Taken the plunge

"If enough investors follow a momentum strategy, the prophecy of a high (or low) price becomes self-fulfilling."

very profound and very true

Hi sweet, read through the thread and sounds like you have lots of interaction within the group, sharing ideas, views etc which is great. Football came to my rescue tonight to ensure profitable day, will post tomorrow.

join the thread elite every bit of input is welcome

Day 9 results

Football: £140.79 | Golf: -£9.00 | Horse Racing: -£71.91  Total P&L:  £59.88

Football    Showing 1 - 2 of 2 markets
Market    Start time    Settled date    Profit/loss (£)
Football / Montreal Impact II v Serbian White Eagles : Match Odds     09-Sep-12 19:00     09-Sep-12 21:00    9.23
Football / Ferencvaros v Kecskemeti TE :     Match Odds                     09-Sep-12 17:30     09-Sep-12 19:2       131.56

Horse Racing    Showing 1 - 2 of 2 markets
Market    Start time    Settled date    Profit/loss (£)
Horse Racing / Font 9th Sep : 1m6f NHF     09-Sep-12 17:45     09-Sep-12 17:49    -119.70
Horse Racing / York 9th Sep : 6f Hcap     09-Sep-12 16:35     09-Sep-12 16:39    47.79

Running total after 9 days

Football: -£235.12 | Golf: -£11.00 | Horse Racing: £1,158.76  Total P&L:  £912.64

I will sweet thanks if i believe i can add any value at any point!!, hope you have had a decent days trading!!

yeah 4/4 football trades and 9/10 horse racing trades plus 1/1 dutch bet

Nice one!!

how did today go elite?

all i did today was dutching... 4/5 success rate

Yeah same here got 4 out of 6 although the one i thought was a cert went the wrong way!!!!

playing catch up today..the two newcomers caught me out but recouped losses last two races

Yeah me too they both romped home, recouped mine on a good lay in a maiden at Redcar then had a succesful dutch at Worcester for a small profit. Yesterday finished very strong due to a very rare reverse forecast bet that came in.

You trading the football tonight?

iv just laid ukraine thats all so far

yeah i'm laying Belarus

Not sure you can make a decent living from a 4K bank.

Good luck all the same.

Hoping for a couple of goals for ya!!!

whats you % R.O.I so far ?

Zealot,

As of tonight it is 10.86%

mighty whites im averaging £350 a week from a 3k bank, but im being conservative and not really pushing it...where im from thats a decent wage when its run alongside your everyday income

I am maybe pushing a little harder than sweet but not going stupid, my profit to date for Sept is £1340 but that has been with 10 out of 11 profitable days and i know there will be plenty more losing ones to come. I am not sure how sustainable it is to consistanly make enough profit to earn a decent living but have enough scope to give it a few months to find out although under no illusions it will be easy.

If i am still chatting on the forum in 2 months it probably means it's going ok, if not my slience will be deafning.

elitesp
I sincerely hope you keep chatting on here when you have a bad day or two.
That will show that you are really approaching all this in a detached professional manner.
Someone earlier said that you probably learn more from your losses than your wins.

I totally agree FAFH, and i know there will be plenty of losing days around the corner. I have really appreciated all the advice given so far and interestingly most of the thought provoking stuff is about the mental approach and nothing to do with strategy etc. I am not going to post any more figures as I appreciate these can be viewed differently by people, I will however honestly answer any direct questions.

fantastic work elitesp

10.86 % sounds nice enough - keep it going .

Try not to check on your progress daily . I prefer to check after each month .

Good Luck

Thanks Zealot

To be honest it was the first time i had checked the ROI this month but your right a monthly review will probably be sufficient. Under no illusions though i have got off to a decent start and i am tightening up my trades but very early days.

a good day then a medium day, then a losing day but ended up as a moderate one :)

Always a rollercoaster!!!, was reading your post about Liverpool prices sounds like you traded well!!!. I have had a steady day but always ahead so all good.

Actually in parts this thread sounds like the tunnel of love.

elitesp, where you are winning through judgment i.e. through your appreciation of something that can't be expressed formulaically, you prob. have to bet manually. Otherwise the way forward is to automate.

If you can find an edge in one sort of market, then you can prob. do the same in another. Automate all of these and the variance will smooth out any large misjudgment.

Winning is all about accumulating small advantages. Over the short term these advantages will not always pay off in terms of making money (rather than just taking good prices). But they normally do eventually.

Incidentally, my way of betting is very opposed to yours. I'm trying increasingly to back double figure and usually 20-1+ shots on the horses against the momentum. I sometimes trade out around the expectation and arb as forms of smoothing / comm. & charges management. The biggest prob. is the atrocious liquidity.

