Staying on track

Nothing amazing to post about today, only managed to trade the last hour of the racing and did about five races, will be happy when the lighter evenings are here and the racing runs later as it means I would have more opportunities- hopefully.

Apart from all of that I added another £0.80 to my Betfair account

Betfair trading day

So today was the second day back since my short break away from betfair, nothing significant to report about the trading was pretty standard effort from myself, I managed to add £1 to my account which in terms of bank size is quite a decent amount, I am currently looking for around 7.5% a day return as I was advised in this post from Steve, obviously this is a target to be aiming for but I must let that my decision making processes throughout the trading day, but I reckon I should have £100 by the end of March.

Good game from the Carling Cup Final- I had it on in the background, was impressed that Birmingham won it and not the gunners, although I would like them to do well against Barca in the CL this week as it would be good to the Spanish team go out, this is the view from a Man Utd fans point of view anyway. Just going back to the Carling cup I had green on the winners market of the competition but I can see when or where I have been paid out on it as there was retained commission and nothing else in my P+L for football, may send an email to Betfair about it.

Getting back into Betfair Trading

Today I got back into horse race trading, not on a grand scale by any means, I deposited £10 into my Betfair account and traded away for a good chunk of the afternoon, good to see that there wasn't any issues with the reliability this afternoon- unlike Twitter. Any way I made a number of scalp trades and finished off the day with around a 12% or around £1.20 return on my bank, many traders make more per tick than I can in a day but I think that's one place I have been going wrong with myself, so will stop comparing me to others and worry about my bank and my bank alone. I always start off well making small amount with a small betting bank, but always seem to struggle to convert that into any amount of serious cash, so we will see how it goes over the long term but for today I am happy with it.

Missing the buzz of sports trading

Today I thought to myself, I miss the buzz of trading on betfair, but that lead me to thinking I shouldn't be missing the 'buzz' I should be missing the lost opportunities to try and make money from betfair trading, maybe this is why I haven't be as successful as I have hoped in the past, maybe I am trading for the wrong reasons sometimes, I know when I am sat here trading away, taking scalps race after race, it gets quite boring and then boom it goes bad, the odds go seriously against me and I can't face getting out for a loss equal to the profit of the last couple of races, this is where the buzz comes from for me anyway, but to be a consistently profitable trader in the long run, I will have to accept trading is boring and should focus on the money aspect that's coming in and accepting losses along the way rather than waiting for it to go tits ups and provide me with a bit of entertainment while I try and earn it back through inplay betting. 90% of the time it will be OK but the remaining 10% always go on to cost you a substantial part of of your bank, but the theory is always easier that the practical.
Why would we 'gamble' two or three days profit instead of accepting a loss that we could get back in the next three races, is it because everybody likes to see positive figures in their P+L and to accept a loss is like taking a step backwards, anyway that's something I will be thinking about over the next few days before I try my hand at trading again

Determination and Self Belief Needed When Trading on Betfair

I know that I would need determination as a sports trader to take it further, maintaining your focus to get your goal is the key, but sometimes when you are only winning 6 or 7p per race its hard to see how you are ever going to get there.

I have always started a days trading on by betfair by working out what my target increase in bank growth will be and then dividing that by the number of horse races that day.

Once we get to the small figure and it is a small one, I can easily make that amount with one scalp trade on a horse race and divide up the profit so I win no matter what the result. Then move onto the next race, typically there are twenty one races a day and once we have got through all of them we would have a tidy little sum to add to our bankroll, I normally aim for 5% a day, at this rate of daily increase I will double my bank roll in fifteen trading days.

So there you have it, no matter what we want to achieve on betfair or even in any part our lives, as long as we take a step forward every day, even if its a little one, we will reach our goal we have aimed for in the end, and that's how we can all succeed at what we want to.

Why Betfair Is Like The Stock Market For the Working Man

Let me start by giving you two examples- 

1. If I asked you what you thought of Vodafone getting a new CEO, if you are like me then you would probably not have clue and further more we wouldn't know what effect it would have on the share price.
2. But on the other hand if I asked you what you thought of John Terry being injured and not being able to play for this weekend, you are probably aware of what it would do to Chelsea's chances in the game and more than likely know how it would affect the odds market.

