How Many People Make a Living on Betfair?

what on earth is the "superbot" ?

"super bot"

If the BF  bot  that trades  on behalf  of  BF.



It  mostly  trade  in  100%  Markets.

eg,  the  UnderOver 2.5  goals.


If  you  place  a huge  lay  on  the over 2.5 goals,   super bot swings  it round and  shows  your trade  as a  back  on the   under  2.5  goals..

Thus  clearing the market  and  making lequidity..


Oh  and  it makes  BF  a HUGE  profit  at  0 risk!

I started my attempt to 'make a living' on BF 2 months ago, gone well so far, although it means I dont see as much of the Spanish sun as i'd like :(

surely it should be illegal to make a profit on your own site, betfair being impartial?

surely it should be illegal to make a profit on your own site, betfair being impartial? #


Classic  !


80+ %  of all money  in "the city"  is made by banks  betting against  tere own customers,
why would  BF be any different. ??


Besides  most of BF trades  just help  clear markets..
(exactly  what  the arbs   were doing).

I make a living here.  I have been doing it for 5 years.  The superbot made no difference, the pc made no difference.  My profits dipped significantly about a year ago but I put that down to an increase in competition which was/is bound to happen.

Lots of bets, lots of markets all using a bot.

It can be done :)

FAO,  catfl(a,e,i,o,u)ppo


My profits dipped significantly about a year ago but I put that down to an increase in competition which was/is bound to happen.



I think  the general  drop in Profit/Liquidity   isn't  to do with  the Super bot,  of the PC charge.
Def  more recession related.


It just felt  like  the  2010 world cup,  had  MUCH less traded  per game,  on it   Rather  than  the 2006  world cup.
Most bookies  said  they did lots of trade.  Just much less volume.




**Like  I said..
It would be interesting to see the data  from Ladb**s   for  the late  80s   through to the early  90's  recession.   ?? **

There's no difference in the volumes I am processing its just the margins are tighter.

im no full time trader n have a betting bank of normally £100 ish ........ yes £100 , had a week off last week , n mostly trade horse racing pre race to £20/£40 a click with a 1 tick offset n greening up pre race , only play irish jumps racing in play for a small click of £5 with a 6 tick offset n greening up when necessary, i trade at big prices above 10.5 and below 40 , last week i made £409 , ok i mus have spent 40ish hours on here but that beats work , but i dnt think i could ever rely on just betfair, im heading towards the pc pretty sharpish, so that will start to take a bit xtra off me, but hey i dnt like that idea but if im paying pc then im doing something correct , anyway my point is im a dumbo n i can make betfair work for me so anybody should be able to win on here pre race trading , n its all down to gruss n there lovely lovely ladders, by the way i try to win £4/£5 a race if poss, dnt b greedy it all adds up

Never trust anybody who says that he's just a dumbo.
Catch 22 applies.

The superbot doesn't increase liquidity. It just gives the illusion of increased liquidity. I make money trading off that illusion.

FINE AS FROG HAIR Joined: 12 Mar 07
Replies: 374 02 Sep 10 01:03   


Never trust anybody who says that he's just a dumbo.
Catch 22 applies.

lol, ok om not thick , i understand betfair n how its works , but i cold never jack my job in to do this , no guarantees on winning but always a guarantee of getting paid every 4 weeks , if i lost my job n started trading full time n i made it pay then yes i wouldnt go back to work aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh a dream

if you made 400 last week surely thats as much/ more than most people make in a week?

Betfair's cross matching is supposed to provide best execution, but if you offer to lay over 4.5 goals at 34, and back under 4.5 goals at 1.03, it will match your 1.03 back against the 34 lay if someone has put in a back over at 34, rather than matching your 34 lay against it!

probly is more than what most people ,

22/8 - 29/8

Golf: £13.41 | Horse Racing: £341.86 | Soccer: £32.36 | Special Bets: £26.89 | Tote: |  Total P&L:  £414.52

[;)]I started with a bank of £200.00 about 4 month ago and I am upto around £2.7K today, I used to bet through "normal" bookies but rarely won because of the fact that I now almost 100% of the time lay bets, I am not greedy either, I set myself a daily target of £30.00 and as long as I make that then I am happy, it may not sound a lot of money for the time/stress involved but its a nice extra bit on my day to day wage. I have had a lot of luck but I also think I know what I am doing and ALWAYS trade on sports that I have knowledge of, this for me is crucial.

