Betfair trading for beginners - Part 2 Mindset

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JollyGreen
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Joined: Sat Mar 21, 2009 10:06 am

I think we've wandered off track here. I am not getting into an argument about how many successful traders there are or how the markets are impossible etc. What I will say is I agree with Jeff on this one.

Zenyatta you mentioned the price which doubled - did it just go straight out or did it retrace and then continue to drift in repeat doses?

Getting large enough stakes on is easy especially if they're at the head of the market. I have friends who are owners, pro punters, semi-pro punters and they have no problem getting money on. Admittedly horses price in double figures offer less volume but if the interest is shown then a layer will often step forward.
Iron
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Joined: Fri Dec 11, 2009 10:51 pm

JollyGreen wrote:What I will say is I agree with Jeff on this one.
:o :shock:

There has to be a first time for everything! :lol:

Jeff
Zenyatta
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JollyGreen wrote:
Zenyatta you mentioned the price which doubled - did it just go straight out or did it retrace and then continue to drift in repeat doses?
Trouble was, it was so long ago, I no longer have the charts or records, it was last year, but looking at Timeform results, I think the race in question was Kempton Park, 18.00, R5, on the 28th Nov, 2012, and the big price spike was on 'Harris Tweed', which started at a BSP of 3.50 (but I'm not totally sure that that was the race in question, nor do I remember the exact size of the spike)

The reason this one was so frustrating was that it was a listed race , where you simply wouldn't have expected this sort of thing to happen. I placed the back bet, there was a huge spike, and then the price retraced completely and in fact ended up lower than the price I took. Worse spike I've ever seen. And in fact I remember similar horrendous-sized spikes and retracements all day on my selections. That was when it was clear to me that I was being dicked around with.
JollyGreen wrote: Getting large enough stakes on is easy especially if they're at the head of the market. I have friends who are owners, pro punters, semi-pro punters and they have no problem getting money on. Admittedly horses price in double figures offer less volume but if the interest is shown then a layer will often step forward.
What I meant to say was, as a percentage of your bank, you can't put as much on punting as you can trading, because there's higher risk punting. So for punting, your returns are smaller.
Iron
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Joined: Fri Dec 11, 2009 10:51 pm

Zenyatta,

Have you watched Mugsgames's videos (at http://www.quiteamug.co.uk/)?

They illustrate that it can be profitable to use the 'cut losses and let profits run' approach.

Jeff
Zenyatta
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Joined: Thu Mar 11, 2010 4:17 pm

Ferru123 wrote:Zenyatta,

Have you watched Mugsgames's videos (at http://www.quiteamug.co.uk/)?

They illustrate that it can be profitable to use the 'cut losses and let profits run' approach.

Jeff
Jeff,

I was over in the UK last year with a 34K bank, and I had a real go at it. I was doing nothing but sitting in Starbucks all day, every day for weeks trying to 'cut losses and let profits run'. I ended up losing 10K - with nothing much to show for it but a caffeine addiction ;)

Price spikes and retracements, combined with 'whip-saw' effects where the price whips in and out very rapidly, always destroyed any profit I made and then some.

Hats off to the traders who can make a success at short-term trading, but my opinion is that this will be beyond the abilities of most people.

Cheers

PS From what mugsgame says, it looks like he's actually adopted a longer-term approach as well; I think he said somewhere that short-term trading was driving him mad, and he couldn't go back to it.
Iron
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Fair enough, but I suspect that the outcome may have been different if you'd started out with £2 stakes and thought 'Let's see where this leads. If I lose money, it will be no big deal as we're talking about trivial amounts'.

Once you were consistently doing well, you could have gradually increased your stakes as your confidence increased. However, if you start out with largish stakes, the market is going to scare the bejesus out of you every time it appears to be going against you (i.e. at some point during practically every trade!).

Jeff
Zenyatta
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Ferru123 wrote:Fair enough, but I suspect that the outcome may have been different if you'd started out with £2 stakes and thought 'Let's see where this leads. If I lose money, it will be no big deal as we're talking about trivial amounts'.

