How involved in the markets are you?

 

Chatting to my pal Paolo (@paolobow) about our levels of interest in various betting markets, it became apparent that we require some kind of peer-reviewed, universal scale to reflect punters' activity in, awareness of and liabilities exposed to different kinds of gambling arenas.

We swiftly decided on a crude system, using terminology more commonly associated with aquatic exploration, which I will detail forthwith. Please feel free to add your own suggestions to improve the gauge, as it is in its infancy. We feel though, having had experience developing similar scales for other pastimes with our mutual friend Tim @Westdrop (namely the scoring systems by which we rate Indian Restaurants, and the way in which we are able to easily describe to each other just how "out of it" we are, or were, during a session on the annoes or ales) that we are well poised to get the ball rolling.

Proposed Scale for Describing Involvement in a Market:

1. Dipping
2. Floating
3. Immersed
4. Submerged
5. Deep
(6. Drowning)

Examples of each would include:

Level 1. "I'm just dipping my toe in the Eurovision Market, 0.5pt on Jedward, but I obviously won't watch the event"

Level 2. "I've been floating around this Market for a while.. I find the way that SPOTY2011 incorporates both sporting and socio-political events really allows me to pit my wits against the layers"

Level 3. "I'm immersed in the antepost Market for the forthcoming Ebor Handicap, having followed Segal's advice on Tominator on a previous occasion and also having a lot of time for Lost in the Moment, the Godolphin colt who's given me a couple of TBP wins in the past. Looking."

Level 4. "Oh I am submerged in this Market.. I layed the draw at the start of the test match with liabilities of over £500 and have gradually, through some careful Market positioning and a hell of a lot of luck, got myself in a green, green, green position, having had about 8 or 9 bets matched over the weekend!"

Level 5. "£200 on Denman. On the nose. Deep."

Level 6. I don't really want to talk about this. This is that feeling when you know you should have layed off a monster bet on Roger Federer as he drops to 1.04 with two match points, but you get way too greedy, leave it alone and end up feeling salt-water fill up your lungs as Fed inexplicably throws it away.

So... What do you think?

DP