From zero to ???

[Tiesto13]

So I thought I’d start up a little diary of my attempts to learn to trade on Betfair.

A few years ago I gave matched betting a real go, and was pretty successful, particularly with some of the more advanced matched betting strategies like exploiting extra places. This largely dried up however with gubbings and a general reduction in bonus offers. A couple of times since I’ve tried to get into trading but going from matched betting to trading is equivalent of going from swimming in a pool with a flotation device to being thrown into an ocean and expected to survive.

Anyway, I’ve continued to develop my own betting strategies, primarily around cricket with some moderate success, but want to have a real crack at trading this time.

In terms of trading, I’m looking at the following areas:

Cricket - this is the sport I have the deepest knowledge of, and I’ve actually built a computer program (with no previously knowledge of programming) from scratch to scrape and provide ball by ball data for T20s (not in real time unfortunately). The runs line and match market lines are incredibly swingy in game and can present some great opportunities, but it’s about learning how to maximise these whilst reducing my risk. Over the course of the World Cup I’ve got a few strategies I want to put in place and see how I do.

Football - the next sport I have a lot of pre existing knowledge of. Here I’ve decided to start simple, and have put in place a lay the draw strategy with a narrow range of which games I put it in place on. It’s only 8 games in so far, and all games have had a goal so it’s £35 up on a max liability of £35 so far, but I’m well aware one nil-nil could wipe out the gains to date.

Finally, horse racing. Up until matched betting I’d only ever put a bet on the national. Then with matched betting I started doing quite a bit more betting when there was value from extra places (betting on every horse in the race with William Hill bookies within walking distance of me was my favourite for the first race of Cheltenham a couple of years in a row ). But looking at pre off trading, it all seems to be purely random to me. Just as I think I’m seeing a pattern emerge, it suddenly seems to reverse. Similarly I’ve tried scalping and found you can quickly end up several ticks on the wrong side of the trade here as well. I’ve also tried a little bit of in play trading and whilst I can sometimes see how to beat the market, there are so many variables and things move so quickly, you can get burnt very easily (as I’ve found when I’ve tried trading previously). So this is an area where I’d love to actually try and work out how to make money but is likely to be the most difficult it feels like.

So yeah, having read the forum for the last couple of weeks or so, I want to try and record my progress in here, as hopefully that will help me be a bit more disciplined, whereas in the past if I’ve had a losing run I’ve tended to just sack off the idea of trying to learn to trade. And if people have any great tips/insight to share from when they were starting out, that would also be really helpful (I have read or am going to read most of the beginners tips threads on the forum, and one of the things I find hardest is working out how to get from a point of having no strategies to having working, tried and tested strategies). But for cricket and football at least I’ve got a couple of ideas which I’m putting into practice. For horse racing, I might just continue to play around with low stakes and see if I get any closer to it all clicking!

[Kai]

Hi there

Not a bad idea to try a bit of everything at first but maybe best to focus on one sport/market/strategy, if you spread yourself too thin it will be harder to penetrate that initial market efficiency

I think football knowledge did more harm than good for me at first, could only really use it after I've learned more about the markets themselves

[jamesedwards]

Football is chock-full of experts. Horse racing is in decline, and saturated with expert knowledge and multiple technological edges. You'll likely very quickly get steamrollered in either of these.

Cricket is a little more niche and one of the few sports in Betfair that is growing exponentially.

I would focus on cricket if I were you.

Good luck!

[grimm]

Football is chock-full of experts. Horse racing is in decline, and saturated with expert knowledge and multiple technological edges. You'll likely very quickly get steamrollered in either of these.

Cricket is a little more niche and one of the few sports in Betfair that is growing exponentially.

I would focus on cricket if I were you.

Good luck!

i agree with you, cricket is niche but very hard. for example team selection is very important so knowing which player is playing very important( form of player is also very important) criinfo has some good information. cricket world cup starts soon.
for football start very basic. i.e lay the draw

[Michael5482]

A good write up good luck with your endeavors.

From a football aspect I'd slightly disagree Lay the Draw is basic and I'd look to start with lower risk trades like pre-match trading team news/club news then moving to in-play looking to take a scalp or two here and there while watching what the markets do under certain match conditions. Work outwards over time and building a picture up over time.

Patterns will emerge that you can take advantage of with strategy's like lay the draw however there are two other options in the match odds markets other than the draw so don't restrict yourself to laying the draw if/when the time comes.

+ Kai's advice

[ShaunWhite]

In terms of trading, I’m looking at the following areas:

It's all equally hard so consider the lifestyle you'll end up with. Do you want you want to sit at a desk every day, evening or night, do you mind scheduling your life around sporting events, do you want to watch sport on tv all day, do you want to work as and when you please and automate your way to a passive income? Trading is a novelty at first but after a few years that wears off big time, so what life do you want?

