Speaker Profiles
Simon Rowlands
Simon is 49 and worked at Timeform as a handicapper and editor before punting for a living for a few years early this century,
helping to launch The Sportsman newspaper (of which he was racing editor), launching Betfair (now Timeform) Radio and then rejoining Timeform recently
as its Head of Research and Development. His role involves developing form and betting products for global markets, often through a high level of automation.
He is also a regular blogger on betting.betfair.com. He recently rejoined smartersig and lives in the Peak District.
Dr Alun Owen
Is a 48 year old lecturer in Statistics at Loughborough University and teaches applied statistical modelling using R.
In February 2011 he completed his PhD in the development of dynamic Bayesian forecasting models of football match outcomes and is (acting)
secretary of the newly formed Statistics in Sport Section of the Royal Statistical Society. He has written regularly for the Smartersig
magazine for a number of years, including articles on statistical modelling using R and logistic regression models in horse racing.
He has interests in the development of profitable betting strategies using statistical models, and is currently proofing a football betting
advisory service which is currently showing a healthy profit.
Steve Tilley
Aged 52 Steve has studied, albeit informally, the application of
statistics and mathematics to betting for some 35 years. Mainly
concerned with the practicalities of betting and earning money from it
he is currently making a solid income from spread betting. A long time
contributor to Smartsig magazine he has also provided help to numerous
internet forums and betting firms and was the originator of the Archie
formula which is used extensively for the assessment of betting systems.
His current work involves using PMML to implement complex statistical
models on data sets in a simple a manner as possible.
John Jackson (aka jacko)
b1955. Degree in mathematics. Employed for 25 years in IT up to executive level for what became Marconi Communications.
Retired in 2001 at the end of the Internet boom and the beginning of the UK Gambling boom.
Head-hunted by a London betting syndicate to develop and manage their IT systems.
Over 50 articles for Smart(er)SIG on topics ranging from odds calculations for complex events such as knock-out tournaments;
through money management techniques borrowed from the field of Quantitative Finance and leading gamblers;
to introductory tutorials for prospective Betfair API programmers. Challenging: author of the only magazine article that moved readers to complain to the editor.
Mark Littlewood
Univeristy lecturer for 27 years in Computer Science, now 55 he runs SmarterSig.com as well as betting for a living on behalf of himself and clients.
His bets are refused by virtually every betting shop in his home town, so he now focuses his own betting and research towards the exchange markets.