Bookies and team ratings

[ARAZI91]

Ah yes, I understand, compound probability.
Like in the races. I have a set of probabilities derived from speed histogram analysis and another set derived from jokcey ratings and even a third set relating to days of absence. Those are put together so the compound probability is stronger compared to the component probabilities (it scores higher).
But how to find histories of such things ? Football matches in suspicious circumstances.

Compound Probability: Overview and Formulas.
Nothing to do with "compound probability" - the process is actually logistical and uses logits and exponents and it is an additive process (or cumulative for want of a better word) , the key is getting the weightings right when you add something probabilistically that is "new" and as i keep repeating "new" does not mean the same as buying something "new "from a shop or "news" that has been just been released - it's a "relative" term - relative and unique to each punters set-up.
As said i only know horse racing - football is a different animal but globally there are 5-6 very large groups that drive, control and manipulate prices globally and it's not the bookmakers . Just nip down to Brighton and ask "The Lizard" Tony Bloom himself. Whether he gives anything away is debateable but just don't mention "compound probability"

 

[ARAZI91]

Let's approach it this way:

We use ratings as probability network A and we introduce a second probability network B called the "ambiguity factor".
Then there exists an easy to identify group of matches that can help us somewhat calibrate this "ambiguity factor".
This is European matches of the years past in which teams were indifferent.

Example:

UEFA Champions League 2017-18, round of 16
07/03/18 Basel - Manchester City 0-4
18/03/18 Manchester City - Basel 1-2

and others similar.

First of all - using scores to make final decisions or comparisons died out years ago - the range of statistics available within football betting now is vast - what was the xG on those two matches , Team Ratings, % of key players individual ratings , % of key players missing, etc etc etc - in the second game Man City could have had 77% possession, 4 times the number of chances to convert than Basel.whilst Basel just caught them napping in the first 10 mins. Also Man City could have been coming off a higher average "strength of schedule"than Basel. Like we see with racing Horses win at over 100-1 (using ISP)........ as ratings use inputs that are chock full of "positive/significant " factors there is no way you'll keep getting winners at 100-1.

I'm being hypothetical with those numbers. I agree they offer a very good starting point but as with all ratings there are other dynamics. If it was as simple as the ratings giving the result then we'd never get anything wrong.

At present I am in the forum elsewhere rating Hong Kong racing and its delivering a 26% strike rate which is really good but it would only be 21% if I just took the "master rating".

When time allows perhaps when the HK racing is over I may go back to my old footy ELO sheets and see what can be derived. I think what you want is a clean master rating and a seperate figure that adjusts the master figure for the particular match, using recent form and that old M-word, momentum.

Does "momentum" really exist ?- it's also known as the "hot-hand theory" - plenty of studies and stuff out there to disprove it - Oisin Murphy could win 4 races on the day but aggregate his expected wins as probabilities and it may come to 4.23 ...so he's really underperformed by -0.23 or an A/E of 0.945

 

[cosmicsports]

First of all - using scores to make final decisions or comparisons died out years ago - the range of statistics available within football betting now is vast - what was the xG on those two matches , Team Ratings, % of key players individual ratings , % of key players missing, etc etc etc - in the second game Man City could have had 77% possession, 4 times the number of chances to convert than Basel.whilst Basel just caught them napping in the first 10 mins. Also Man City could have been coming off a higher average "strength of schedule"than Basel. Like we see with racing Horses win at over 100-1 (using ISP)........ as ratings use inputs that are chock full of "positive/significant " factors there is no way you'll keep getting winners at 100-1.

Does "momentum" really exist ?- it's also known as the "hot-hand theory" - plenty of studies and stuff out there to disprove it - Oisin Murphy could win 4 races on the day but aggregate his expected wins as probabilities and it may come to 4.23 ...so he's really underperformed by -0.23 or an A/E of 0.945

Well, come on.
As I recall I would n't touch City that time because of the very low price, also I was half expecting something kinky - but no bet.
They lost because it was sleepy time time overtime for them.
So if I look into all those matches I can apply a distortion factor to the "orthodox probabilities" when situations are similar (compound probability !).
All this to express things mathematically that is.
Naturally we look for big issues (and City's total indifference in the example match counts as a big issue).
Small time affairs, like the girlfriend, ok we neglect.