No doubt long term I will pick the wrong bet and things will go wrong but thats life eh

Wow LK that sounds really good to me.

pxb 

The superbot doesn't increase liquidity. It just gives the illusion of increased liquidity. I make money trading off that illusion.


Your  right,  Its  designed  to show  additional Liquidity,  thus  enableing BF,  to  earn  additioanal  funds  by clearing trades  to profit  itself.
( sorry  I re read  my post  I wrote  at midnignt)...


Now  that  Lad B,  have  admitted  that there "In running"   is  all   arb'd  off  against  BF.

How long  untill BF  starts  to trade  against  other bookies  on its  own account ?


Hummm   ?

Superbots   My  Arse      ok  Superbots    put  your  backs   or  lays  up   say  12.00 pm   tomorrow   and  zip  will  marmalise you     start  a  thread   Superbots  V zipper    backs  or  lays    now  dont   mess  me  about  i  play  in  grands  ..  you  on  Superbot  ???

The Investor
When: 02 Sep 10 04:31
Betfair's cross matching is supposed to provide best execution, but if you offer to lay over 4.5 goals at 34, and back under 4.5 goals at 1.03, it will match your 1.03 back against the 34 lay if someone has put in a back over at 34, rather than matching your 34 lay against it!


You'll also notice if someone has a back at say 28 in the same scenario it'll bypass that too

NONE


IF THEY SAY THEY DO THEY ARE LIARS

I think by "best execution", BF mean "executed in a way that extracts as much risk free profit from the market as possible, to swell BF's coffers and make it look more attractive to potential investors, regardless of the concept of fairness to its customers"

Sorry BF but your skimbot is the most unfair aspect of your site and you are neither open nor honest about it.

Very good thread. Always like Aye Robots contributions.

Essentially it comes down to approaching things differently from others. Trading I have no idea about, but I have acquired a lot of books on trading strategy etc, whether or not I'll find the time to read them is another matter.

My approach is betting as opposed to trading and finding ways of predicting the outcome of an event differently than others. I think if you know your sport and you do the required homework then this is possible.

I'm not full time, nowhere near it. I am, however, doing the required prep to get myself into the position where the prospect is possible.

.........................................................

The number one issue though for me is the mental game. It isn't the betting. Picking winners is not difficult if you know what you are doing. Maintaining your equanimity when things go wrong sometimes can be. This also is an area I work on. It no good hoping that you'll handle things well if you lose a few bets on the trot. You've got to know you can handle yourself. imho of course!

I do.

£4k+ in 60 days from a £10 stake

goooogle me.

Yeah, right.  Another paid tipping con.

If it's so ferkin great, why are you wasting your time trying to eke a few quid out of the mugs?

Zzzzzz.

Google you?
I wouldn't even piddle on you.

My guess is that the strategy of a lot of the small winners on this thread is little diff. from that of the big winners--the people who are clearing six figure salaries or slightly less from the site.

If the smaller winners cd scale up and accept a lesser margin, they wd find themselves making much more.

But it takes courage to bet that amount, esp. if you are doing it entirely on a technical basis. (Personally, I am a hobbyist, but do want to think small w/ my business and wd not advise any winner to be thinking small).

There is only so much money in the pot, and it is getting less since the PC and changes to the commission structure. And even if it was viable to "scale up", you would be taking a big risk doing so; Years of carefully accrued profit could be wiped out in no time.

Its not to do with lack of courage, just common sense.

I also think long-term betting options are safer. It is better to stake money, for example, not on individual matches, but over the course of a season, and so to iron out any inconsistances for individual games. Better for example to back Man U and Chelsea in the league final positions than over individual games at short, short odds. You could probably back these teams now and trade out profitably over the course of the next few games, though most people want instant payout.

