Is Betfair fair?

No, I don't want to discuss about Betfair as a exchange company and its monopoly in the business. I've got couple of emails lately from people who actually do trading for a longer time (months) and still are unable to make a constantly profit from it.

Trading betfair horses is very tricky in meaning that you can be in 80% of predictions right, but you didn't get matched and you miss the opportunity to earn money. Although you were right you made no profit. On the other hand, in 20% when your predictions are wrong, you will get matched surely and you lost your money. Therefore, no surprise when you are at the end of the day in red numbers. How to prevent from this kind of situation?

Firstly; you cant be greedy. When you expect a big swing you should put your money at the best available odds ASAP to get matched immediately. Don't wait to be matched, you will miss the opportunity because most of traders jump in front of you as they are probably not so greedy as you.

Secondly; if you get matched and you are still in open position expecting long swing, try to exit from it laying/backing different odds during the swing. Don't put all backed or layed money on one odd when you think the price should go, the movement wont be probably as strong as you think and you don't exit right.

And the last one; when you are wrong, even only in 20% of your entry positions, your losses can be turn into a big ones very quickly and you will end with loss, bad feeling, less confidence and so on....in the end. So cut your losses quickly. I usually allow 2-4 ticks against me, depending on market.
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It seems I can't fulfil my target (profit 500€/day) at the end of this year, because of the lack of horses races. I extend the period till the 15th Feb.

Good luck
Mark

Clean sheet

Finally I traded some races on Saturday. It was very good day, without any loss race, but I must admit I traded only first 10 races. Trading was quite easy (ideal for beginners), however I hardly took a profit from race: Horse Racing / Sthl 11th Dec : 1m Sell Stks, I went in-play and took a risk to stay in green numbers. Luck on my side and I've got my first clean sheet.

13 Dec

The lack of trading

Due to the bad weather I didn't trade anything last days. Hope it will be better at the end of this week. You can check weather prospects table here. Maybe on Thursday I will sit down for the markets or on Friday.

However, this gives me time to buy some Christmas presents, enjoy the winter, try skiing and so on..If you have family take the kids out and play for a while. Winter is not so bad!

Mark

Hope is your enemy

Everyone knows it, for sure. You back/lay a horse, it turns against you and then you can watch yourself hoping that the odd come back.

This happened to me in Horse Racing / Taun 25th Nov : 2m7f Hcap Chs - 16:30 race. It was very unusual race from my point of view. Moreover, I made a small loss on market before this one, so I wanted to get the money back quickly. 8 minutes before the start I was thinking that second fav will go down or will be quite stable at 4.00 and 1st fav will raise. So I made a lay bet on the 1st fav. Ooops, that was big mistake. I realized it too late. I was still thinking that my sense of prediction was right. Then I backed it at 3.15 (later it came to 2.90) and I just cut my loss till the end. Then I realized that big money were matched on this market. Very unusual market with many big swings. Probably many traders win big money or loss big money. 

If everyone can remember this race, write your opinion in comments. It would be nice, if we could put and discuss our thoughts about trading in comments from time to time. 

Anyway, it was a good day and I think I will be relaxing this weekend.

25 Nov

Monday

Yesterday was Monday - the first day with higher stakes and at the end of trading I was disappointed. That's why I write this post today on Tuesday.

I started carefully then as I gain more confidence my profits raised. Unfortunately the carefulness costs me lot of energy and that is probably the reason I lost 86€ in last 4 races. It could be very good day, but it wasn't. I have to analyse the mistakes, but I am quite sure that I was just tired at the end. I need rest, no trade, just relaxing and  gaining new energy.

My first public target:  earnings 500€ per day at the end of this year. 

I saw today that it could be done quite easily but I have to be FULLY focused on what I am doing.

"Hard work has made it easy. That is my secret. That is why I win." Nadia Comaneci. 