 

[ARAZI91]

Ah yes, I understand, compound probability.
Like in the races. I have a set of probabilities derived from speed histogram analysis and another set derived from jokcey ratings and even a third set relating to days of absence. Those are put together so the compound probability is stronger compared to the component probabilities (it scores higher).
But how to find histories of such things ? Football matches in suspicious circumstances.

In your example using 3 "models" - do you know the significance of each ? if so i would use the two least significant models as one model by combining them logistically and then logistically combine it with the market to produce probabilities (getting the weighting right between market / model is vital) - THEN add in the third most significant model to update the current probabilities so far - On the probability spectrum from 1.00 to 0.00 you will find you will get more winners closer to 1.00 (and still obtain value) whilst pushing your losers out towards 0.00.

 

[ARAZI91]

Well, come on.
As I recall I would n't touch City that time because of the very low price, also I was half expecting something kinky - but no bet.
They lost because it was sleepy time time overtime for them.
So if I look into all those matches I can apply a distortion factor to the "orthodox probabilities" when situations are similar (compound probability !).
All this to express things mathematically that is.
Naturally we look for big issues (and City's total indifference in the example match counts as a big issue).
Small time affairs, like the girlfriend, ok we neglect.

If you could show me how you could apply what you term a "distortion factor" whilst factoring in City's indifference to the game mathematically i'm all ears - in my first post i gave a truly mathematical way of updating odds based on "new" information where "new" is relative -whether it is based on subjectivity, data-led opinions, inside information you only need to learn to put a number on the scenario probabilistically or in A v K markets (multi-competitors),several numbers. The degenerate distribution does the rest based on bijection and reduction. Yes i used a daft scenario but it got the point across , ie if you were in Selby's camp and knew of his circumstances how would you update the odds derived from ratings or even better the market.

 

[AustinDillon75]

Does "momentum" really exist ?- it's also known as the "hot-hand theory" - plenty of studies and stuff out there to disprove it - Oisin Murphy could win 4 races on the day but aggregate his expected wins as probabilities and it may come to 4.23 ...so he's really underperformed by -0.23 or an A/E of 0.945

If you take Leicester City's last few games in 2014/15, you'd have found a master rating would have offered no insight to think they'd have won those in the way they did. You'd elevate their game by game rating on more recent form, as there's no way they'd have been exceeding their expected wins as they were playing plenty of games where they expected nothing.

Take those results into 2015/16, and again, if you'd just taken a master rating on its own you'd not have given them a chance for a lot of early games. I think you have to try and combine good recent results with a global view of how good a side is otherwise you just end up waiting until the season is two thirds of the way through before Leicester are fancied when in reality they'd swept a host of sides away by that point. No problem with the master rating taking time to accrue but for a game by game prediction, I'd rate them more highly.

 

[cosmicsports]

If you could show me how you could apply what you term a "distortion factor" whilst factoring in City's indifference to the game mathematically i'm all ears - in my first post i gave a truly mathematical way of updating odds based on "new" information where "new" is relative -whether it is based on subjectivity, data-led opinions, inside information you only need to learn to put a number on the scenario probabilistically or in A v K markets (multi-competitors),several numbers. The degenerate distribution does the rest based on bijection and reduction. Yes i used a daft scenario but it got the point across , ie if you were in Selby's camp and knew of his circumstances how would you update the odds derived from ratings or even better the market.

With Selby v. Wilson you say they started 1.70 - 2.43 and became 1.48 - 3.03.
In terms of probabilities that makes 59% - 43% and then 67% - 33%.
Do you mean that every food poisoning means I lose 25% of my initial probability, if I go and play snooker under the effect of food poisoning ?
Medical science can't do that, so what do you actually do to go from (59-43) to (67-33) ?
I mean to do it with statistical factors. How else ?
Also if you say "it's from how the market evolved" it's no good as I 'm supposed to be ahead of the market.

With horses it goes like this sometimes:
Suppose from speed considerations the win probability is 30%. But the jockey is an auxiliary, one used to carry the horses to and from the stables.
An attenuation factor applies and the 30% becomes 10%.