The above are two different situations but the principle is the same and this is what leads me to say 'Why Betfair Is Like The Stock Market For the Working Man' because betfair is different to traditional bookmakers as you don't just have to back the outcome as you can lay it, by laying we are saying the outcome wont happen, so as Betfair is a betting exchange and we can choose which side of the market we want to be on, we can back or lay, or to put it another way we can buy or sell- as in a stock market environment.

So lets say we lay Chelsea (buy) as we now think the won't win the game, once a game starts the odds price is moving in line with peoples opinions and will start to drift out if they don't score, once the odds have moved sufficiently we can back Chelsea (sell) and have a locked in profit on Chelsea, but we expect them to not win, we would place another lay bet to hedge our profit across all three outcomes in the match odds.

You don't need thousands to get involved in the sports betting exchange and any profits are tax free.

I have been trading on betfair for a number of years, but only recently have I been able to turn a profit, after lots of experience. My aim this year is to compound the profits I make daily, by adding a small percentage gain each day would allow me to double my betting bankroll with a month, for example 

• If added just 3% profits a day to my betfair balance, then I would double it in 24 days.

Imagine if I could do that every month, I would have a substantial amount by the end of the year, and that is exactly what I am trying to achieve with my betfair bankroll

The magic of the cup

Today I watched Man City v Notts County and for the first half I believed that County had a chance and I suppose the final score didn't really reflect the whole game, but the number of second half goals would of been a traders delight for those who lay U4.5 goals at half time, I'm sure they would of made a few pound profit for not a lot of risk. Since the draw has been made for the next round Arsene Wenger has come out and said that Arsenal have a good chance of beating Man Utd should they be able to see off the O's, I know Man Utd found it difficult yesterday but that wasn't exactly the first team display from us, surely Arsene should be focussing on the next game in the cup rather than saying this that and the other because if fergie did it he would be straight on his back.
I see betfair went down again today and by looking around the forums I see many people had open positions in both horse races and football markets, I see a lot of Full time traders saying that you should have second accounts at Betdaq I can see the positives for having two accounts, two reasons- firstly the extra free bet and secondly you can carrying trading, but my second point is a funny one as lets say betfair goes down and you are not aware of your full position or you have put in a lay or a back, how do you if it was matched and therefore how do you know how much to lay off on betdaq, but if it happened pre KO I'm sure you could comfortably trade a match on the betdaq site or with betangel for betdaq. Bit miffed I have no money in Betfair at the moment, but looking forward to getting back into it soon enough.

Man Utd 2nd XI

I watched the FA cup game this evening, Man Utd v Crawley, it was obvious when the draw was made that fergie would put out a weakened side, but the performance that was on show from Man Utd players especially Bebe and Obertan was a joke, they are not even good enough to get into the Crawley team, towards the end of the second half I wanted to them to equalise as I didn't feel like we deserved to go through on that performance, but you can't take anything away from the visitors they really played well and didn't seem to overwhelmed with it all. But I suppose a win is a win and with Chelsea going out today, our chances may improve and Sir Alex may start playing players that are more capable that the shower of s£$% that was out there today. I considered backing Man U in the match odds as I thought it would be like free money, but decided against it when the odds in the morning were 1.11 drifted out to 1.19 I knew that would of been down to team news, so not really the walk over that everyone predicted and wouldn't have felt like free money at all having to wait until the 90th minute or laying off wouldn't have been worth it as you are already taking a gamble to start with, so I wouldn't of wanted to lose any of the profit by laying off or hedging, never mind that's all hind sight as I am not really up to speed with football although I want to get back involved sooner rather than later, but for the moment I will stick with the horses before branching out.

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Temporarily on hold

I have withdrawn my funds as they are more needed out of betfair than in it, I will resume trading next week sometime, with a renewed optimism and enthusiasm, by the way I am not asking for a £250 loan if anybody is offering ;-)

Good luck with whatever you are trading- see you next week

Improving the discipline in trading

Having wrote a lot about having discipline when trading, I managed to stick my thought process throughout the whole days trading, my aim today was to increase my bank by 7.5%, something which was mentioned to me a few posts back, it only works out at a couple of pence per race, but more important than the money was being able to stick to my goals and more importantly not going in play to try and recover losses.

I made a total of £1.88 from a bank of £21.92 using 10% stake, not a massive amount but satisfying to me as at least it shows a profit and its a step forward, the only bad thing its one of many steps that I need to take, thats in terms of personal development along with bank growth. Having such a small bank is a bit disillusioning as only one week ago my bank was £143, I have withdraw £40 so thats a pretty substantial loss over one week but its all a learning curve as they say.