Once you were consistently doing well, you could have gradually increased your stakes as your confidence increased. However, if you start out with largish stakes, the market is going to scare the bejesus out of you every time it appears to be going against you (i.e. at some point during practically every trade!).

Jeff
For sure, scared money is losing money, perhaps that's why punting often seems to be more fun than trading; with punting you're only betting money you wouldn't mind throwing away, whereas with trading, you're piling on significant amounts.

I think Jolly would agree that the stop-loss mentality must be rejected. I'm not saying never stop-loss, I'm saying only stop-loss when you have over-whelming evidence you were wrong. People jump at shadows way too much I think.

I also agree with Jolly that swift decisive actions must be taken to prosecute opportunities.

Early in swing trades, as Peter stated 'there's usually a bit of a battle' as a price direction is not initially clear; muppets are unsure and bet wildly, swinging the price back and forth. At that point, it's important to cut the muppets off at the pass with swift decisive action, using your superior knowledge of form to guess the correct price direction and pile in, grabbing all the early value for yourself. Of course if you yourself are not sure, don't trade ;)
Iron
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Zenyatta wrote: For sure, scared money is losing money, perhaps that's why punting often seems to be more fun than trading; with punting you're only betting money you wouldn't mind throwing away, whereas with trading, you're piling on significant amounts.
That's simply not true. There are traders and punters who bet trivial amounts, and those who bet huge sums...

The mistake many people make IMHO is to go with biggish stakes when trading right from the outset, rather than using £2 stakes (in which case you'll lose next to nothing).

BTW, when you lost the £10K, was is strictly 'cutting losses and letting profits run' that you were doing? The reason I ask is that it's extremely difficult to lose much money with that approach - you wouldn't lose £10K if you were to enter at random with an automated stop of x ticks and an offset of y ticks! I wonder whether the mistake you made was to also do stuff like increase your stake to chase losses, in-play trading and outright betting (with large stakes).
Zenyatta wrote:I think Jolly would agree that the stop-loss mentality must be rejected.
I don't know what Jolly's views on automated stoplosses are, but I'm pretty sure he's in favour of killing bad trades before they kill you (however you go about it)...

Jeff
Zenyatta
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Joined: Thu Mar 11, 2010 4:17 pm

Ferru123 wrote:
The mistake many people make IMHO is to go with biggish stakes when trading right from the outset, rather than using £2 stakes (in which case you'll lose next to nothing).
Tell me about it. What a dumb-ass I was :(

Ferru123 wrote: BTW, when you lost the £10K, was is strictly 'cutting losses and letting profits run' that you were doing? The reason I ask is that it's extremely difficult to lose much money with that approach - you wouldn't lose £10K if you were to enter at random with an automated stop of x ticks and an offset of y ticks! I wonder whether the mistake you made was to also do stuff like increase your stake to chase losses, in-play trading and outright betting (with large stakes)

Jeff
Ok I admit I made some stupid big inplay bets as well out of frustration. But most of the losses were bad trades. Bear in mind I was trading large amounts over an extended period of time (most races, most days of the week for several months), I put about half a million through all up (500,000)

500 000 / 10 000 = 2%, so I was losing at the rate of around 2%.
steven1976
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Joined: Tue Jan 19, 2010 6:28 am

I've decided I'm not putting another bet into horse racing markets. In 2013, I don't think i have put a single trade in where i felt, the initial move feels like it will go in my favour. I put a lot of trades at the front of the queues and therefore I feel i have a good understand of how the book works. Some will say, then it should be easy to make money. That's probably where a bit of ignorance would come in handy.

I will stick to sports that have a definate direction.
Even last year, you could slip a few quid at the front of the queue and be in a good position. This year, you slip a few quid in front of 1000+ and it immediately turns against you. Stake size will make a big difference so possibly some of the bigger traders who use larger stakes and are confident in their understanding of the horses don't feel the move against small traders feel or they struggle to get their orders filled as the market turns away from them.