With this logic of course one can err.
Recently there was one such match. An derby match and many people, everyone rather, thought the home team does n't care and will lose.
We were mugged. No laziness or anything like that was exhibited and it was a home win in the end.
But the total score counts.

 

[ARAZI91]

No you have it all wrong ,,,,,,, first you gave a set of ratings for football ( i very simply calculated implied odds from those football ratings in terms of "winning" - without the draw) You implied that bookmakers are following these ratings - very unlikely giving the amount of data-points like xG , etc that are more efficient in predicting outcomes than your ratings. Forget the snooker match and lets use a multi-competitor event like horse racing - your a part owner in a horse who is running tonight in a 6 runner race ,it has been on the decline for a while but the trainer tells you it did a bit of work the other day that was more like his old-self , running against a much higher rated animal in a home gallop and probably ran to a 63 , its hcap mark has fallen to 49 and tonights race is very weak whilst course , distance and jockey (who knows the horse well and has a good record on him) are all ideal - The plan is to be at least prominent early as there is not much pace in the race with a few habitually slow starters - the price on Betfair is 4.68 - how would you update these odds mathematically given this "new " information" ???? - Btw - the trainer has given good information before and plays a straight game with his owners.
Your turn.

 

[ARAZI91]

Btw these are the odds on Betfair an hour before you got told this new information from "your" trainer- As a group of owners you decide to wait to see how the markets move in case there are another couple fancied in the race and in the last 10 mins as liquidity starts to get hotter the prices change by small increments every minute towards offtime so now look like this.



"Our Horse" is highlighted in yellow
How would you update the 10min odds based on what "your" trainer told you?????? - which was extremely positive and has a history of giving good information.???????????????

 

[cosmicsports]

No you have it all wrong ,,,,,,, first you gave a set of ratings for football ( i very simply calculated implied odds from those football ratings in terms of "winning" - without the draw) You implied that bookmakers are following these ratings - very unlikely giving the amount of data-points like xG , etc that are more efficient in predicting outcomes than your ratings. Forget the snooker match and lets use a multi-competitor event like horse racing - your a part owner in a horse who is running tonight in a 6 runner race ,it has been on the decline for a while but the trainer tells you it did a bit of work the other day that was more like his old-self , running against a much higher rated animal in a home gallop and probably ran to a 63 , its hcap mark has fallen to 49 and tonights race is very weak whilst course , distance and jockey (who knows the horse well and has a good record on him) are all ideal - The plan is to be at least prominent early as there is not much pace in the race with a few habitually slow starters - the price on Betfair is 4.68 - how would you update these odds mathematically given this "new " information" ???? - Btw - the trainer has given good information before and plays a straight game with his owners.
Your turn.

I used to go to the races every day.
Now I don't because they relocated the race course too far.
In those days I carried with me a notebook and made a note of all of the paddock snipets communicated to me.
Then counted and it was 18 false alarms, 1 true.
But 3-4 people I trusted and respected. So if as you say it was one of those 3-4 people I pawn the jewels is your answer.
Forget what "le papier" said and pawn the jewels.
One other more recent day there was one who made a fortune infront of my eyes. But as he was a person unknown to me I don't regret not following.

So you understand it is overall a fuzzy situation but I 'll try to put some order by looking into the group of matches I explained.
There is the league too. But it's difficult to remember the various happenings in detail.
A huge organization, like the government, could do better. Remember the hunting for the quark with the tea ladies ?

 

[ARAZI91]

cosmicsports

Added in prices 2 mins before the off - again how would you update the price of "Our Horse" given what our trainer has told us



Here is a rundown/summation of each horse

 

[cosmicsports]

cosmicsports

Added in prices 2 mins before the off - again how would you update the price of "Our Horse" given what our trainer has told us

View attachment 134995

Here is a rundown/summation of each horse

View attachment 134996
View attachment 134997

You talk about the tote all the time, but our main subject does not involve tote.
Yeah, I would pay some attention, depending on the magnitude of the drift, also depending on the relation of the "our horse" to the market leaders, also depending on the size of the pool.
Sometimes there is a "lemmings" effect but I would pay attention.