If you go on as you have been doing, you will make more than me on a yearly basis, though.

...if you go on as you have been doing, you will make more money than me on a yearly basis, though.

Yes IF, but my money would be on you askari, to prevail on a yearly basis.

Hi Askari,

Thanks for your post and feedback everything is helpful. To be honest everything I have read over the last year has supported what you say about backing at longer odds. Whilst currently early days I am loathed to change my current strategy at present but may adapt in the future. In respect to automation have you developed your own system/tool for doing this?. I do use betting software but think you are probably referring to something more sophisticated.

In response to Keilworth's post i am in toal agreement and my money is on you too :-)

good luck with your quest but I have to agree with Buzzer. there doesn't look to be any consistency with the P n L you have posted. When you take a hit then your liability increases which seems to indicate chasing. A bad run of results and you'll be wiped out. I'm not trying to put the mockers on, I just know this will happen because I've been there.

to offer one bit of constructive advice, use your betfair settings to limit your deposits (or losses) at least to a daily limit and exclude from any other accounts you may have with other companies or on betfair. I personally play to a similar sized bank and to a similar albeit more controlled staking strategy and withdraw any profit at the end of each session. My deposits are limited to £1 per week so on the odd occasion I blow my bank I have to take a week off before my new deposit limit kicks in. By then my head is back in the game and a can slowly claw back my loss and get back on track. Remember if this does happen to reset your deposit limit once you have a new bank.

^ this is very good advice

Thanks good advice!!

I wish you well elitesp with your endeavours ... what I enjoy reading is the daily updates on how you have done including figures but also any stand out wins or losses ...

In your opening post you said I am going to post my daily and running P&L and would be happy to share any futher information if of any interest ...

Please keep it updated and have fun today.

Betting on foreign footie, bet on 19 different races in one day,
flat, jumps, bumpers, above average ROI all points clearly to a
degree of chasing, and that will go wrong sooner or later. Take
your profit and run !!

elitesp, I am not a particularly big or technically sophisticated bettor by the standards of this forum. I will input prices manually apart from having an API set-up placing bets that attempt to take advantage of edges that are neutral wrt to the runners (one e.g. here might be overshot momentum.) This is a small and new-ish part of my betting, though.

Betting longshots has nothing to do w/ these runners being a better source of profits and/or value. The point is more that you find most of the bots active on the first four or so runners in the market. This means that there is a degree of 'noise' in the price movements that makes it hard to take value, then cash it in at the expected return and so manage one's bank conservatively.

Personally I find between 9-2 and 10-1 a graveyard on all but 16+ runner hcaps but I'm sure others will say the opposite. My sense is that the people winning on this class of runners are not primarily form students.

Let's say that I make the fourth favourite a 9-2 shot, I put a mid-three figure trade on it at just over 7-1 and it jumps out towards 9s. The yard and owners are ones which on average provide good signals as to how horses are likely to run through the price action (a bit of research will find out correlations very unlikely to be through chance). Do I stand the bet or get out?

Over time I've found the solution is to follow more than one approach--but these include 1) trading or price-taking on longer-priced horses; 2) getting as much on as I can through placers in the bookies in the morning, and being prepared to stand most of these bets; 3) (my initial strategy in fact), to lay a partial book on the front of the market throughout the day, starting early, and 4) to take any arb or try to exploit anything that looks like a temporary mispricing.

Forget about being in form, being inspired, having significantly better judgment than the market most of the time or knowing a lot. Grind out your wins. It shouldn't be fun or exciting. Don't bet unless you can plausibly explain why you have an edge. This should usually be something that won't fit into the tissue of a winning systematic price-compiler--usually a visual impression or a change in circumstances that not everyone has yet noticed.

askari, you are whole lot wiser than most on here. GL

Kenilworth, well today I played well and lost, two double fig. bets I held onto both came second.

I'm coming to think winning costs too much. I make just over 2X as much per hour from my business as I do from betting. I'm not mathematically educated, lack the dedication to find edges in sports I don't care about and haven't been able to scale strategies for the nags. The rational thing to do wd be to try to get more custom for the business, maybe by taking it overseas.

Gl to you too.

askari, the fact that you actually make money from betting, no matter how much,
is a feat in itself as I understand only a small percentage of Betfairians do so.
I would imagine you enjoy punting so it's possible to do both, especially if you
specialize in perhaps one sport. I bet 90% on football, the other 10% horses,
tv greyhounds, cricket. On the footie I mainly play only on tv matches, even then
just on the last 30+ minutes, not always having a bet. On this evenings match I
didn't have a bet, last evening at Orient just one bet. My idea of value is getting
harder to find, the market is very efficient, and I don't have any compulsion to
have a bet. GL.

