General Betting
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Can you tell me a little bit about the time before/after you took the dive into being a full time pro? I am pretty much semi-pro atm and I don't make enough to even beat minimum wage but it can be a nice supplement. I want to go pro in future but I am not really sure of the signs, or if the only time to go pro is if you're making enough to actually do it.
What do you think is the minimum starting bank? Any scary starts? etc.
What do you think is the minimum starting bank? Any scary starts? etc.
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you might find this useful
1) You Have Done A Minimum of One Year Profitable Before you even consider going full time as a Sports Trader you need to have been profitable for at least a year previously. I am astounded to hear of people who have quit their jobs or scaled down their hours after a profitable couple of months which leads them to think they have “cracked it”. A year should be the absolute minimum before you even start considering going full time. A year should be a long enough time to show you that your strategy and your implementation is profitable and not just a run of luck or variance. It must be stressed that this does not mean that every month within the year should be profitable as you can always have losing months in this game but as long as you are profitable over a year then you could be in a position to think about going full time. 2) Your Trading Income Exceeds Working Income Just being profitable is not enough. Ideally you want to know that your trading income is replacing or increasing your current income from your job. You would not take a pay cut to move from one job to the next and this is no different. You might be reading this and thinking this is stating the obvious but I have seen people quit their jobs to try this full time as they feel they will “eventually” match the income but then they struggle with the mental block when it comes to upping the stakes. Ideally you want to be exceeding your current working income from your trading before you decide to go full time. 3) You Have Minimum Of 3 Months Living Costs Saved Up This is another absolute must. It is important you have that safety net of 3 months living costs saved up just in case things go wrong. Do remember that nothing is ever guaranteed in the world of Sports Trading and Betfair. Your strategy might cease to be profitable, you might find the markets get harder or you might even find Betfair shut your account for whatever reason. It is important you expected the unexpected and have at least 3 months of rent/mortgage + bills to live off so that if something does go wrong you have enough time to get back on your feet. 4) You Are Mentally Detached From Your Trading Going full-time in this game is not easy. When you are trading part time to make “bonus” money you are under less pressure and it is then easier to make the right decisions and not doubt yourself. Once you start relying on your profits in order to pay off your mortgage or so you can eat then things change very quickly. There are some traders that are full time at this and don’t even blink when they get a 4 figure loss since they know they are profitable in the long term. If you are at a stage with your trading where losses do not affect you adversely then that is a definite sign that you ready to go full time. Remember…. There is no special badge for doing Betfair trading full time and so you should not so do so unless really necessary. There are many who work corporate jobs and trade only on the evenings and weekends to supplement the income.I know of a reader of this very site who matches his corporate income by trading football on Betfair only on the weekends but he will never quit his job since he has long term job security at his current employer which is very important. If that is possible for you then that is a much better option then taking the plunge and going full time as the markets can be pretty unforgiving. To sum up, you should only go full time on Betfair if you simply have no choice. This could be from losing your current job or knowing that if you do not go full time you will not be making as much money. |
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Thanks SCOM, pretty much what I had expected. Doubt I will ever go pro.
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I disagree with most of that.
It is quite possible to know that you can make it professionally within a month or two. If you can demonstrate a significant edge mathematically, in a context in which the variance of returns is low, there is no reason to wait around. |
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I guess it comes down to how confident you are with your edge. SCOMs post reads like somebody not entirely sure in their skills.
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the only thing i disagree about in the article posted is i would want want a lot more than 3 months living expenses behind me...i reckon you need at least a year to guage how successful you can be, but then again im pretty sure contrarian is full time and a success to boot, so it shows it can be done earlier
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4) You Are Mentally Detached
I'd say that is essential. |
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crowseye , keep doing what you are doing , gradually upping stakes to get to a level where what you are doing will be earning you a good wage .
after a while you will be comfortable with higher stakes and if you are good/successful at how you play betfair you will be earning a living . you ideally will gradually become a "pro" without realising it . good luck |
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SCOM - good post, hard to argue with anything you said. I've tried my hand at trading and i've been doing well. My problem is to increase my profit I obviously need to increase the size of my trades and i'm not entirely comfortable with this. I've been doing 2k trades and I've been making some decent profits but 2k trades is about the maximum of my comfort zone. I have the funds to increase the size of my trades and i'd like to start doing 5k trades but can't make the leap. My reluctance is costing me money. The thing stopping me is I keep thinking of things going wrong like betfair going down or my internet connection failing. I know if betfair goes down you're stuffed because you can't get through on the phones. I'm not worried about some of my trades going wrong because i'm quite confident i'll make money long term. It's the worry of not being able to lay a 5k trade off. I lay them off very close to the off so if something goes wrong I wouldn't have much time to put things right. If i set a lay at betfair sp just as a precaution in case something happens, and the betfair site went down would my lay be matched? Do betfair return a betfair sp when the site goes down? Could i be confident that i could lay off at betfair sp if something went wrong?