Things are happening in a racecourse.
The Paraguayan "immortal" of the international Olympics committee in 1995.
The Greek govt were anxious for his vote for the 2004 Olympics so I read somewhere in the news that the Paraguayan immortal planned to visit the races as he was a "fan of the sport".
I forgot about it - did n't connect - but as I was strolling about in the park a friend comes along (a policeman-punter as well) and he says "what are you doing here - go inside - they 're tearing down the walls - the Paraguayan !".
Indeed so it was and I profited a little. The scheme was to make all the races favourite A - favourite B. It meant low prices in the end but the immortal nevertheless made good money and gave his vote.

 

[ARAZI91]

You talk about the tote all the time, but our main subject does not involve tote.
Yeah, I would pay some attention, depending on the magnitude of the drift, also depending on the relation of the "our horse" to the market leaders, also depending on the size of the pool.
Sometimes there is a "lemmings" effect but I would pay attention.

Things are happening in a racecourse.
The Paraguayan "immortal" of the international Olympics committee in 1995.
The Greek govt were anxious for his vote for the 2004 Olympics so I read somewhere in the news that the Paraguayan immortal planned to visit the races as he was a "fan of the sport".
I forgot about it - did n't connect - but as I was strolling about in the park a friend comes along (a policeman-punter as well) and he says "what are you doing here - go inside - they 're tearing down the walls - the Paraguayan !".
Indeed so it was and I profited a little. The scheme was to make all the races favourite A - favourite B. It meant low prices in the end but the immortal nevertheless made good money and gave his vote.

Wrong again - Not Tote - Betting Exchanges- I have not placed a Tote bet since 2011 but i am a 100% exchange player but the same process can be used with bookmakers prices (with the overround stripped out using one of many ways -main one being for horse racing is the "Shin" method) - You just tell anecdotal stories without answering the question -how would YOU "UPDATE" the probabilities of "Our Horse" given the new information you have been given by our trainer and your own reading of the race in general?????????

 

[ARAZI91]

One way and a very effective way is the very same way i used with the "snooker match" only this time it is not an A v B market but an A v K market (meaning multi-competitors) -using a degenerate distribution that incorporates bijection and reduction - all 3 are mathematical concepts with some Bayesian thinking thrown in - for starters since there is 2 minutes to the off - take the geomean of all probabilities and multiply by half the field size


Use that 0.3147 as the constant in the Degenerate Distribution for all horses but assign all of that 0.3147 probability mass to only "Our Horse "
Doing this would give you a new probability of ((1-New ei)*(DegenDist))+original probability = a prob of 0.361748 or odds of 2.76 - the market still has not caught up yet and is shown odds of 4.5 (prob of 0.22222)



Again you don't need an EV calculator to see where the value lies !!!!

As said before you don't need "inside information" to use this technique - you could run an ensemble of 10 models using a multitude of metrics, ratings and various measurements , Ability , Speed, Form, Recent Form, Class, Trainer, Jockey, Pace & Early Position, Exposure, The Market - Logistically you could run 8 combined to spit out a final base probability and deliberately hold back two of your most potent and predictive models in terms of significance - then use those two to update the original final base probability. Believe me this is how betting syndicates operate but in a much larger scale. On the probability spectrum they are pushing up as much winners as near to 1.00 whilst the "also rans" gravitate towards 0.00.

Added in Expected EV+/-,1/4 Kelly & Full Kelly to show you the "advantage" the horse now has compared to the 2mins Betfair price - NOT TOTE!

 

[cosmicsports]

Wrong again - Not Tote - Betting Exchanges- I have not placed a Tote bet since 2011 but i am a 100% exchange player but the same process can be used with bookmakers prices (with the overround stripped out using one of many ways -main one being for horse racing is the "Shin" method) - You just tell anecdotal stories without answering the question -how would YOU "UPDATE" the probabilities of "Our Horse" given the new information you have been given by our trainer and your own reading of the race in general?????????

Fair enough.
It has crossed my mind to attempt such a correlation.
For the case of football betting there is not much movement of the prices.
For the horses there is.
As I don't normally have access to the exchanges I don't use them. Also the other bookies don't quote the size of their pools and the size of the pool / market enters the equations.
But if the whatever betting companies modify their prices as a result of something then it's not good. I mean to act before they react.