Not a good day

I started by withdrawing £40 today,before I started trading, as recently my trading habits have suggested to me that I am due a big loss and I was right, trading away happily when I was hit by a steamer, deep down it all comes down to my ability to accept a loss, so the biggest and only loss today was £16.95, not easy to take with my tiny trading bank that I now have left, I went on to profit in most of the remaining races, but it doesn't really matter when I am now only making 10-20p a race. This will take me a long time to recover and hopefully I may learn a few things a long the way.

As I have said in previous posts my expectations are consistently getting the better of my discipline and that is going to get me no where fast. Tonight I am going to a good read on self discipline and personal development, maybe dig out the trading books I have, to see if it jogs anything in my mind.

I have had successful periods in the past and would like to have them again, if I don't get the hang of being patient amongst other things then it could be the end of horse race trading for me.

Up and Out

I stuck to my plan toady of aiming for 50 per race, but fell short at 46p I only managed to trade 16 races, as it wasn't worth coming back for the last few once I had had my dinner, I would of like to have done them all but its not the end of the world, there's always tomorrow.

What I am about to do might create widespread criticism in the betfair trading (joke) but I am going to withdraw £5 a day for the foreseeable future, rather than continue with bank growth with all the profits, providing that I trade that day and exceed £5 profit, then I will continue to take my £5 a day but they will soon add up.

No trading today

No trading today, but thats no bad thing as I do remember saying last week and many Saturdays before that I  always seem to struggle due to the added volume.
So maybe its good to take a day off once in a while. Away from trading it was good to spend some quality time with my family and witness probably the best ever goal I have seen scored, oh and a bit of time on the xbox connect, really laugh they are.

Heres to hoping to tomorrow, I know we are horse race traders, but not really into horses but I must take a moment and say how much a great shame that those horses died like that.

Manc derby day

Not sure what time I will be trading today as I am off to watch the Manchester derby and wont be back until later, might be able to squeeze a few races in late afternoon, not checked but hopefully there might be some evening races on as well- better than watching 'take me out' with the wife lol.

Good luck, what ever your trading

Keep it green

Expectations?

I think that I have watched one too many trading videos on youtube, no matter what I say to myself I always want more in a race and normally end up with less. I got part way through today and was a bit down- both me and my betfair balance, I think that I think my betfair balance should be more than it is and I am trying to trade that way as well, pretending my balance is over £100 or something. So this lead me to be over exposed, trying too hard and generally losing.

So to correct what I have done wrong, from now on my aim is 50p per race for 100 races and so far I have completed six, so its 94 to go and then it will be 60p for 100 races and so on until I get to £1 a race.

If I cant keep my discipline, focus, concentration, commitment, drive and determination for those near on 500  races I will give up the horses for now and try a different sport to trade, but hopefully it wont come to that.

Anyway I ended the day -£0.67 so not so bad in money terms the way the day ended but happy with what I have learn't more than anything.

Keep it green

Re-organising

After a few constructive comments, I have moved my ads from between the post title and post body, sorry to anyone who wasn't happy with the layout.

Marching On

Another typical day on lower stakes, adding up my 20, 40 and 50 odd pences gave me a return today of £8.02, not bad but not here yet, away to go but sure I can do it, I always like it when there are plenty of races, but the Irish races upset my flow as I like to get into a market at the 10 minutes to go mark and when they finish its usually only 5 minutes until the next race in Britain or vice versa. But beggars cant be choosers, so I cant at least be grateful that its not cancelled or Betfair decide to do a 'planned' outage in the middle of the day, what they hell are they thinking of.

I actually feel in the frame of mind at the moment where I am looking forward to trading again, so roll on tomorrow.

Good luck

Keep it green

Bouncebackability

Well following yesterdays massive loss I have come back from the markets with a 7% gain, obviously 7% gain of £62 is a bit different to 58% loss of £142 but its a step back on the long road we all face. I have had my bank over a £100 many times and each time I have lost it it has been because I do silly things to try and keep it there when something goes wrong, ie a losing trade, not content with redding up I risk it by going inplay to keep my bank where it is, but why cant I apply the same principle that I used with trading that got me there in the first place?