Most profitable strategies are not directly scalable, the law of diminishing returns kicks in very quickly. I'm not short of either courage or funds and I wouldn't hesitate to increase my stakes if it would make more money but I can tell you from experience that it doesn't. I'm well into six figures of profit a year but I almost never stake three figures in any one bet. The trick is to scale horizontally, that is to use more strategies and operate in more markets. That way you maintain worthwhile margins and reduce variability.

This is negative zero-sum game. You win at someone else's expense. That means that like a game of musical chairs, someone drops out every so often, leaving fewer chairs. And, you pay a fee for the privilege of taking part in the game. When no more people come in with new chairs, the decline sets in.

The number making a living? The answer changes every day and the number goes down. If you can't see that and think that a "living" is possible then you are a fool. The good years will be followed by bad years as sure as the earth goes around the sun.Put another way, make hay while you can and get out at the top.

Sandown
What about population growth creating more gamblers every day ?
People never stop dreaming of easy riches and so overall gambling turnover will probably never decline unless Governments intervene in some negative manner.
So where is the zero sum factor ?

Btw I think it's quite feasible that there are quite a number of pro gamblers making low six figures on here and elsewhere.
Anywthing greater than that would be quite difficult I think, on a recurring basis that is.

Do you only do horse racing robot, or other stuff too?

Betting promotion have been making seven figures, but their profits seem to be steadily dwindling.

@Neely
"I also think long-term betting options are safer. It is better to stake money, for example, not on individual matches, but over the course of a season, and so to iron out any inconsistances for individual games. Better for example to back Man U and Chelsea in the league final positions than over individual games at short, short odds. You could probably back these teams now and trade out profitably over the course of the next few games, though most people want instant payout."

That was my old strategy !!  :)  I worked  a treat  up to about  £80K..
Now  Ive re developed  it  to include  all large football Tournements.  (eg,  champs league, FA cup and carling cup).  And  Ive  gone  from  Just backing,  to  Just laying  in the tournements. 



"Most profitable strategies are not directly scalable, the law of diminishing returns kicks in very quickly. I'm not short of either courage or funds and I wouldn't hesitate to increase my stakes if it would make more money but I can tell you from experience that it doesn't. I'm well into six figures of profit a year but I almost never stake three figures in any one bet. The trick is to scale horizontally, that is to use more strategies and operate in more markets. That way you maintain worthwhile margins and reduce variability. "

- And  this  is were  i am now..   Blending  my  trading   over  many tournements,  and many events.


-  I refuse  to  trade  running "In match".

MIB34
What difference doesit make if you back or lay ?
They're both bets just on opposite outcomes.
How can that be a strategy defining thing ?

There is a definite downturn in the amount of random gamblers betting outside of value since the end of the last football season .

They, for some reason have not returned.

Whether this is a consequence of the recession i'm not sure , i can only assume that certain parties have maybe had interet access denied because of unpaid bills /blacklisting etc ?  who knows . But its very noticable and very sudden.

It is a concerning trend  .

Another reason ,although probably obvious is that folk have less income to spend by way of credit .

That bubble has burst .

This could be the beginning of a long cycle.

The point is that it will only be a cycle.
Betting/gambling is part of human nature and will always thrive in some form or manner.

The good news is that if some of the shrewdies can no longer make it pay, there will be more for those that are left.

If the smaller winners cd scale up and accept a lesser margin, they wd find themselves making much more.

Scaling up the amount I bet is not my problem. Scaling up the number of markets I bet in is.

The problem is software tools. I wrote to a couple of the software vendors explaining what I needed, but none of them understood.

BTW, the way for a competitor to beat BF is to offer high volume bettors the right software tools. More liquid markets with smaller spreads will automatically follow.

With  lots  of credit card  companies  retrenching,  and refusing to give  credit.. 
Will def  have an inpact  on BF.


The avaliability  and   speed    of Bots    has  definatly  changed the way people trade.


5 years  back,  80+ %   of people  traded  by taking directional  trades.