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yeah thats the reason why if im on a large trade, im always out of it 2 hours before kick off..ive seen too many betfair outages and the hard luck stories accompanying it
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if a "pro" loses a bet does he chase/martingale?
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if he did, his career as a pro would be a short one imo
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so what does one do?
if you've made £100 in a day then a bet loses and you are 20 down, does your next bet try and win 140? |
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You taking the michael 3sp?
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not totally
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surely if you're a pro (without a job to support yourself) you need to be making a profit rather than a loss overall so therefore does my theory not apply at all?
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assuming youre not fishing, which i think you are..a losing day means nothing as long as you have a winning month...if you continue to have losing months, then you need to worry
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well i'm down overall quite a lot. what if a pro is say £1000 up for the month
but then hits 4-5 losses in a row so he's £50 down for the month. and he hasn't got a job would he have one big chase type bet to get back up to £1000 up? |
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A pro wouldn't chase. Not a good one.
I am sure a pro also wouldn't ever bank on making a profit in any given month to live on. |
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yeah youre dead right mate..one big chase bet and all is fine again
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surely if you're a pro (without a job to support yourself) you need to be making a profit rather than a loss overall so therefore does my theory not apply at all?
No, it doesn't apply at all on a short-term basis. You just need to make money every (week/month/quarter/year - delete according to your psychological make-up). What's more, if you're a pro, you're very likely to be paying PC at the higher rates, which means that it's actually better, in terms of PC savings, to NOT be winning every day. |
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yeah youre dead right mate..one big chase bet and all is fine again
exactly my point, if that loses you really are screwed. not sure how it's possible. in response to Contrarian, surely any regular bettor is losing a good majority of their bets so are they trying to win back the stake plus the desired profit of the losing bet each time they re-bet after a losing one? |
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I'veGotTheTrots, yes, bf return a starting price, sometimes entirely artificial, honouring everyone who has left in an sp bet. If you're worried about 5k stakes, I'd submit bundles of 'take sp' bets via an API / odds ladder before inputting my initial position.
In my experience you can count on bf going down and costing you money sooner or later. If you're a winner, you'll be doing something marginal or something that bookies don't like and will get into a dispute where there's a risk you'll lose, sometimes both sides of the arb. |
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I'd say one thing is preparing yourself mentally for the fact that at some point for some reason that may be freakish and beyond your control you may hit a really big loss.
obviously you do what you reasonably can to protect against some of the stuff that can happen, but that possibility's always going to be there. it's a bit like stand up comedy in a way. you can do 50 great paid gigs, but if you can't get on stage again after your first horrible death, you're not really a pro. |
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what would be the minimum amount of money you'd want in the bank before quitting your job to go "pro" ?
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40k
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exactly. enough to chase/martingale a run of losing bets
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no chasing setpoints just enough to see out the inevitable losing runs
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if your £1000 up for the month smithy and a losing run puts you to -500 what do you do?
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Are you just fishing 3sp because surely nobody is this stupid?
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not at all CrowsEye. how many bets do you have a day? i'm guessing you back losers often if a regular bettor?
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i'd have a close look at my p n l mate as something like that happened to me in april. I then ironed out the problems and stopped playing certain markets and may and june have been fine
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Of course, I back plenty of winners too what's your point? These arbitrary figures mean nothing. If you hit a losing run then so be it, you play through it because if your edge is real then it's just a matter of time before it's back on track.
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clearly, you keep doing what you've been doing. your staking is independent of recent results, except in as much as they alter the total bank you're using a percentage of.
if what you're doing doesn't work long term, that's another question. |
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i'm not talking about edge. i'm talking about punting and trying to pick winners.
do you consider yourself to have an "edge" Crows? |
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Alright well that's something completely separate to me 3sp.
It's not about punting and 'trying to pick winners', that doesn't sound professional to me in the slightest. I lost £400 on grand prix today, that was that. It was over with, on to the next selections. I didn't mess around with my staking plan, I took the loss and I was comfortable because I know I made value bets, and if those bets weren't truly value then the next ones I make will be. If you're consistently beating the market you cannot lose with a proper staking plan. |
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Alright well that's something completely separate to me 3sp.
It's not about punting and 'trying to pick winners', that doesn't sound professional to me in the slightest. I lost £400 on grand prix today, that was that. It was over with, on to the next selections. I didn't mess around with my staking plan, I took the loss and I was comfortable because I know I made value bets, and if those bets weren't truly value then the next ones I make will be. If you're consistently beating the market you cannot lose with a proper staking plan. probably the best advice you will get on here..although id be tempted to swap 'cannot' with 'shouldnt' |
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your losing £400 overall on a Sunday and thinking of quitting your job
Alright well that's something completely separate to me 3sp. how is it? surely everytime one presses "confirm bet" it is a punt |
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like that post from crowseye, relates to me that
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