Update on where i am after day 14.

Day 14

Football: £120.83 | Horse Racing: £57.22 Total P&L £178.05

Football

Showing 1 - 5 of 5 markets

Football / FC Eindhoven v Helmond Sport : Match Odds

14-Sep-12 19:00

14-Sep-12 20:56

45.27


Football / FC Oss v Dordrecht : Match Odds

14-Sep-12 19:00

14-Sep-12 20:51

-17.12


Football / Ehime v Yokohama FC : Correct Score

14-Sep-12 11:00

14-Sep-12 12:58

-10.00

Football / Ehime v Yokohama FC : Match Odds

14-Sep-12 11:00

14-Sep-12 12:58

10.21


Football / Shonan v Kusatsu : Match Odds

14-Sep-12 11:00

14-Sep-12 12:54

92.47

Running total after day 14

Football: £28.44 | Golf: -£11.00 | Horse Racing: £2,085.35 Total P&L:  £2,102.79

Wd elitesp, keep it going.

One thing I find helps to deal with losing runs and apparently unfair losses is to keep a record of how much you expect to win per bet.

Let's say that you are offered 6-1 for what you make a 9-2 shot. If you are betting full Kelly on a bankroll of 4k, you bet 181.81 and expect to make 23.20 every bet.

It follows that should you get the chance to trade out taking comm. into account you should do so for a win of prob. anything over 22GBP, assuming circumstances are the same as when you placed your first bet.

'Over-winning' can be dangerous as psychologically you gear y/s up to expect that level of returns when in fact they have been abnormal.

Equally bad, of course, is sticking w/ something that looks like a -ev strategy.

Do you expect to make 150 quid a day, or about 35k if you bet as much as someone works in a white collar job? If not, it's OK every now and then to have a frustrating losing day.

sweetchildofmine     11 Sep 12 22:49 
mighty whites im averaging £350 a week from a 3k bank, but im being conservative and not really pushing it...where im from thats a decent wage when its run alongside your everyday income

Sweetchild it can provide a nice pot of spending money added to a wage but if it is your only source of income then it is not sustainable long term.

After a while that 350 will be hit with 20% pc reducing it to 280 per week.

That is before you consider the day things go wrong, you get greedy etc.

cover your balance up .

Hey elitesp. I hope everything is going well Can you update the thread ?

Hope you have not spunked the £2K+ Elite, was looking interesting!!!

Has this thread ended ?

He forgot his armbands

back to the job centre? no way i'd take the plunge unles i had 30-40k to bet with

What would 30-40k be needed for ?

to turn large amounts over ken and to make over 1k a week anything less may as well work :)

Are you crazy. If you earned £900 a week that's £3600 per month. Multiply by 12 and that's £43,000. Then take into account that's tax free it will probably equate to a salary of something like £60K plus. Is that not enough for you.

What work do you do and does your current job pay more than this.

smithy, if you need that amount of bank, you
must leave yourself well exposed at times. If
not, why the need ?

lol not crazy I'm on 25k as an enginneer and would wanna make more than this if going full time. I don't really leave myself that exposed I look for low risk match odds trades and Arbs and hit them hard.

ken i dont know if youre jesting but he means thats how much you would need behind you to trade full time, you certainly couldnt do it with a couple of k

sorry didnt notice last few posts

Not jesting, but wondered why anyone needs 30-40k, but is never exposed
to large losses. If that is not the case then why the need for the that
amount of money. He hasn't really answered the question so perhaps he
doesn't know why.

hi ken well id be looking at becoming a massive match odds trader like getting 10k bets matched on liverpool weekly and offloading them at kickoff. i currently do this but on a lesser scale 3-5k most often than not. and then there will be other trades on the same day which i might want to invest in heavily and possible arbs elsewhere which would need laying off and you'd need to guarantee making a living

Yeah, ok.

Smithy
I'm a little bit puzzled by all this prepoff trading you do .
It seems to me, in summary, that you set a price that you think a team should be at the off, and if a current price is materially different then you take an appropriate buy or sell position and then " expect " or " hope " that the consensus opinion will gravitate towards your view before KO, and you will then trade out at a profit.
But presumably, unless you are some sort of wizard with a crystal ball, the consensus opinion will not always go in your favour.
Do you then trade out at a loss pre-off ?
What makes you so sure that your early pre-off opinions are going to be more right than wrong in the long term ?