Today  more and more  people  are doing forms  of arbage,  and operating  im many more active markets  atathe same time.
( a very  simular  change  to the way  CBOT  has changed  in Chicago).

==============================================================================================================

Part 2,


FINE AS FROG HAIR
MIB34
What difference doesit make if you back or lay ?
They're both bets just on opposite outcomes.
How can that be a strategy defining thing ?


-Its  a lot  more than I thought..


There are 2 Big differences.
Assuming  you trade  using a set %  of your  account.

If  you back,  then the smallest trade  you can do  is  1%.   
Ie  BAck  at 1.02  then Lay at 1.01.

But  if you Lay,   then  you can  take  much  lower risks  (with a tiny chance  of a huge loss).
eg   Lay  at 500,  back at 1000.



Additionally..
In a large  Tourenement there is another huge advantage to laying.

If  you were to LAY  say for example Totenham  in the Champions League..

Heven  forbid  they got through to the final.
But  just think  how MUCH avaliable lequidity  there would be, to enable you  to close out  with a back trade. (even tho it would be loss making). Plus  you would have loads of time  to trade out.



(Have a google search  under "tournament economics",   def an Interesting read.      :)


One  last thing...  Ref  negative  expectancy  games...


Google search  "AN ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF A DRUG-SELLING
GANG’S FINANCES*
STEVEN D. LEVITT AND SUDHIR ALLADI VENKATESH"

^
scaling up markets has become tricky for me due to data request charges. I'll move away from browser based betting soon. currently on about 300-400 per week.

MIB34
I sure as hell can't understand what you are saying re laying and backing.
Can anybody else ?

Aye robot, that was exactly what I was suggesting.

Any winner w/ a specific strategy can see that there is only a limited amount of money that can be won from any one type of market (sport, unders/overs etc.) My remark about applying your original, or a modified, strategy on a 'technical basis' was intended to imply that winning punters might have to look sideways for opportunities, at sports where they have no expertise.

Re: the directional trading issue. I'm no trader, but woke up in the midde of the night with an idea. I won't embarrass myself by putting it here infront of experienced traders, but it was based on market movements. Are people of the opinion that there is no mileage left in this approach?

It wouldn't worry me as I do have other strings to the bow so to speak, but you can never have enough now can you?

Thanks.

Thinking or dreaming about BF in your sleep.
Not a good look.

aye robot
Joined: 17 Jan 08   
Most profitable strategies are not directly scalable, the law of diminishing returns kicks in very quickly. I'm not short of either courage or funds and I wouldn't hesitate to increase my stakes if it would make more money but I can tell you from experience that it doesn't. I'm well into six figures of profit a year but I almost never stake three figures in any one bet. The trick is to scale horizontally, that is to use more strategies and operate in more markets. That way you maintain worthwhile margins and reduce variability.

That larger your stakes the poorer value you get over time due to the dynamic nature of the markets.  But of course the more you stake the more you win and the bigger commission discount you attract, etc so optimising the stakes is a delicate task.  And of course the goalposts are forever moving!

I agree, it took me ages and a lot of face rubbing to understand the dynamics of staking, it's a black art.

Investor, Horse racing is still the overwhelming bulk of my activity. I'd like to be more involved in the football and tennis but I haven't really cracked them yet. I have a great new game now; I'm trying to evolve bots. What I do is code up any old strategy that I don't expect to win or loose much, then I make a few small random "mutations" of it. I run them all for a while then look at the results, the worst performers get killed off, the best continue and get new mutations of them made, a new generation is born and the process starts again. Obviously it's not true evolution but it's keeping me interested and it's providing new lines of enquiry, which is the idea.

Face rubbing is something I have yet to try, I'll give it a go and let you know if it helps...

aye robot ~ that sounds like curve fitting. the mutation which ultimately survives would have to be tested on a very large out of sample data set ............... ?

Interesting to see HOW FEW on here are now fulltime. I say 3-4 on this thread at best.

In the past on a thread like this you get 30-40 claiming to be full time.

I USED to be full time but gave it up when I had to start paying 20% Premiun Charges on top of your regular commission. The margin or profit or PAY whatever you want to call it wasn't there to also pay the 20% PC and also run the RISK of losing your b00lock as well.