There is value in following the markets too.
A friend of mine made lots of money with the brexit referendum.
He noticed that the first result announced was from Newcastle and it was a remain win but the difference was lower than expected.
So he also knew what was going on was as well as followed the trend.
Also many years ago I chatted with an American programmer who had somehow convinced race course to collaborate with him and he
offered anon line tote trend service to subscribers.

Anyway the market always responds to some stimuli.
I like to know what the stimulus is more than I like to watch the figures.

In the end maybe the exchange drifts cover precisely the phenomenon I 'm researching but I 'm not really sure they do.
I believe sometimes they drift 10% whereas they should drift 50%.

 

[cosmicsports]

I looked briefly into champions league matches from 2015-16 to this year.
I was looking into the effect of probable indifference due to the first leg result having practically settled the tie.
I did not look into the group stages because that takes time.

I noted the following:

2015-16
---------
Dynamo Kyiv - Man City 1-3, 0-0 (upside)
Roma - Real Madricd 0-2, 0-2
Arsenal - Barcelona 0-2, 1-3

2016-17
---------
Leverkusen - Atletico 2-4, 0-0 (upside)
Monaco - Juve 0-2, 1-2

2017-18
---------
Bayern - Besiktas 5-0, 3-1
Porto - Liverpool 0-5, 0-0 (upside)

2019-20
---------
Chelsea - Bayern 0-3, 1-4

2020-21
---------
Lazio - Bayern 1-4, 1-2

2021-22
---------
Sporting Lisbon - Man. City 0-5, 0-0 (upside)

2022-23
---------
Liverpool - Real 2-5, 0-1

11 matches, 4 upsides.
Looks like the theory is in the black.

Would you do the same thing more carefully ?

 

[ARAZI91]

I looked briefly into champions league matches from 2015-16 to this year.
I was looking into the effect of probable indifference due to the first leg result having practically settled the tie.
I did not look into the group stages because that takes time.

I noted the following:

2015-16
---------
Dynamo Kyiv - Man City 1-3, 0-0 (upside)
Roma - Real Madricd 0-2, 0-2
Arsenal - Barcelona 0-2, 1-3

2016-17
---------
Leverkusen - Atletico 2-4, 0-0 (upside)
Monaco - Juve 0-2, 1-2

2017-18
---------
Bayern - Besiktas 5-0, 3-1
Porto - Liverpool 0-5, 0-0 (upside)

2019-20
---------
Chelsea - Bayern 0-3, 1-4

2020-21
---------
Lazio - Bayern 1-4, 1-2

2021-22
---------
Sporting Lisbon - Man. City 0-5, 0-0 (upside)

2022-23
---------
Liverpool - Real 2-5, 0-1

11 matches, 4 upsides.
Looks like the theory is in the black.

Would you do the same thing more carefully ?

As i have already said there is only one sport that interests me and it is not football,but i know of at least 5 groups , 3 in the UK and 2 in Asia that look at football much,much deeper than this,they stake that much collectively that their basically driving the odds in the direction they want.

 

[cosmicsports]

As i have already said there is only one sport that interests me and it is not football,but i know of at least 5 groups , 3 in the UK and 2 in Asia that look at football much,much deeper than this,they stake that much collectively that their basically driving the odds in the direction they want.

Maybe.
From what I observe the odds follow the ratings and they are often tilted towards the favourite, whenever there is a clear favourite.
Whether the groupies you mention do or don't influence I don't care - they won't give me any of their money.
And what are they ? Groups of losers ? If they were groups of winners the bookies would have limited them.
Yet surely the bookies have to respond to a heavy bet and modify the prices - it's how the companies work.
But anyway, I 'm interested in spotting anomalies and we 're not talking about market anomalies here.
About the market I explained.
I 'm always suspicious except when I know it was the jockey's mom who placed the bet.
The reason why a market move takes place plus the market move as such, yes, if possible.

 

[ARAZI91]

cosmicsports says - "And what are they ? Groups of losers ? If they were groups of winners the bookies would have limited them"

Ever heard of Bet brokerage in far off lands, have you seen the data-points in football just now - Logistic or Probit regression along with some Bayesian inference can open peoples third eyes along with Kelly type principle staking to maximise profits to the highest advantage.