(my personal choice cane down to : I don't like sport much, I don't want to be tied to the clock or calendar, I had a tech background. So for me I treat it as an IT job and I only run automation)

[Kai]

And if people have any great tips/insight to share from when they were starting out, that would also be really helpful (I have read or am going to read most of the beginners tips threads on the forum, and one of the things I find hardest is working out how to get from a point of having no strategies to having working, tried and tested strategies).

Just remembered this thread, where many traders shared exactly that, so you might find it helpful : viewtopic.php?f=2&t=23681

[Tiesto13]

Thanks all for the comments and thoughts. In terms of the sports I’m focusing on, it is good to hear that you think there is plenty of opportunity in cricket. Although it does surprise me, as the markets are huge, and there is clearly a lot of extremely quick courtsiding/automation already going on in them which does worry me somewhat. That said, I’ve already spotted a couple of areas where there is clearly opportunity and there are huge swings in the markets due to the swingy nature of cricket.

Trading cricket would be the dream, it’s the sport I have come to enjoy the most and already watch plenty of quite happily.

I’ll continue to look at football and horse racing in the mean time but I do think with horse racing at least I might find the effort required to succeed might end up being too much.

[sionascaig]

In cricket, you are up against some v sophisticated setups & pros. They will take a cut of your profits but still plenty to go round if trading volatility.

Assume someone somewhere will have a faster feed & able to react quicker than you & start from there...

[Anbell]

In cricket, you are up against some v sophisticated setups & pros. They will take a cut of your profits but still plenty to go round if trading volatility.

Assume someone somewhere will have a faster feed & able to react quicker than you & start from there...

That's good advice, as usual from you, and it is also true in every market, it seems.

[Anbell]

I think football knowledge did more harm than good for me at first

This is always true.

[Kai]

I’ll continue to look at football and horse racing in the mean time but I do think with horse racing at least I might find the effort required to succeed might end up being too much.

Well it would certainly help to break into profit with a single strategy somewhere, anywhere, if you really commit to one thing. Then you would more or less know what it takes and could likely do it again elsewhere, not to mention you would gain some much needed confidence and relieve some of that pressure too. While flirting with too many ideas and markets can easily lead nowhere and drain all your confidence and willpower instead.

[Bobajob]

I’ll continue to look at football and horse racing in the mean time but I do think with horse racing at least I might find the effort required to succeed might end up being too much.

Well it would certainly help to break into profit with a single strategy somewhere, anywhere, if you really commit to one thing. Then you would more or less know what it takes and could likely do it again elsewhere, not to mention you would gain some much needed confidence and relieve some of that pressure too. While flirting with too many ideas and markets can easily lead nowhere and drain all your confidence and willpower instead.

Absolutely spot on
+1

[Kai]

But looking at pre off trading, it all seems to be purely random to me.

Maybe because you're just watching the market noise, but markets are not as random as you would think. A market on fastest refresh rates especially can seem twitchy and intimidating but you could try many ways of simplifying all that market information.

Huge drift on Victorious Street.

If I borrow this graph from another thread for a moment (doesn't matter much that it's a racing chart) to try and simplify things you can see the market is not that random and that it does have a head and a tail. The price roughly went 3.0 => 2.0 => 2.5 => 2.25 => 3.0 => 5.0. So when you look at the bigger picture you can identify actual trends, reversals, retracements etc, and you decide which parts you want to trade, if any.

So with a bit of common sense and intuition you can trade different preoff markets without any sport knowledge and without knowing the reason behind moves. While inplay you would struggle to properly find and frame opportunities without sport knowledge.

In an ideal world many sports on the exchange would have very liquid preoff markets rife with speculation but as others have pointed out that is not the case. So I agree that for your use case cricket seems the obvious choice, but be mindful that watching too much of it may hurt your enjoyment of the sport if it was a hobby/passion before that.

Hope that helps a bit, good luck with your diary.

[Tiesto13]

So a bit of a one week diary. Although I was away this weekend, so couldn't do anything then.

Cricket
Some small successes on most markets until the England - Bangladesh game. Had gone overs on runs when Malan and Root were ticking along nicely, and with 10 overs left it looked clear that England were going to easily exceed my overs line. So I doubled down on overs again as I figured it was an almost risk free bet. 10 overs later, and it turned out not to be risk free and cost me a substantial proportion of my bank. Has taught me a bit about risk management at least. I've subsequently been trying to mine more data on over by over scores as I do think there are some good opportunities to trade the 10 overs run line. Will need to trial this one through the rest of the world cup though as there is limited time for your position to come back onside if there is a wicket first over or the batsmen go on a bit of a tear.

Football
Continued my lay the draw strategy and am now down £20. Have been unlucky though. Have had 3 nil nil draws despite the correct score market suggesting that I should only be on 1.8 nil-nils by now, so will pursue with this strategy.

Horse racing
I think I find these markets a bit overwhelming and end up trying to do too much and this leads to me getting burnt. If I'm going to continue with these markets, I need to focus on making one trade max for now each market when I'm very confident its a good trade. Find it easier to spot these opportunities in the in-play horse racing rather than pre-off I think, so might ignore pre-off entirely.