You can make money on here if you make it a VOCATION. If a guy spends 60-70 hours a week doing anything eventually he will spot faults and error occuring in the people who are playing against him. Horse Racing and Sports betting is no different. The problem is if your not doing the 60-70 hrs a week here how much of the big picture are you missing when you then are competing against the guy who is.

This leaves you will problems in your social life, as most big betting events are on when everybody else is off.

So yeah you can make a profit on here if you put in the time, but whether you could have earn more working the same hours in a Mac Donalds is open to question. For me the answer was YES when I suddenly had to pay 20% PREMIUN CHARGES every week........Cheers

You wouldnt be full time if your not enjoying it, so in that sense it would be a vocation. Well at least its preferable to working 9-5 in their opinion (as would a bullet to the temple in alot of them)

You wouldnt be full time either if you cant make minimum wage as everyone has bills to pay.

LCL; take each characteristic of a bot as a gene, those which confer an advantage survive over successive generations, those which don't die out. The thing about bots is that they have a lot of variables and it's hard to work out which ones are helping and which are hindering especially as you often have no control to experiments.
Part of the aim of this process is to make it easier to optimise them by removing the analysis and letting "nature" take care of it. The other idea is to remove human bias (in this case my own bias) from the analysis in order to try to generate new strategies that I wouldn't otherwise have considered. So far it's only taken a few generations to "evolve" bots that win as consistently as those I've designed through a more deliberate process, the plan is to let them optimise themselves and even (hopefully) branch off into new "species". It's very interesting if you're into that kind of thing. Also the analysis is very quick, which is just fine by me as I've done more than enough of that in the last couple of years.

I get what you're doing and it is interesting. i've developed a lot of systems, both financial and sporting . one of the problems with taking a "random" approach  to development, is that you can end up with something which perhaps cannot be rationalised intellectually. ie you don't know why it works, it just does ( or at least seems to). Perhaps that's fine, but when it goes through an inevitable drawdown it is harder to justify continuing with it. Also it can remind one of the equity salesman who told 1/2 his clients to buy and 1/2 to sell. after n iterations, 1 / (2^n) of his clients think he's an absolute genius. ................

I know what you mean about "seeming to work" but the good thing about horses is that there're so many events you can build up a strong record in a relatively short time. I get your point about understanding why things are working too, but it's also the case that once you see that something is (or isn't) working that can be a window on understanding something that you didn't understand before. In any case, even if the whole thing goes t1ts up it won't matter, it's only a small part of my activity- it's not like I'm depending on it.

LK7165 Joined: 09 Jan 07
Replies: 6 02 Sep 10 13:26   
I started with a bank of £200.00 about 4 month ago and I am upto around £2.7K today, I used to bet through "normal" bookies but rarely won because of the fact that I now almost 100% of the time lay bets, I am not greedy either, I set myself a daily target of £30.00 and as long as I make that then I am happy, it may not sound a lot of money for the time/stress involved but its a nice extra bit on my day to day wage. I have had a lot of luck but I also think I know what I am doing and ALWAYS trade on sports that I have knowledge of, this for me is crucial.



NOT HAVIN A GO BUT ARE YOU NOT CONTRADICTIN YASELF A LITTLE ?

No doubt long term I will pick the wrong bet and things will go wrong but thats life eh

It sounds like Aye Robot has roboticised the technique of backfitting or curve fitting.
The permutations that survive for another day of refining will most likely eventually blow up, unless there is a true "edge" or " value" being found somewhere.
The chances of randomly stumbling on something guaranteed to win are , well, random at best.

That's what people who believe God made Eve out of Adam say about evolution. They don't get the concept. The point is that it's NOT random, there is a random process that generates mutations, but selection chooses the useful ones. Clearly evolution is an imperfect analogy, not least because I give the thing a head start but as a process it merit's exploration. Obviously the bets have to be value, the point is the identify where value is likely to be in given market conditions. None of my bots are "guaranteed" winners, they don't win all the time, they simply win more than they loose.