We have obviously mixed in different circles
So No "maybes" about it -
The inside story on Britain's greatest sports gambler - and the company that helps him win
Matthew Benham: Premier League owner, master of sports odds - Champion Bets

These guys wager millions every week using state of the art data and analytics whilst you talk about "jockeys mom's"
They have made so much money over the years they have even managed to buy football clubs and use the "moneyball" approach that got them there in the first place.
Along with the two above their is a third in the Uk who we shall call Mr X - he prefers to keep his anonymity but are on a par with Bloom and Benham.

Regarding who actually takes these 7 figure bets, there is a large private betting market in Asia.Much larger than the UK and definitely much much larger than when you were punting in Greece. There are a few large bet brokerage firms who deal in this sort of stuff. Samvo and BetInAsia are probably the best known.
Samvo Betbrokers - Company Connections
https://betinasia.com/

There are also two large Asian syndicates doing the same thing, as well as Phoenix in Malta (who bet on all sports not just football)
Home - Phoenix - the guy who started that , Paul Longmuir(an English chap) worked in one of the biggest horse racing betting syndicates on the planet run by Alan Woods and was his 2ic (2nd in command) before Alan died with cancer and his daughter Victoria took over -they are still going btw .
Alan Woods - Mr. Huge
The Hundred and Fifty Million Dollar Man | Cigar Aficionado
And a very revealing one on one with the Man
BT Cloud


Woods started off with this guy and another, Bob Moore - Moore died but Benter went on to be one of the most influential horse racing modellers in the planet and wrote this paper
BT Cloud
Here's some very rare BENTER for you
BT Cloud

And his story,warts and all can be found here
The Gambler Who Cracked the Horse-Racing Code

Benter has his own research facility that look at various racing and sports analytics and data ,part based in Southampton where he is patron saint of their university and has free reign of their Risk and Predictive Science Research department and part based in his home town of Pittsburgh called
We specialize in advanced statistical modeling. - Avenue Four Analytics -any major findings get sold to the highest bidders in the Syndicate world.

In the UK Mustard Systems do the same with Golf,Rugby Union,and Cricket , they have also broken into the horse racing market the last couple of years as i have done some consultancy work for them.
Mustard Systems

Before all this "The Computer Group"(US) was formed by the legendary Billy Walters , using (at the time) state of the art Data and Analytics to take advantage of mistakes by the Vegas odds compilers in basketball,baseball ,ice hockey and American football etc- here's another revealing one on one with the man
BT Cloud


Then there is this mob
Sports Analytics who own various data and analytics groups globally including Nellie Analytics in Ireland.

Meanwhile we have Zeljko Ranogajec and David Walsh who play horse racing globally within any country that has Pari-Mutuel and are probably the largest horse racing syndicate ever with over 400 employees and associates worldwide. Both worked and learned under Alan Woods in Hong Kong and started as the Humbleton Group. From the same country(Australia) we have the mysterious "Dr Nick" - Nick Savaras who runs an operation with over 200 people - both have their own paddock teams which feed back physicality reports in the last five minutes which updates their final probabilities. The have the capacity and facility to "batch-bet" placing many 100s of bets per minute in all sorts of markets including the exotics.




Btw they all bet , trade, and play to a very high standard, have more advanced and better data than the average punter and know how to optomize "public" data better than your average punter and use statistical modelling to a very high degree and can get their money on through back channels. - they are not your average punter talking about "jockeys moms"

You seem to be very naive when it comes to high stakes group betting that use data and analytics as well as having back channels to get their money on.Right now in the US for every 100 dollars wagered , 40 will come from 4 or 5 "computer groups" - they negotiate rebates with the ADWS (Advanced Deposit Wagering Systems) in the States based on total expected turnover per annum. Most of them operate from tax-haven hubs for obvious reasons.

I do enjoy your anecdotal stories though but their trivial to the above.

 

[cosmicsports]

cosmicsports says - "And what are they ? Groups of losers ? If they were groups of winners the bookies would have limited them"

Ever heard of Bet brokerage in far off lands, have you seen the data-points in football just now - Logistic or Probit regression along with some Bayesian inference can open peoples third eyes along with Kelly type principle staking to maximise profits to the highest advantage.