This quote perfectly suits on trading. When you are trading, you must notice many things; 

•  WOM
•  Graphs
•  Matched/unmatched money on each odd
•  Others  runners
•  Money traded on each horse
•  Total money traded
•  Time... 

When you can notice all these factors, and analyse them correctly the work is then very easy and the market is yours! You will win! Easy!

22 Nov - higher stakes

Mark

Quiet, easy and profitable weekend

Just a quick post showing my results during weekend. I don't like trading during weekend, there is less money in the markets, especially on the evening markets, but they are easy to read and predict.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow as I'm going to rise my stake (hopefully profit too). I don't know if I will trade from 1st race of the day because of some duty I have to do tomorrow, but I will trade evening races for sure.

20 Nov

21 Nov

A good day after sickness

I traded a few races today, not all but I had to do something because of the loss from yesterday :).

Today was easy and I feel much better as well. I mean I am totally fit now. 

Since I am trader on Betfair I still use stake (no book profit or liability or tick profit or something like that) I think that using stakes is the fastest way to get your bet matched. I can see a little delay when I have set tick profit; my computer was calculating too long and I need every second.
I intend to rise my stake from Monday.
It remains me my beginnings, when I start from €2 stake and week after week I rise my stake like this: 5€ 10€ 25€ 50€ 75€ 100€... After a successful week with particular stake I rise it on next Monday. It was pretty stressful every Monday for me when I could see the difference in profits/loss and usually Monday used to be my worst day. Now I know it wasn't the best solution in developing my trading, because of the scare of big loses with bigger stakes.

If you are beginner I would advice you to rise your stake after every successful day you have traded. For example: If you trade with 10€ stakes and you are in profit today, rise your stake to 11€ for tomorrow. If you are in profit, then 12€ day after tomorrow, and so on. If you have a bad day don't rise anything, next day trade with the same amount stake. Rise it only when you are in confidence (profit) with what you are doing.

Hope you find it helpful.

Mark

18 Nov

well...it seems I am still sick

The illness affected my today's trading. I lost 74€ in 3 races. Then I realised I should quit for today and go back to my bed. 

My last losing day was on September, but today's lost remains me my beginnings. Fortunately one loss per couple of months cant broke my confidence, but I remember when I start trading, that every losing day was terrible. It is very important to take something from this days, I remember I recorded my trades and then analyse them sec by sec. This helps you when you are novice, because when you actually trade and you are in open position, especially in losing open position, you can find yourself how you hypnotize the odds to go your way. You don't look at the market as you should at the moment. You cant see the opportunities, when you are focusing only on your unmatched money there.  

Tomorrow I am not going to trade.

17 Nov

Sickness

I am sick :(.
Haven't trade any races last days. Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to trade.

Let's start!

Hi everyone,
I'm back with a new post. It seems, that blogging is what I wanted and what I was looking for lately. It provides me a back controlling of my results, now when my P&L statements are for public I feel I should be more responsible in what I am doing.

I was highly making effort on my good final result today. I wanted to have a good P&L start for blogging. I only traded 18 of 20 markets today, however I am glad that I could keep my mind fresh and my hand fast. On the other hand it costs a lot of energy, so thats why I didn't trade the last 2 races.

9 Nov

The very first post :)

Hello everyone,

today is the day when I am finally starting my blog about Betfair horse trading. I trade only pre-race UK horses (rarely IRE or AUS) on Betfair.

I learnt trading by myself, just sitting and watching the numbers :). It took about 2 years and now I am full-time trader. I'm really happy that I am self-employed. My working time is flexible, however I trade almost every day. You know, it's like an addiction. When you try, you want to try once more, you want to be better and better. Obviously, I want to improve myself, I can see and feel that the space for development is still there.

Please do not hesitate to contact me about everything; it's interesting to share knowledges about trading and different views of the market.

I have uploaded my yesterday P&L (a better than average day); today I didn't trade (I was setting this blog :) so hope you like it.

Thanks for reading.

7 Nov