FAFH,Aye robot is using a standard machine learning technique - genetic algorithms. It was all the rage in financial trading a few years ago.

I make a profit betting, but not a living. I would make a
living if I added a nought on to my stakes, in theory that
is, but I wouldn't get matched at the prices I request,
especially in the weaker markets, so I satisfy myself just
making a modest supplement to my income.

^^^ That's one of the most honest posts I've read on this forum.

I'm helping someone to make a living.

Aye Robot
Don't get me wrong.
I am a great believer in computer power and the adaption thereof to trading financial markets, as Contrarian rightly mentions.
I'm just not convinced of its useful or meaningful transference to sports betting markets.
Also I obviously meant by guaranteed to win that it wins more than it loses.

Contrarian Joined: 19 May 03
Replies: 293 06 Sep 10 17:46 
FAFH,Aye robot is using a standard machine learning technique - genetic algorithms. It was all the rage in financial trading a few years ago.


I remember some very strong othello (board game) programs were created using genetic algorithms. You're saying it 'was all the rage', gives me the impression that people have given up on this and moved on. Do you think that's the case?

No the practice is still very much in vogue on Wall Street.
These latest very fast order programs do that sort of stuff.

.
http://www.naturalmotion.com/

I think they use genetic algorithms to create 3d graphics.

The point still remains.
What is their potential utility for sports betting ?
Is sports betting/trading really analogous to financial trading ?

It can be used for anything where you have a variable or set of variables that can be optimised but for which there is no way to get there other than trial and error.

No the practice is still very much in vogue on Wall Street.
These latest very fast order programs do that sort of stuff.



Very true...

Most of  the stuff done now  is Arbage  between 2 almost identical  markets.
or
Front running  large  order.  (eg  High Frequency trading,   sub  200 milliseconds).



The current  big  things  are...
Multi currency arbage..  (eg  arbage  between  US $ and Europe £ crude oil).

that  and   Forex  Volatility  trading.




What is their potential utility for sports betting ?
Is sports betting/trading really analogous to financial trading ?

Nothing  that I can see..

Catfloppo

I don't think the quants on Wall St would categorize their efforts as pure trial and error.

The only real similarity of sports betting/trading with Wall St investing/ trading is that certain people are making big money trading on inside information in both markets.

My view is that although there are some superficial similarities sports betting isn't strongly analogous to financial trading. However, as catflopo says, you can use this sort of technique to look for solutions to all sorts of problems.

To be clear about the context in which I'm doing this; I'm operating in IR horse racing markets. I already know that within those markets I can identify conditions where the parts of the market are likely to show value one way or the other, the idea now is to use this technique to open up new strategies so that I'm betting more of the time and in a more diverse way. So the bots aren't just backing two year old fillies or anything like that, they're checking for market conditions and either backing or laying. The conditions that they look for are variable, as are the bets they strike and various other factors.

So far my best "species" in this experiment is an out and out backer, which is interesting to me as I've never made any attempt to do what it's doing before. When all's said and done I make most of my money laying shortish prices in running, so I've tended towards the view that trying to back winners was for mugs but this little fellow is doing pretty well backing at middling prices. Time will tell though.

If you're using bots to make calculations on price variances IR at great speed ( greater than any human can do)then you may well be onto something.
It's a good idea to explore.
Best of.

@FINE AS FROG HAIR
If you're using bots to make calculations on price variances IR at great speed ( greater than any human can do)then you may well be onto something.
It's a good idea to explore.


I was under  the Impression that was how you were making money at the moment ??

NONE


END OF THREAD

Me ? What a strange misconception.

my fault     ;)

are any of the people earning a living on Betfair female?

you wish !

Could someone please clarify something for me regarding traded money? Thinking about football now as an example.

Assuming now that there is a certain amount of money being rolled around for trading purposes and also money where people want to bet outright. How does the trader deal with the situation where money is taken out of the pool by someone taking an outright view of the event? Presumably this does happen to some traders leaving them forced to take a losing position.

