A view on the champions league

I thought I would use this post to explain some of the background of my tweets.

On 1st May Arsenal were 9.0 outsiders to win the champions league but favorites to win against Man U in the champions league SemiFinals?!

This divergence of an outsider being favourite to win the match but an outsider for the competition was something that interested me so I tried to extract some straight value.

I looked at spreads which layed Arsenal in the semis, hedged either in the +2 +2.5 +3 goal Markets or with straight bets on 2-1 3-2 with the final money maker a bet on the 9.0.
The basis being that if Arsenal qualify they would be a 3 point lay at worst to win the competition outright.
Therefore I would have a healthy 6 points to play with.

But try as I might I couldn't extract enough to make the position worth while so I decided to be a little less risk averse. I could have probably taken a little less hedge but with commentators predicting the worst I didn't fancy it.

So I took the view that the Arsenal price in the semi final was more emotionally charged than the steady 9-8.8 that had been in the outright market and so had a very good chance of moving back out.

So I took the 2.76 Lay and by close Monday it was a 2.86 bet as predicted by the Outright Winner Indicator. (Free point anybody?)

By kick off Tuesday it was back to 2.76 so I felt fully justified taking a piece of Man U at 2.8 as well as banking the swing.
I didn't expect the move backout to 2.8 for Man U and still haven't found an explanation why
But I took it anyway and the rest is history..

I hope to share more of these market divergences in my tweets as the software I am writing helps me to identify them more rapidly.