We have obviously mixed in different circles
So No "maybes" about it -
The inside story on Britain's greatest sports gambler - and the company that helps him win
Matthew Benham: Premier League owner, master of sports odds - Champion Bets

These guys wager millions every week using state of the art data and analytics whilst you talk about "jockeys mom's"
They have made so much money over the years they have even managed to buy football clubs and use the "moneyball" approach that got them there in the first place.
Along with the two above their is a third in the Uk who we shall call Mr X - he prefers to keep his anonymity but are on a par with Bloom and Benham.

Regarding who actually takes these 7 figure bets, there is a large private betting market in Asia.Much larger than the UK and definitely much much larger than when you were punting in Greece. There are a few large bet brokerage firms who deal in this sort of stuff. Samvo and BetInAsia are probably the best known.
Samvo Betbrokers - Company Connections
https://betinasia.com/

There are also two large Asian syndicates doing the same thing, as well as Phoenix in Malta (who bet on all sports not just football)
Home - Phoenix - the guy who started that , Paul Longmuir(an English chap) worked in one of the biggest horse racing betting syndicates on the planet run by Alan Woods and was his 2ic (2nd in command) before Alan died with cancer and his daughter Victoria took over -they are still going btw .
Alan Woods - Mr. Huge
The Hundred and Fifty Million Dollar Man | Cigar Aficionado
And a very revealing one on one with the Man
BT Cloud


Woods started off with this guy and another, Bob Moore - Moore died but Benter went on to be one of the most influential horse racing modellers in the planet and wrote this paper
BT Cloud
Here's some very rare BENTER for you
BT Cloud

And his story,warts and all can be found here
The Gambler Who Cracked the Horse-Racing Code

Benter has his own research facility that look at various racing and sports analytics and data ,part based in Southampton where he is patron saint of their university and has free reign of their Risk and Predictive Science Research department and part based in his home town of Pittsburgh called
We specialize in advanced statistical modeling. - Avenue Four Analytics -any major findings get sold to the highest bidders in the Syndicate world.

In the UK Mustard Systems do the same with Golf,Rugby Union,and Cricket , they have also broken into the horse racing market the last couple of years as i have done some consultancy work for them.
Mustard Systems

Before all this "The Computer Group"(US) was formed by the legendary Billy Walters , using (at the time) state of the art Data and Analytics to take advantage of mistakes by the Vegas odds compilers in basketball,baseball ,ice hockey and American football etc- here's another revealing one on one with the man
BT Cloud


Then there is this mob
Sports Analytics who own various data and analytics groups globally including Nellie Analytics in Ireland.

Meanwhile we have Zeljko Ranogajec and David Walsh who play horse racing globally within any country that has Pari-Mutuel and are probably the largest horse racing syndicate ever with over 400 employees and associates worldwide. Both worked and learned under Alan Woods in Hong Kong and started as the Humbleton Group. From the same country(Australia) we have the mysterious "Dr Nick" - Nick Savaras who runs an operation with over 200 people - both have their own paddock teams which feed back physicality reports in the last five minutes which updates their final probabilities. The have the capacity and facility to "batch-bet" placing many 100s of bets per minute in all sorts of markets including the exotics.

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Btw they all bet , trade, and play to a very high standard, have more advanced and better data than the average punter and know how to optomize "public" data better than your average punter and use statistical modelling to a very high degree and can get their money on through back channels. - they are not your average punter talking about "jockeys moms"

You seem to be very naive when it comes to high stakes group betting that use data and analytics as well as having back channels to get their money on.Right now in the US for every 100 dollars wagered , 40 will come from 4 or 5 "computer groups" - they negotiate rebates with the ADWS (Advanced Deposit Wagering Systems) in the States based on total expected turnover per annum. Most of them operate from tax-haven hubs for obvious reasons.

I do enjoy your anecdotal stories though but their trivial to the above.

I don't make anecdotal stories.
They 're true.
With the jockey's mom case I spent a summer in Karystos - better than Mykonos with Mc Guire and his hippie company.

Now those guys you mention I do believe of course they are real.
But with the kind of money you talk about can you assume there is no hanky-panky stuff involved ?
Hanky panky stuff removes us even further from the premises of our debate.
We should n't count that.

Anyway I never knocked other peoples methods when they claim successes.
Some other friends I have are now into scanners so there may be something in that too.
What I 'm doing is try to locate abnormal patterns in the way some prices are structured.