"preoff trading"

Where is the edge you have in these markets? As FAFH says, you will not always be right. Without an edge, you will be wrong as often as you will be right. Since you cut your profits short at kick-off, do you let your losses run? This all sounds very much like gambling, and without an edge, it will all end in tears.

hi frog. well I've been pre off trading for around 18 months now and from the hard work I've put in over the last two years I believe I have a certain skill  in spotting a low risk trade. I make more right calls then wrong which sees me turn a profit unless I've just been lucky for 18 months but I've spoke to people who have been on here for years and are 40% pc payers they tell me I will be fine if I keep doing what I'm doing and I even supply them with match odds trades which they put 20k on in exchange for their knowledge on here.I've just turned 21 and will be paying 20% premium charge very soon so surely can't be doing that bad. my bets for this weekend are Liverpool at 10/11 and arsenal at 13/10 with relative bookmakers both prices will be layed off on here at shorter odds.I do trade out for a loss at kickoff. not some kind of wizard but just my way of doing it and it involves using a large bank I don't know any other way to win.

just to add its not just what price I think a team should be I just decide whether there's a gap in the market and which way I believe it will move. I also try and follow trends and use oddschecker and pinnacle several times a day. I wouldn't just say I'm hoping as if I were surely wouldn't make anything. what markets .fo you play frog ?

Smithy
You sound like you may well be one of those rare birds, " a born gambler".
But I still think that the real pros proceeed with some sort of mathematically defined edge, rather than just " a certain skill in spotting a low risk trade ".
It's not finding low risk trades that is hard, it's finding them at prices that will come out ahead in the long term.
Anyway best of luck in your endeavours.
Though luck is the least thing you really need in the long term. That evens out over time.

Another thing Smithy, if you find your wagers exciting and nail biting at times, then that's bad.
If you find them boring and mundane, then that's good.
And if and when you ever get to a boring mundane level of betting, then the true test of patience to sit out extended losing spells without losing faith in your technique, will come into play.
The biggest and best gamblers today are imo technical ones, who have programmed bots to act quickly and actively in the in play markets.
Have you or are you planning to get into that area of betting ?
It's like the stock mkt. where today it's all about speed and volume.

Best price for me this weekend is spurs, 6.8 on here, massive price

thanks frog for your opinions. completely agree about luck being the least part. I do find it abit boring sometimes checking on betfair then onto oddschecker then onto pinnacle then back round again for the next game. I do believe I get the best prices in the long term although yes I have no mathematical edge. I know the best gamblers are the technical ones I'm off down to London in the next few months to look at creating a bot for match odds but it's complicated and expensive but the rewards would be massive. I've watched my mate completely own the under/over markets on here and nobody will get near to him but I get good trades and prices in play as well through the software and am currently manually trading myself over/underearning the pricing etc.

Smithy, how are you not getting shut down by bookmakers?

Credit to you smithy you're obviously doing well, although i think you are giving away value escaping the market pre kick off. If your backing something at 1.8 and it should be 1.7 you are getting the value anyway. I'd let the bet run. By making your trade you are giving away a big chunk of potential profit and if you keep getting value why trade, overtime you will be up because you are getting better odds.

no moves...because a lot of his bets at the bookies (liverpool) are losers

But it's not about getting value at a given moment; most weeks when the intial back of Liverpool is made for example it's at poor value, but that doesn't matter if it finishes up at even poorer or diabolical value. It's about following trends in what people back and where the money habitually goes. I agree that sometimes it's seemingly better to go in play, but then deciding when to and when not to is a different skill altogether.

I can't help believe, sweetchildofmine, he must be backing a lot of winners at top price for a lot of money if he is as good at analysing value as he says he is.

Would bookmakers allow this to gone forever?

thing is he isnt backing what he believes to be the winner at the bookies, but merely the top price

I'm using mates accounts a straight deposit banking online :)

smithy has got what it takes

By:

kenilworth
Date Joined: 04 Nov 05
Add contact | Send message
When: 25 Sep 12 22:41
Joined:
Date Joined: 04 Nov 05
| Topic/replies: 9,799 | Blogger: kenilworth's blog
Not jesting, but wondered why anyone needs 30-40k, but is never exposed
to large losses. If that is not the case then why the need for the that
amount of money. He hasn't really answered the question so perhaps he
doesn't know why.