It is interesting to note that the more intellectual of betfair users are working on ways of outdoing each other with bots attempting to identify in running % advantages or the like. Perhaps it might be the right time to go in the other direct and work on actually predicting the outcome of a sporting event and taking a view?

Dave
You really think liquidity is a problem in football betting.
Maybe on the minor matches, but not the major ones surely ?

Fine as,
It was very probably a naive line of questioning. I've only tried trading once, manually. I made about 2.6% or so on the game and was absolutely exhausted!

Basically I was just wondering about traders ending up on the wrong side of things. Certainly those with sound exit strategies should know precisely when they want to get out, but there must be some who don't quite get it right all the time. Quite often the impression is given of trading being the holy grail of the way to work on betfair, but there must be some people who end up getting washed up as with those trying to predict the outcome of an event.

Yeah well planned exit strategies can go way astray.
As they say " You know how to make God laugh. Tell Him your plans "

With football , unless you are running a high frequency scalping system, you have to be taking an outright view in a football match. Due to the low scoring nature of the sport the odds move in quantum leaps so exit strategies only minimally mitigate losses. Unlike say tennis where the odds move to and fro with each break point/game/set. Without a strong technological/real time advantage, a "trading system" where you look to take a few ticks out of the market , is almost certainly doomed to failure.

DaveEdwards Joined: 06 Sep 07
Replies: 5721 07 Sep 10 09:57 
Quite often the impression is given of trading being the holy grail of the way to work on betfair, but there must be some people who end up getting washed up as with those trying to predict the outcome of an event.

I'd agree Dave, and we all know who started the 'traders always win' myths along with their open nights :)

Only way people win long term is by getting the value, even traders need at least one side of there bet to be value to someone else to sell back at a worst price. Punters will lose overall by their poor value bets but poor traders will be making substantially more poor value first choices and even when they get value they'll sell it back far to cheaply. Only need to look at some of software vendor's trading forums to see there's only a few making it pay.

^^^ And to win football matches you must score more goals than the opposition.

More often than not a trade is caused by a directional bet going sour.
It's as hard to predict a favourable price change as it is an outright result.
Maybe harder in fact.

i'm sure there are quite a few people on here who could make enough to do this for a living but decide not to -
with each increase in pc or additional increase in charges more people will drift away
people considering leaving employment to try this will be much less likely to do so now, than 5/10 years ago and rightly so

@curlywurly

Yes, less people doing it full time,  but many more people claiming jobseekers. 


Naturally,  may of them have come on here with £100 and huge quantaties of spare time.
Instead of having 200+ pople trading full time. You now have  1000s of 18 to 21yo on here using their bots to make small profits. In effect one group has been replaced by the other.

These threads appear from time to time on here and most end in some sort of squabble about something completely unrelated to the title.  Good to see some intelligent discussion with considered points of view.
These threads also usually show that there are many ways to derive regular profit here.  My strategy is almost the direct opposite of aye robot, I bet on only one sport (seriously) and use Kelly to determine bet size from a reasonably large bank.  I find most value bets are presented in play and suspect that is a result of the market having limited time to 'correct' itself.

Yes this thread is amazingly lacking the usual poseurs and boasters.
Where have they all gone ?
I like the ones who come out with the supermodel phrase " I wouldn't get out of bed for less than X pounds a day etc "
Or the ones who " It's easy to make X pounds a day."

Personally, I do well out of betfair but make considerably more using other "outs".

If I had to choose between "betfair" or  "other options" I'd happily bin betfair.

But I'm not a trader.

loserschaselosers Joined: 30 Jan 02
Replies: 369 07 Sep 10 11:34   


With football , unless you are running a high frequency scalping system, you have to be taking an outright view in a football match. Due to the low scoring nature of the sport the odds move in quantum leaps so exit strategies only minimally mitigate losses. Unlike say tennis where the odds move to and fro with each break point/game/set. Without a strong technological/real time advantage, a "trading system" where you look to take a few ticks out of the market , is almost certainly doomed to failure. 


great point regarding trading in sports

What does "bot" mean?

A bot is software that places bets for you.

thanks 1.01

what's the point of that? presumably for trading?