Antonio lives in Seville and has studied the tennis markets over many years. He approached me near the end of last year with the concept of his ratings and I have trailed Antonio since this years Australian Open and he has produced some very solid results.

Antonio has a very in depth database that also covers how players have performed on different surfaces. As well as highlighting where the value lies in selected matches he also provides trading advice suggesting entry and exit points.

If you would like to receive Antonio’s information throughout the season then simply sign up to the Trade On sports Newsletter.

Antonio’s results can be found at http://petenordsted.com/atp-results

A few years ago when I looked at the US Sports mainly baseball it soon became apparent that on any given day any team could beat any other team and this then got me curious and so I developed a simple ratings system on the Baseball.

Now when I looked at the system in the baseball it soon became apparent that there was certainly some value in opposing the odds on favourites. Since those early days I have developed the ratings further and they are roughly based on a mathematical term called Poisson distribution.

Basically the ratings are predicting the probability of that event happening and all I am doing is looking for at least 5% value on each selection. In the case of the Basketball I like to work on at least a 3 point advantage.

Now these ratings do not take into consideration team line ups, missing players, disruption in the camp etc and is based purely on the results gone before.

So the selections you see are picked by the system and not myself.

Terms Used

Negative Rated Favourite – This is where the favourites price is lower than the Rated price.

For example in the New York Rangers v Boston match I have New York rated at 1.93 which is a 51.81% chance of them winning the game and on Betfair they are priced at 1.67 which is a 59.88% chance of winning.  When we subtract the Betfair price (59.88%) from the Ratings price (51.81%) it leaves with a negative number of -8.07%

So in other words the odds on favourite offers NO VALUE and should be opposed. So in this scenario you would either lay the favourite on Betfair or back the outsider at the best possible price.

Positive Rated Favourite – This is where the favourites price is lower than the Rated price.

For example in the Montreal v Toronto match I have Montreal rated at 1.67 which is a 59.88% chance of them winning the game and on Betfair they are priced at 1.83 which is a 54.64% chance of winning.  When we subtract the Betfair price (54.64%) from the Ratings price (59.88%) it leaves with a positive number of +5.24%

So in other words the odds on favourite offers VALUE and should be backed. So in this scenario you would back the favourite on Betfair or back the favourite at the best possible price.

Now in my experience there is far more value to be had in laying the negative favourite than in backing the positive favourite. So personally I always Lay the odds on favourite or back the outsider

Best Method of Using the Ratings

When it comes to the US sports as detailed above you are either best laying odds on favourite or in the case of the basketball backing the outsider who is receiving points on the handicap

The best method to use these ratings is to set yourself a bank for each sport of around 30 points. So if you are backing £10 a point then you should ideally work to a bank of £300.

Obviously you are going to have your ups and downs and this is a little like buying shares.

For example if you but £5000 worth of shares in a company if you are confident that it will show growth in the long term you do not rush and sell should your holdings reduce to £4000.

Treat your betting bank like Share Holdings

For example if you where to purchase shares in company Y and the price of company Ys shares is £1 a share you could buy 300 shares with your £300 and your holding would be worth £300

Over the next month should the shares drop to 80p a share your holding would be £240 should the shares recover the next month to £1.20 then your holding would be £360

And this is how you should view your betting on these ratings so for example if we take the NHL the season started on the 15 Oct 11 and you would be starting with a £300 bank

On the 20 Nov the points made where +15.30 so your bank would now be £453

On the 31 Jan the points made where +20.68 so your bank would now be £506.80

On the 19 Jan the points made where +16.37 so your bank would now be £463.70

On the 02 Mar the points made where +27.27 so your bank would now be £572.70

So as you can see much like the share price you will have your peaks and troughs. However you are safe in the knowledge that you are following a good solid system that in the long term should produce a profitable result.

It is through taking this long term view that you are able to ride the ups and downs of the results.

A review of the ratings can be found at the following

http://www.petenordsted.com/nhl-results/

http://www.petenordsted.com/nba-handicap-results/

http://www.mlbdailypicks.com/2011-ratings-results/