Matched Betting - Moving On

[Diacritical Quark]

I've been matched betting for a couple of years, I've made a good few thousand from this, well matched betting and a few arbs here and there. It's at the point now where it just isn't worth doing anymore, the vast majority of my accounts are gubbed from arbing, the rest are with some pretty shady bookies who just don't offer the kind of offers I need to make a living.

I've tried trading on Betangel for a couple of months now, I have tried trading in the past too for a few years before I found matched betting. I honestly don't think I have the psychological make up for it. I am, at heart a gambler. I chase losses and can't handle losing. Matched betting appealed to me in so many ways as it gave me the opportunity to move away from this sphere.

My question is, is this it!? Is this the end of the road, trading soley on the exchange brings back so many bad memories of losing, I get far too involved emotionaly in the trade. I think my last remaining hope is someone on here says that's it's possible to make a nice side hustle arbing between exchanges?

Any help from anyone would be much appreciated.

[Derek27]

I've been matched betting for a couple of years, I've made a good few thousand from this, well matched betting and a few arbs here and there. It's at the point now where it just isn't worth doing anymore, the vast majority of my accounts are gubbed from arbing, the rest are with some pretty shady bookies who just don't offer the kind of offers I need to make a living.

I've tried trading on Betangel for a couple of months now, I have tried trading in the past too for a few years before I found matched betting. I honestly don't think I have the psychological make up for it. I am, at heart a gambler. I chase losses and can't handle losing. Matched betting appealed to me in so many ways as it gave me the opportunity to move away from this sphere.

My question is, is this it!? Is this the end of the road, trading soley on the exchange brings back so many bad memories of losing, I get far too involved emotionaly in the trade. I think my last remaining hope is someone on here says that's it's possible to make a nice side hustle arbing between exchanges?

Any help from anyone would be much appreciated.

How long have you been trading for? You posted 10 days ago that you found an edge so you seem to be giving up pretty quickly?

[Diacritical Quark]

I had what I thought was an 'edge'. In reality it was probably nothing more than what most people try and fail at at some point. I was essentially dutching non handicap races and backing the top 2 as long as there were over 7 runners and no odds on favourite. I was then dutching handicap races backing all BAR the top 2 with the same criteria. Worked ok for a while but ended up with a negative expectancy fairly quickly.

I appreciate it seems like I'm giving up quickly but aside from matched betting I've probably lost thousands over the years trying to 'trade'. I think I was about £4k in the hole with numerous blown accounts, then matched betting came along for me about 4 years ago and I made that all back x4(ish). These last few weeks I can see the same mistakes happening all over again. With my 'edge' I was going for just 2% using the betangel dutching tab. If I lost on the first race I would then add my losses to the next race plus 2% profit. Not exactly martingale here but definitely a stake recovery type affair. Anyway, I've tried scalping I definitely don't have the discipline, I've tried order flow which is all great until one random horse will wipe out a days profit in one go with some maniac type move and now dutching.

[Derek27]

It can take a year or two to learn to trade successfully. In all honesty, it sounds like trading is not for you if you don't have the discipline, but if you want to persevere, I'd suggest looking at the BA academy, particularly the psychology course.

I'll give you a simple tip to stop losing a lot. Just deposit £100 or whatever's comfortable for you and stake proportionally, minimum £2 stakes if necessary. If you can't win with £100 you won't win with £1000 - you'll just lose ten times as much. Good luck.

[Diacritical Quark]

Thanks Derek, I appreciate your honesty. I don't think 'trading' is for me either. I was pretty good at arbing until my accounts with the bookies got gubbed. Any experience with arbing between exchanges? From what I can see online and from looking between Betdaq and Betfair the arbs may exist for a matter of seconds before they're gone and even then you're talking 5% at an absolute push which, with comission is basically worthless. Smarkets have better arbs but christ 2% comission on both sides with most of the money from what I can tell supplied by some mythical market makers make them a rather unsavoury prospect.

[Derek27]

I've never looked but I'd be surprised if there's much worthwhile arbing between exchanges after taking commission into account. If there are I'd expect bots and automated systems would quickly sweep them up as they appear.

[whimsies]

If you are struggling take a look at automation it takes all the human emotions away.

[Kai]

Is this the end of the road, trading soley on the exchange brings back so many bad memories of losing, I get far too involved emotionaly in the trade.

I think nearly everyone gets far too involved emotionally to start with, until they learn how to desensitize overall, there are hurdles that everyone has to jump over in order to trade profitably and effectively.

I think my last remaining hope is someone on here says that's it's possible to make a nice side hustle arbing between exchanges?

Don't see why someone would reveal something like that, since everyone would jump on it straight away and ruin what little existing edge there may be?

I've not done a single arb and have in total made 0 from matched betting, out of principle mostly despite getting offered free stuff numerous times so can't comment much on it, but there are still a few active large arbers from my region that abuse their local bookie prices, that was the only way forward for them. But it's a far cry from the golden age of arbing many years ago when they practically had a licence to print money, as you know the bookies have become much smarter and organized over time, even some of the local ones.