Don't know if that's a question I am looking for answer from anyone or a statement I'm making to myself, but something I have to think about if I am going to get anywhere past the £100-£200 mark.

Had an awkward request today, it was made by comment through this blog, I don't if anyone else had the same, I am not going to name them, but seriously when someone is asking for money to trade with, I think you need to take some time out and have a rest from trading.

Keep it green

Showing profit and loss

Just to let everybody know I have set up a Facebook fan page, I upload photos of screen shots daily, showing off  both Profit and loss, most of them of them are from using the geeks toys but there are alos some of the standard betfair screen.

Facebook page

Good luck today and lets look forward to a better day than I had yesterday.

Keep it green

£8.02

Oh my god, today I have suffered the biggest loss in a long time for me, it works out at about 58% of my bank gone, the story behind what happened- I opened a market on late with only 1 min to go before the off, I selected my £10 stake and decided to lay @ about 10's maybe higher and as soon as my lay went in the market plummeted down I back some of it to red up most of leaving a £20 red but if hedged I was facing about £1.50 loss at the time, why I couldn't accept it I don't know, was out of character for me and got annoyed with myself and the loss was growing and growing, I think to odds were down to about 4's and I decided to lay it again for few pound to let me green up sooner- once the odds went up, obviously it won and I lost about £30 and then I must of been in chasing mode as I lost again on the next two races to get my total for day to -£82.03.

So the where does the £8.02 come from- well that is my total profit for the last 30 days from betfair over 415 markets traded, bringing my average per race all the way down to 2p per race for the last month.

Pissed off, well not really I accept it, I know what I have done wrong and I will just try and put it on my 'not to do' list. But seriously I felt like I was half way up the mountain and now I am back at the bottom again, knowing full well it takes a long time to get up there, but I feel confident I can achieve it and look forward to tomorrow.

Good luck

Keep it green

quick 1%

I have just 1% of my bank in on the first race at Southwell, what ever happens, who ever wins the race I've got 1% in the bag already

Does the withdrawal method work?

As you know, I said on Friday that I would start to withdraw the profit when I get over 3% increase for a day, it seems that the daily returns just wouldn't make it worthwhile withdrawing on a daily basis, so I think if I want to reward myself with trading then I will do it on monthly basis instead.

Looking back at today I did OK, even though there was only two meeting, I don't really like it when the races are more than 10 mins apart as the markets form earlier but not necessarily the same and although you have to adapt to different market situations, I would prefer it if I could just roll up at the 10 mins to go mark and take my profit, but I suppose if it was that easy then everybody would be doing.

Good Luck

Keep it green 

Roll on summer

I know I am not the best sports trader in the land but how are I supposed to learn, if horse race meetings are being cancelled each week, we need time in the markets to gain experience and without markets I cant get involved, but then again patience is the key and staying patient is something I am trying to  learn.
Anyway its nearly time to have ago, so see you in a bit people.

Good luck

Keep it green

A day of two halves

I got to my pc later than normal today, missed a couple of the early races, by four o'clock I had worked up to a £5 profit, but come the 4 o'clock race I messed it up completely and I had a red of £2.50, I think it was me being over confident and looking at things that are not there and hoping, more than analysing the markets, hoping they would go up that is, but never mind, I would of liked a bit more out of the day but green is green and that's got to be a good thing.
One thing I will say about weekend horse race markets,

• Saturday- Full of big money bettors and traders, 
• Sunday-  Feels like this is a beginners day and everyone is new like me and constantly fighting over the scraps to make bit of cash.

Anyway tomorrow is the start of a new week and lets look forward to the green run continuing.

Keep it green

Scalper or Swinger

I have made my profits on betfair so far by scalping horse race markets, back and laying one tick apart and hedging for a profit, I know the possibilities are there but I always find myself focusing in directly on the horse I am scalping and always lose sight of the bigger market moves either on the same horse or a different one in the same race, I can scalp OK, but if I try and swing trade for a longer market move and dont take the tick profit when its there I normally miss it and end up scratching for nothing or even worse accepting a loss.
What would you consider as being better pointers for swing trading. Other than that its just another days scalping on betfair for me.

Goodluck whatever your doing.

Keep it green

Fingers crossed

Lets hope for a better day on betfair today, I hope API is in better shape today for all our sakes.
I forgot to say yesterday, that I don't half struggle with Saturdays, I think it must be then increased volumes and number of people on the exchange, anyone else have any opinions on this?