It certainly feels like a market that has become a market of bots which is why we see consistant amounts matched on the races and the book remains efficient near to 100% when prices with other bookies can be quite different.
Zenyatta
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Joined: Thu Mar 11, 2010 4:17 pm

Yes, at least playing around with the big stakes, I received an education and now have an extremely good idea of what I'm up against.

UK horse racing markets are very very tough indeed nowadays, no question about it steven...bots are clearly pushing the price back and forth...any sort of price chasing and you're toast. Any lack of confidence and you're toast. And newbies are just cannon fodder.
nizzy99
Posts: 7
Joined: Sun Aug 25, 2013 9:49 pm

Zenyatta,

So what your saying then is im having beginners luck, im yet to make a loss on a horse as a newbie I admit my stakes are small £2 but as it stands im returning 25p-50p so between 12.5% & 25% Return is fine for me as a learn, I have also only been trading at night as I work through the day, I admit I have been tempted by my early results to up my stakes but have resisted the urge to hold small until im sure im not just being lucky and it is because im reading into it correctly
steven1976
Posts: 1744
Joined: Tue Jan 19, 2010 6:28 am

I just thought what's the point for a few ticks. I traded a 28/1 shot last night where there "appeared" to be money being matched backwards and forwards. I put in a certain position which basically aims to scratch the first position and get the second position in a better position so im not.sat behind their money in a queue. As soon as.I put these.positions in up pops 300s, 250s etc.... on the lay side at 28s. We both know the horse isn't winning so no one is.going to suddenly back these lay amounts in. I thought, what's the point. If they are going to just.use these wishy washy trades waiting for small money to come in and oppose it as long as it takes.

Also trading the favourite 20mins from the off, we all know most traders aren't active then. The second I get in a good position at the front of the book and slid in a few quid in front of their money, wipe out. Their amount and mine is perfectly wiped out. No one can suddenly change stakes that quick to randomly clean out the money to zero again and again.

If you know horses, now is the best time ever probably if your stakes are of the right size and confident in what you are back or laying as I think the market finds these harder to sell out than in the past but for I just don't enjoy it anymore when every single trade turns against small trades.

I guess bf will have to ask soon if the exchanges are hidden away behind the sports book, do their market makers attract new people to the markets by offering liquidity or do they turn away 5 potential new customers for every newbie mugged.
Iron
Posts: 6793
Joined: Fri Dec 11, 2009 10:51 pm

Nizzy

Those are encouraging results. However, let me assure you that you will lose money on a horse sooner or later. The best traders in the world lose money all the time, so don't take that personally. :)

With greatest respect to Zenyatta and Steven, they have a jaded view of the markets which I don't believe reflects reality. Yes, the markets will sometimes spike against you, but logically they will spike in your favour just as often. And as for the view that some sinister figure is lurking around, waiting for you to move so that they can turn the tables on you, unless you are a big trader they won't even notice your activities (except in very weak markets, which are often best avoided anyway).

Jeff
nizzy99 wrote:Zenyatta,
So what your saying then is im having beginners luck, im yet to make a loss on a horse as a newbie I admit my stakes are small £2 but as it stands im returning 25p-50p so between 12.5% & 25% Return is fine for me as a learn, I have also only been trading at night as I work through the day, I admit I have been tempted by my early results to up my stakes but have resisted the urge to hold small until im sure im not just being lucky and it is because im reading into it correctly
steven1976
Posts: 1744
Joined: Tue Jan 19, 2010 6:28 am

Jeff, with the greatest respect, until you realize the flashing numbers are bollox you wont start making money..... If you think your going to look for a magical point where the odds hit 6.4 and everyone starts backing because the charts said so, you are very badly misinformed.

Don't take my posts as always serious. Sometimes, you have to flash around your left hand. Its a dirty game!
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