The point that I want to make here, is that once you get used to easy/free money then it may become near impossible to learn something as difficult as trading, a lot of arbers that I've met over the years have simply moved on, trading seemed way too hard for them compared to matched betting and arbing so they were never able to give it a serious go.

[sniffer66]

What sports have you tried trading ? I was struggling on horses and footy for a while but hit on tennis a few months ago and it suits my style better. Movements are more predictable due to the mechanical nature of the pricing\scoring. It's been a decent success story for me so far.
I've also been able to build winning automation for it, nothing spectacular but it hoovers up a few quid each day.

[Diacritical Quark]

What sports have you tried trading ? I was struggling on horses and footy for a while but hit on tennis a few months ago and it suits my style better. Movements are more predictable due to the mechanical nature of the pricing\scoring. It's been a decent success story for me so far.
I've also been able to build winning automation for it, nothing spectacular but it hoovers up a few quid each day.

That's the kind of thing I'm after, I'm not looking to make millions I don't have the desire or discipline for that. I understand pros like Peter Webb can make thousands in a day, I'd be happy with £1k a month! I've tried Horse racing both pre off and in running and football. I like the idea of pre race but the odds movements just don't make sense, I can be going along nicely making a few ticks here and there and all of a sudden someone comes along with a huge order the price spikes and never recovers or sometimes it does!?

I'll give tennis a blast, from what I can see it's mainly just backing the favourite if he/she is a set down in the first set or scalping the serve or backing a break.

Maybe Kai is right, maybe I'm just an old washed up arber now with nothing else to do than go and live in the woods and whittle wood all day

[Kai]

Maybe Kai is right, maybe I'm just an old washed up arber now with nothing else to do than go and live in the woods and whittle wood all day

Haha, hope my comment didn't come off as harsh as that! Maybe I'm just pissed off that nobody told me that arbing even existed all those years ago

[wearthefoxhat]

FWIW, just a quick observation.

There's no Holy Grail that will make guaranteed profits every time, every race/market, over and over....However, there are are some on here that have got their trading/gambling to a stage where it's either, fully automated or semi automated and have got some consistency in their profits, resulting in the Premium Charge kicking in. (nice problem to have)

The OP's initial post, dutching was mentioned in a certain way. The market and it's "efficiency" will, over time, trim down those opportunities, unless value of some sort can be found.

Eg: Dutching 1st 2 favourites in Non-Hcaps. If just done blindly, there will be good runs and poor runs = Loss (commission). Maybe that could be turned around if better prices are found on the favourite. (Yes is the answer) The trick is to find the types of races/selections/markets that this is possible. This could make +3% ROI on the bottom line, which doesn't sound much, but with a gradual increase in staking through profits, it will soon add up.

Nothing wrong if trading doesn't suit. The pyschology bit is very important whichever way you go forward.

Plenty of stuff on here about money management, also important, but, even with all the tools in place, if the psychology/mind isn't right....

[PDC]

Maybe I'm just pissed off that nobody told me that arbing even existed all those years ago

That's the thing, people aren't going to tell you about the easy money until it no longer is easy money. They then start to sell the ideas about how to make this (once) easy money.

There is easy money to be had right this moment, it is just that it isn't common knowledge, it will be in a year, two years, three years once it is no longer easy money and at that point people will look back and think wow how did I never see that it was so obvious but of course it wasn't obvious at the time.

A goof example is the fast picture debate on horse racing. There is still "easy money" to be had but it aint so easy as it used to be when it was almost a licence to print money.

Best of luck to the OP but remember there is no shame in saying trading isn't for me and spending your time and money elsewhere.

[Crazyskier]

If you are struggling take a look at automation it takes all the human emotions away.

I have had to adopt this approach too as I always seemed to end up chasing losses when trading manually - to my great cost!

Great advice.

CS

[Diacritical Quark]

As many have mentioned I know the only way forwards for me from here is fully automated. I am at heart a gamber and pretending any different is futile and will cost me far too much money.

I wish it was a simple as just writing a bot and away you go, I obviously need to find something that works manually before I can automate it. The post from WearTheFoxHat made a lot of sense with regards to dutching and nice to know I was at least along the right path to some extent.

I understand that trading and matched betting/arbing are very different in their make up, one you have to accept losses the other you're trying to avoid them totally by taking better odds than market efficiency I guess, or at least some odds complier at a bookies who is probably on a smoke break.

I'm currently trying to bot race meetings with a clear priced favourite whose odds have traded in a 10 point range for longer than 30 seconds where by it will create a free bet on the favourite and green up once 50% of that profit is realised in running. If it loses, fuck it I just need an 80% strike rate and I've done it

Actually whilst I'm thinking about it, any thoughts on strike rates and win:loss ratios. What's the general consensus, the two go hand in hand, I guess if I don't like losing I should probably aim for a system that gives high strike rates which usually mean the occasional big loss.