Should you have a target bank to aim for

no

no

no

can i have tea with 2 sugars please

Although what % you make per day and per bet are important metrics, they shouldn't be used as targets.

I used to have targets like this, increasing my balance by 6% per month, equating to about 100% per year compounded. All this is good for is getting yourself to 'work harder' if things are moving along too slowly, when you should be aiming for optimal results all the time anyway (while keeping the rest of your life in balance, which is the tricky bit).

i tend to have a target top reach but leads to dangerous over staking if i lose a few bets in a row

It's  pretty pointless to set a profit based target because your profits are determined by the outcome of sporting events over which you have no influence.  If you set yourself targets they should be something that you can actually control/achieve

Catflippo you've nicked my post, so I'll just say...



no

no no and thrice no

There are no guarantees even if you have an edge.

But I'll add some more.

Properpunter, obviously you want to make money and not lose it, so you need to monitor very closely your daily/weekly/monthly results to determine where you have an edge (or not).

Like Cat says, you can't control outcomes of events but you can control the price that you offer or take from which all your profit or loss will come, depending entirely on your matched price / true price.

catflaqpo
Date Joined: 11 Nov 11
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When: 14 Nov 11 23:56
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It's  pretty pointless to set a profit based target because your profits are determined by the outcome of sporting events over which you have no influence.  If you set yourself targets they should be something that you can actually control/achieve


You can control the profits, in that you can be either more or less active.

If I was 'forced' to make more money, I could by covering lots of low level events I currently don't. I choose not to do so, as I prefer to take the time off if my expected profit drops belows a certain threshold.

Tomorrow I'll be betting on the internationals. Wednesday and Thursday there's not much going on, so I probably won't be active. I'd certainly be able to make a profit (or at least have a profit expectancy), if I did do it.

In times of poor profitability, I find myself more willing to do the low level stuff to maintain a profit.

A bit of short-termism on my part.

I see, so you would play the low level events until you make enough to be lazy again?  I hadnt thought of that. It does make sense, in some cases, to reduce your effort based on results  - in fact i do it myself.

Can have a target for a year but short term targets in gambling are ridiculous. I am to at least double my bank every year but really I don't look at it any stage thinking I'm ahead or behind schedule. If there's a month left of my season and i'm nowhere near as has happened once I do get worried but you just got to treat bets on their individual merits. Forcing the issue will more likely lead to higher losses.

I set a target. Been on Betfair since the start and fairly consistently make 1-2% profit on turnover per year. Increasing turnover should increase my profits but it has to be done wisely so that a) there is little danger of my bank being wiped out or seriously eroded and b) not too much money is staked on markets that are weak and a danger of being picked off when I've mis-priced but not taking a decent bet when I've correctly priced.

That said, if I don't reach my target I'm not going to worry about it as long as I'm reasonably profitable

i set a target not to lose more than £1000 a week

Yeah that's right cat, it's also the case that if things are going well, I tend to think more about things like improving software, hardware, planning and other longer term stuff.

If things are going poorly, I think more about making money right now, which means spending more time trading and less time on strategy.

I trade (manually) about 40 hours a week. On top of that I spend a fair bit of time on analysis and improvements of various kinds, and the relatively new botting project (in collaboration with others).

I really only read this forum now in the hope of occasionally coming across a little gem such as darkside's post.
Thank you, whoever you are, for lighting up my day.