Goodluck

What a day on the betfair site

I thought I ought to give an update of todays efforts before it gets to late, well the to start with the API didn't do any of us any favours, even now when I try and log in to get my account balance to see what my final Profit total is, I know its in the region of £6, so even after I have worked out what a 3% increase would be, is it worth withdrawing the remaining £2 odd I don't think so, not even enough for one pint never mind three ;-).

Still its a step forward and green is green, and I'll take that any day of the week.

Apology accepted Cassini, before moving on and leaving that matter in traders history, I feel there are a lot of new traders trying to crack betfair trading who would be happy to make £10 a day to start off with. So I think its something of a parody for a beginner- everybody wants to withdraw money and everybody wants a big trading bank as well, something I will have to accept and try to maintain my determination for the long term.

Hopefully betfair will be back up tomorrow

Good luck

Keep it green

Taking a reward

I have done well today, considering my bank size and staking, I don't want to get ahead of myself to quickly, as I have been in this situation before and don't want to end up where I am out of my depth in terms of liability exposed to the market when it goes against me. Don't get me wrong its been good making and increasing my betfair bankroll by 10% a day but sooner rather than later I feel I would be in for a big shock if didn't start taking some out each day.

So what I have decided is that there are 24 days left in February so I am going to increase my bank by only 3% a day and withdraw the remainder of the profit at the end of each trading day.

Today I made £12.14 but I did get lucky by being on the right side of a couple of market spikes, not saying its all a bed of roses as I took a loss of £3.21 in the Lingfield 3:25 race, it wasn't a case of not accepting the loss quick enough, it was me getting involved in the market too early with too high stakes and market just plummeting away, I redded up but everything I tried just made it worse so I took the loss and moved on.

So bank increases by 3% and I take home £8.39

Good luck

Keep it green

its tough going on betfair this afternoon, in profit by a bit but it tough getting there

Good end to a bad day

I managed to do the Wolves races this evening and turn  -£0.14 from 23 markets into a profit of £4.02 from 28 markets, I don't see this as a bad day now, it was just a blip mid way through the day, still managed to make 3.3%, but the thing is it doesn't compare to recent days figures, but got to be happy as green is green.

Keep it green

What value would you put on an afternoon's trading

I have traded all afternoon and my P+L is -£0.14, my own fault as I let a lay go inplay when I went to pick my daughter up from school, it was a straight lay of £2 with intention of netting a few quid while I was away from the computer and obviously it didn't pay off and threw away all my profit up to that point and more, I have traded the last hour and made up the difference, now I going to have a go at the evening races and try and make something of this day, although I will be concious of not try to win big amounts in comparison to make bankroll but I would be happy with £0.50 per race and with six races left, that'll do for me

That another fine day

Another typically standard day scalping betfair markets, I like scalping and locking in the profit but sometimes its seems like a lot of effort for little return, especially when you are scalping one tick at time and then you end up on the wrong side of a four tick loss, it takes a lot of work to get back to neutral position and then scalp a bit more for a profit.
I do find myself very reserved in the market and I try to limit my time from the 10 minutes to about 5 minutes before the race starts, but if I find myself in a losing position I will scalp away until I am green or the red is small enough for me to accept, but sometimes it takes me right to the wire and I need to improve my discipline in a few areas,be happy with what I have achieved and try to wait until the race and don't get greedy.

I made over 10% in trading today a very good return, not sure I can keep up 10% a day as I am on a £10 stake at the moment, so as the bank increases, the percentage value will decrease even if I maintain £10 a day, but £10 a day is still worth shouting about.

Good Luck

Keep it green

5 Meetings

Seems like its going to be a good days sports trading, with four horse racing meetings in GB and one in IRE I reckon I should be able to squeezed a good profit from the betfair markets.

Seems the upgrade went OK

Seems the betfair upgrade went well, I traded 15 races in total and did quite well, with my highest return being £1.12 and lowest race for a scratch(a scratch trade is a winning trade) in total I made £7.27, did think I wouldn't be able to get straight back into it since I have only traded three races since Friday. So good results lets hope this is start of a good month.

Good luck

Keep it green

Betfair API

Well I must that it seems like the betfair API is back to normal ( hope I haven't spoke to soon) the only thing was my profile had gone from the geeks toy when I loaded it up, anyone else find this.