best with percentages!
Practical startup advice: Smarkets at Geek ‘n’ Rolla 2010
April 22, 2010
Jason appeared at London start-up conference GeeknRolla this week. He gave some practical advice for prospective start-ups here are his slides and talk:
Battle of the Premiership Pundits Results Pt.6
April 19, 2010
Another poor week for the experts. Lots of upsets and only three results from twenty six correctly predicted.
| Match | Actual Result | Lawro | Andy Gray | Huw Davis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manchester City vs Manchester Utd | 0-1 | Incorrect | Incorrect | Incorrect |
| Birmingham vs Hull | 0-0 | Incorrect | Incorrect | Incorrect |
| Blackburn vs Everton | 2-3 | Incorrect | Incorrect | Incorrect |
| Fulham vs Wolves | 0-0 | Incorrect | Incorrect | Correct |
| Stoke vs Bolton | 1-2 | Incorrect | Incorrect | Incorrect |
| Sunderland vs Burnley | 2-1 | Correct | Correct | Incorrect |
| Tottenham vs Chelsea | 2-1 | Incorrect | Incorrect | Incorrect |
| Wigan vs Arsenal | 3-2 | Incorrect | Incorrect | Incorrect |
| Portsmouth vs Aston Villa | 1-2 | Correct | - | Correct |
| This Week | 2 of 9 (22%) | 1 of 8 (12%) | 2 of 9 (22%) | |
| Rolling | 21 of 41 (51%) | 18 of 38 (47%) | 24 of 51 (47%) |
Live General Election Prices – A sneak peek at our API
April 16, 2010
We’ve rolled out a little extra functionality on our political markets for any hackers out there. You can now get live prices for any of our political markets in either JSON or XML. For example:
The “overall majority” market as JSON is: http://api.smarkets.com/v1/markets/2gvp44k
Or the “Will the BNP win a seat” market in XML is: http://api.smarkets.com/v1/markets/2gvqip0.xml
Simply browse to any political market and view the source to see the link for that market. It’ll look something like this:
<link rel="alternate quotes" href="http://api.smarkets.com/v1/markets/2nktxr8" title="Clegg TV wins" type="application/json"><link rel="alternate quotes" href="http://api.smarkets.com/v1/markets/2nktxr8.xml" title="Clegg TV wins" type="text/xml">
We have a much richer API in development so this is just a peek at the functionality to come. Have fun with our data, we’d love to see what you come up with. Let us know any feedback.
Battle of the Premiership Pundits pt.6
April 16, 2010
It’s Friday, so it must be time for the pundit predictions. After such a dismal performance last weekend the lads will have to pull their socks up, dig deep, and remember it’s game of two halves, you don’t want to end up sick as a parrot.
| Match | Lawro | Andy Gray | Huw Davis | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manchester City vs Manchester Utd | Draw | Draw | Man City | Bet Now |
| Birmingham vs Hull | Birmingham | Birmingham | Birmingham | Bet Now |
| Blackburn vs Everton | Draw | Draw | Draw | Bet Now |
| Fulham vs Wolves | Fulham | Fulham | Draw | Bet Now |
| Stoke vs Bolton | Stoke | Stoke | Stoke | Bet Now |
| Sunderland vs Burnley | Sunderland | Sunderland | Draw | Bet Now |
| Tottenham vs Chelsea | Chelsea | Chelsea | Draw | Bet Now |
| Wigan vs Arsenal | Arsenal | - | Arsenal | Bet Now |
| Portsmouth vs Aston Villa | Aston Villa | - | Aston Villa | Bet Now |
Bet on the General Election TV debates
April 14, 2010
This is the first UK General Election where the three main party leaders are going head to head in a televised debate. Although criticised by some as reducing the campaign to a popularity contest, this style of debate has proved hugely popular in the US presidential elections.
On Thursday (televised on ITV) Gordon Brown, Nick Clegg and David Cameron will share the stage for the first of three debates and we’re offering markets on them.
Bet on the size of the TV viewing audience and on which leader will ‘win’ the most debates (according to ICM).
We’ve also introduced some new markets to our General Election betting such as the contested incumbents and the result of Morley & Outwood, the first of the constituency markets.
