Pitchsiding

There are two core inputs to the trading process - market price and market timing.
Knowledge of the former represents the 'value' on offer - the difference in price between the market and reality - while knowledge of the latter fine tunes the process for maximisation of profits.

But the latter also offers a route to proprietary profits based not on skill but on one's position in the marketplace,

In 1929, financial market traders were dependent on the ticker-tape.
In a pre-IT world, all trades were manually recorded by armies of under-privileged people.
There was no other option.

Once the operators at the top of the Ponzi scheme decided that the fake price summit had been reached, they sold across the board and extensively.
When this Crash occurred, the ticker-tape operators were unable to keep up with the tsunami of "sell" orders.
Consequently, the ticker-tape started to fall behind time.

But the ticker-tape meant that the reality was lost on the general trading population until it was too late.
Traders (and normal human beings too) were selling stock without being able to gauge the price at which they were selling their assets, as the prices were out-of-date and everybody understood that there was a run on.

This was a very early example of pitchsiding in the financial sector - insiders gaining (or losing less) at the expense of the bewildered and the befuddled who were outside the loop.

Move forward to 2015 and the same market advantage is built into modern day financial market architecture via the utilisation of High Frequency Trading (HFT) algorithms, Dark Pool operations and selective arbitrage trading.

Inevitably, these distortions of time entered the world of sport once markets were attached to events - it is termed 'pitchsiding' or 'courtsiding'.

The first occasion that I witnessed pitchsiding was at British racecourses in the 1990's.
Operatives would park up a vehicle outside the racecourse with line-of-sight link to the bookmakers trading on the rails and utilise bullet microphones to listen into these primary tier bookies. Once insider money surfaced, the operatives took advantage of the information (and the available price) to trade the inside information at a timing advantage to the remainder of the market.

These behaviours also have their origins in the Depression when illegal street bookies would offer prices on races that had already been run!

Pitchsiding spread to other sports once global markets were developed on sporting events.
There is an inevitable time delay on images being flashed around the world.
Other communication routes are instant.

So in football, there can be a 10 second delay between the action taking place on the pitch and the HDTV images hitting your screen. A lot can happen in ten seconds!

Pitchsiding is particularly profitable and far easier to facilitate when the geographical distances are greater with the result that the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 was always a prime target for the pitchsiders.
Hence, some good news for once.
As this report from New Zealand shows, there is a momentum within the ICC to eradicate sports corruption and the pitchsiders present at the opening World Cup match between New Zealand and Sri Lanka were removed from the ground (http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/cricket/66201423/betting-cheats-caught-at-cricket-world-cup-match).

In reality, pitchsiding might be seen as a form of virtual time travel...
... but imagine going back in time to place £25m in the Asian underground on a draw between PSG and Chelsea last evening (http://wheresthatfuckinhemlock.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/is-time-travel-logically-possible.html).

Pitchsiding is a criminal offence in parts of Australia and carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

Unfortunately, in the world of football, pitchsiding is merely seen as another competitive advantage for the bookmakers like insider trading and access to Dark Pools.
And, of course, no action is taken.
Market distortions to the benefit of a financial elite are never a problem. 

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