Channel 4 Racing – Everyone’s favourite

So it’s Saturday afternoon…

You’ve rolled out of bed with a stinking hangover, watched the mandatory morning dose of ‘starwars cats’ on your timeline and you’re ready to trade your way to financial freedom on the  afternoons racing exchanges.

One Problem; everything’s just changed. Saturday afternoons (particularly with Channel 4 coverage) mean the markets behave completely different to the rest of the week.

Larger stakes swamp the market, trading times shift, prices move differently…. a whole group of different situations arise.

Worse still, despite being the most lucrative time of the week to trade – you only get once a week to practice!

At first I used to hate it, everything you’re used to doing and watching for the rest of the week isn’t quite the same. Fortunately it’s still only human beings betting in the markets, which makes things somewhat predictable.

The key is to just slightly change perspective… most new traders turn up to trade a Saturday afternoon much like they would a Wednesday, doing that is never going to be as productive as it could be.

The advantages of Saturday afternoons is often the amount of liquidity on offer. By that I don’t mean the money sat about in the market idle, but the true underpinning liquidity, the money that flows into the market matching the available prices. As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, you never want to be the money coming in to take a price if you can help it! that’s just giving value away.

I’ve spent a little time watching and playing around on Betdaq again this week, it looks a little better than previous although isn’t worth the time on the whole (Sunday – Friday) purely because of lack in genuine or underpinning liquidity. Hopefully that’ll change soon.

Channel 4 coverage…

So what’s the big deal with Channel 4?

Channel 4 coverage has a pretty big influence on the UK horse racing markets, purely because of the masses that sit down to watch it each week. Where there’s influence there’s decision.

Paying close attention to what’s happening can sometimes provide those fastest-finger-first opportunities alone.

It reminds me of a Saturday a little while back, when one of the more colourful characters they feature from time to time (Gary I think it is?) started jumping up and down, waving a betting slip in the air. Shouting someone’s just had tweeennty graaand on the favourite! twenty large!

The market’s response was to send the favourite’s price into an aggressive drop… when these things happen, if you’re quick enough, it’s a license to print money!

This brings me onto another important point as to why Channel 4 coverage is a big deal. With the increased market participants, volume of money both being matched and waiting to be matched – placing larger trades is far safer, limiting potential risk in the process. The complete opposite to the problem with Betdaq mentioned above (on a Saturday Betdaq’s not too bad by the way).

With more money to match your bets against, be it a good or bad decision, you can exit a large trade in an instant when the shit hits the fan…. and limited downside means more upside over the long-term! It’s all about the money.

If you haven’t a clue what Channel 4 is, it’ll be because you’re not from the UK… You can find out more about it HERE

Related Article: Why do prices move?