This doesn't apply to smithy, but what I used to do is put bets up in lots of different football markets for different matches. That way you can use a large amount of capital, without the risk of a single big loss (although you could get really unlucky with a string of unlikely losses).

nice one investor mate :)

You'd need to be on very good terms with your mates. If thousands were won on bets couldn't they just keep it if its in their name? In another column you state, smithy, that you hope to get up to £5,000 to £10,000 traded on each match, at that rate couldn't even these multiple accounts dry up allied to a winning strategy?

tobermory, don't know how you would know how any other
forumite bets but perhaps I'll let that go. I personally
just bet straight, and I have trouble getting modest bets
on(compared to smithy seemingly) but he seems to brush
that to one side. ''no moves'' post seems to me to touch
on the real world in my view, at least the world that I live
in. Anyway, I don't really want to discuss someones betting
habits with a third party so end of this from me.

Spurs now 6.6 on here and been easily backed at 6.25 elsewhere, the price is going to come in even more. Get on now if you haven't already

Funny how this started out originally as someones quest to go for full-time and diarise their daily profits/losses ...

hi guys I've never placed higher than a 2k bet with a bookie the highest being cardiff at home to huddersfield on opening day with pinnacle. however I have backed 5k obviously Liverpool at home to man city as I was massively confident the price would come in which it did 3.2-3.25 into 3. usually 3k is the limit. the 10k amount is something I'd like to do on further Liverpool Games but you'd have to leave smaller amounts down to get a lot matched.just plumping 10k down would be pointless and scare other punters off. I am off to ibiza closing parties today for four nights to live a proper gambling lifestyle and spend some betfair monopoly money. good luck all !

elitesp
11 Sep 12 23:20
Joined:
15 Jul 12
| Topic/replies: 32 | Blogger: elitesp's blog
I am maybe pushing a little harder than sweet but not going stupid, my profit to date for Sept is £1340 but that has been with 10 out of 11 profitable days and i know there will be plenty more losing ones to come. I am not sure how sustainable it is to consistanly make enough profit to earn a decent living but have enough scope to give it a few months to find out although under no illusions it will be easy.

If i am still chatting on the forum in 2 months it probably means it's going ok, if not my slience will be deafning.




You should, at least, come on and say what went wrong. I'm not here to mock you but so many come on and update when all's going well but surely the whole point of these threads is to post the bad too.

Don't hold your breath, buzzer.

I wont.
It would make a refreshing change on here though.

It's the same in the blog world. Full of enthusiasm, but with no edge, newbies request links to be added and meticulously post their wins. Then suddenly, it all goes very quiet. Easy to write when you're winning. Not so easy when you're not. And most are not.

Please come back OP ....

undern, it's what happens when things go wrong.

Gamblers need their losses back NOW , and now only .
They cannot see the bigger picture - compounding can turn 1k into fortunes if they are willing to relax

Please explain.

i understood his point tbh

Perhaps you will explain then.

he meant you dont need to chase your losses aggressively...you should see every bet on on its merits, and theres never a last race/match of the day ..dont feel you have to break even immediately but by compounding you can claw it back gradually..compounding being for example you start with 100 and stake 5% on each bet which is 5 pounds ber bet, by the time your bank is at 200 you are up to 10 pounds per bet and so on

He meant all that ?  Gulp!

well..i might have improvised a tad

A gambling addiction is not about the money, it is about the action itself. The thrill of the bet and the possibility of the pay out is

what stimulates the "high." When they lose, the individual becomes depressed, but not just because they've lost their money. They need

to recover from this depression and seek more action to do so. Though any type of gambling can create a gambling addiction, video poker

and slot machines are believed to be the most addicting forms. Largely because they are solitary activities, but create the same sense

of action that fuels gambling addiction. Similarly, because they are solitary activities, it can be difficult for anyone else to

notice when there is a problem.

So one year part time and only two weeks full time



buzzer
09 Sep 12 13:18
Joined:
05 Jun 04
| Topic/replies: 16,119 | Blogger: buzzer's blog
What bank are you operating from?
It appears you chase your, bigger, losses looking at your p and l

Horse Racing / Thirsk 8th Sep : 6f Mdn     08-Sep-12 14:20     08-Sep-12 14:22           478.01
Horse Racing / Strat 8th Sep : 2m6f Hcap Hrd     08-Sep-12 14:05     08-Sep-12 14:18      -50.64
Horse Racing / Hayd 8th Sep : 5f Hcap     08-Sep-12 14:15     08-Sep-12 14:17          -302.14
Horse Racing / Ascot 8th Sep : 1m Cond Stks     08-Sep-12 14:00     08-Sep-12 14:07      -42.16
Horse Racing / Hayd 8th Sep : 1m Listed     08-Sep-12 13:45     08-Sep-12 13:49           143.41
Horse Racing / Ascot 8th Sep : 7f Mdn Stks     08-Sep-12 13:30     08-Sep-12 13:35      -122.65



This proved your downfall no doubt!

Last 7 days

Horse Racing: -£26.13  Total P&L:  -£26.13