FINE AS FROG HAIR,

I never said Buffet was making 100% returns, I know he made 20%+ average during 50 years.

Let me ask you which is more difficult:

Compounding £20,000 by 25% per year reinvesting the profit and ending up with £1.4 Billion, or earning a return of 100% for 50 years without compounding, so 50x £20,000 = £1 Million.

Warren Buffet agrees that making large returns on a small capital base is perfectly feasible and insists that investors in Berkshire Hathaway should not expect the results from the past to continue as it becomes difficult managing 100s of Billions in investments.

200,000

The number of active users increased to 652,000, an increase of 25% on the previous year. Betfair now holds £240m of customer monies on deposit in ringfenced accounts.

http://corporate.betfair.com/Press%20release%20financial%20year%20end%20April%202009.pdf

Not sure what active user definition is here

Investor
In answer to your somewhat curious question, both would be equally difficult ( no impossible) imo.
Buffet's point about managing larger amounts is really only that the opportunities come up more infrequently to find good returns, whereas with smaller investment amounts more opportunities abound.
I don't believe he has ever said that it is easier per se to make high returns on smaller investments.
If Lori or anybody else on here seriously believes that they can consistently make returns of 100's percent pa on capital dedicated to gambling activities then they wuld be able to capitalise on that ability to become super wealthy. Not just a few k per week or whatever.
How many really super wealthy gamblers do you know about ?
I mean proven ones, not those who claim to be through books.
There is a syndicate of Australians who I know, for sure, through computer mobelling, have cracked the Asian totalisors. In fact I think the richest man in Tasmania, Australia, is one of these chaps.
So it can be done for sure.
But only on a very rare basis by a few very rare people.

You're entitled to that opnion of course.
But I disagree wholeheartedly.
It's not all about what one person can do or another can't.
It's about people claiming to be able to do what very, very few ( if any at all) have ever been able to do before in the history of mankind.
That is, generate consistent returns on capital of hundreds or even thousands of percent per annum.
Unless of course you're Bernie Madoff or Charles Ponzi.

Yep, that is a good point I will concede, particularly as it relates to many non-core gambling markets which are probably still very inefficiently priced, but have no real liquidity.

So you just find a market(s) where you can turnover your capital 100 % per day and make a consistent 1 % edge doing it ?
Easy peasy.
Don't mind- I'm just jealous.

Interesting thread actually. Rather like Lori, I opened my account with £100 and that's the only deposit I ever made. After turning it into four figures in about three months, (that was easy) I spent the next year or so turning it into £21 and realised it wasn't that easy.

Since then I've built the bank up (like Lori again, a combination of trading and punts) and although I keep around £30k in there, (cashing out when it gets to £35k) it's only because I don't want to ever deposit again, and have this fear that somehow I need a huge cushion, when I really don't. I am seldom exposed to more than £4k - £5 and after a big loss I tend to be hesitant about exposing myself to that extent again before I've recovered it anyway.

Maybe a psychologist can explain my thinking, but it certainly means my ROI is lower than it should be! Perhaps if bank interest rates were higher I'd act differently.

As stated, scale is a key issue. Some markets on here only hit a few hundred quid whereas others exceed £1m. If your 'edge' prevails in a low volume market then high percentages are possible but high £'s are not.

My point before was that just because something hasn't been done (allegedly) it doesn't mean it can't be done. You indicate that it hasn't been achieved in the history of mankind then go on to identify two people that have achieved it.

Perhaps overall performance is a product of the things we have discussed (edge, volume, value etc) but maybe we have to include 'attitude to risk' as a major factor. For example, turning over your £20k across 200 trades a day is one approach to risk and turning it over on one trade a year is another. If that second approach is applied to an 8/1 winner then the figures initially proposed are obviously possible.

And another reasonwhy there can't be many big winners on here .
Are you telling me out of 2 million members , that a handful of people have the majority edge with vitrually no competition ?


What a load of old toffee :D

FINE AS FROG HAIR 02 Apr 22:32

Investor
In answer to your somewhat curious question, both would be equally difficult ( no impossible) imo.
Buffet's point about managing larger amounts is really only that the opportunities come up more infrequently to find good returns, whereas with smaller investment amounts more opportunities abound.
I don't believe he has ever said that it is easier per se to make high returns on smaller investments.

Buffet has said pretty much literally that he would expect to make higher % returns if he managing a few million.

If Lori or anybody else on here seriously believes that they can consistently make returns of 100's percent pa on capital dedicated to gambling activities then they wuld be able to capitalise on that ability to become super wealthy. Not just a few k per week or whatever.
How many really super wealthy gamblers do you know about ?
I mean proven ones, not those who claim to be through books.

Being able to make consistent returns around 100% does not guarantee you will become super wealthy. In fact if you could not effectively use a capital base over £10k and made 100% per year on average, you would be quite poor if this was your only source of income.

Just because you're making a high % return on investment does not automatically mean it is scalable.

Adam Todd who was mentioned before is an example of this. He made about £100k on Betfair over three years. However he could not effectively use a bank in excess of £3000. So while he was making in excess of 1000% a year, this only translated to an average of £34-35k which is just the equivalent of a decent salary. He was hardly on track to ever become super wealthy, and in fact pretty much gave up trading to focus on creating and selling his software which was more lucrative.

starfish and coffee 03 Apr 14:11
Coachbuster 03 Apr 12:46
And another reasonwhy there can't be many big winners on here .
Are you telling me out of 2 million members , that a handful of people have the majority edge with vitrually no competition ?
What a load of old toffee :D

Never heard of Pareto?

_________________

Yes , but i'm not sure how the pareto effect comes into gambling . Those with large banks on here don't have a larger edge ,as they would in the world of finance

Amongst the general population there is a very good reason for 90% owning 10% of the wealth .Money buys labour,it also buys materials and the means to make money .

On this site you are on your own, amongst some of the greatest math minds in the world . It's simply harder on here .

Is Ron still rockin?

The average man on here have got to ignore the SUPERMEN on here .

Not saying they're lying but those sorts of increases in capital are a million miles away from most of us .

A good starting point is to start with a bank of 1k , and try to double it in the first year  , with compounding you'll have 32k

after 5 years .

Slow and steady is the only way for most .