£25 a day - A beginner's journey

[ShaunWhite]

Isn't that the price you pay for removing emotion from the trading equation,

Bit of a facalcy that automated trading doesn't involve emotion and subjectivity, it's just different. Each day is a trust exercise with thousands of pounds, and if you guys loose you can get back in the saddle in 10minutes or next day, our losses can come after months of work which can be crushing, and the next trial might be weeks away, longer if you've binned the project and look for fresh fields. And worse, something you could rely on for months or years vanishes almost overnight. It's emotional, but in bullet time rather than going on tilt for an hour.

[Leehaw1972]

If you are going down that road, prepare yourself to lose lots of money. I mean thousands of pounds. That's the reality while your learning. You will think your winning and then all of a sudden a horse comes from the back of the field and bites you in the ass. That's the reality.

[ShaunWhite]

If you are going down that road, prepare yourself to lose lots of money. I mean thousands of pounds. That's the reality while your learning. You will think your winning and then all of a sudden a horse comes from the back of the field and bites you in the ass. That's the reality.

Sounds like staking too big before the edge has been proven. Horses will 'come from the back and win' as about often as their odds suggest and with close to 2000 horses a week running in the summer 1000/1 winners could land twice a week on average. But with money management and a decent strategy no single loss should be ever be especially significant.

Nobody should be losing thousands.

[Fugazi]

If you are going down that road, prepare yourself to lose lots of money. I mean thousands of pounds. That's the reality while your learning. You will think your winning and then all of a sudden a horse comes from the back of the field and bites you in the ass. That's the reality.

Sounds like staking too big before the edge has been proven. Horses will 'come from the back and win' as about often as their odds suggest and with close to 2000 horses a week running in the summer 1000/1 winners could land twice a week on average. But with money management and a decent strategy no single loss should be ever be especially significant.

Nobody should be losing thousands.

BUT

What about those horses that should be 20,000-1 ?

[ShaunWhite]

What about those horses that should be 20,000-1 ?

Touché
Hard enough to find backers at 1000 when it's 2000 let alone at 20,000 (ie dead behind a screen)

But you've highlighted a quirk. You've got 1000 but we don't have 1.001. XM isn't quite so involved above 100 with having the 1.01 bottom.

[tico]

Hi All ,
This has been an interesting discussion and there is enough info here to feed the optimists and pessimists amongst us .
So what is the reality behind trading and given the fact that only 2% of people make money out of trading on BF (unless you listen to a very silly video that tells us 96% win) is there really a way to profitability ?

I find all of this talk about losing a fortune to gain an 'edge' disconcerting to say the least .The other mantra that nobody will part with a winning angle/strategy is probably only that a mantra .
Personally I think that successful traders dont exist and possibly only exist for a small period in time before they bite the dust .
Laying is another predicament . You will get wiped out or manage to keep your head above water for a while . But I feel that betting the value (on BF ,Smarkets Orbit etc) is probably still the best way to go ,it has certainly worked for me .
Turn the clock back
Pre Exchanges.
with 10% tax and only bookies plying their organised crime, value betting was almost impossible . If somebody then had suggested that the exchanges would exist you would have thought them candidates for deep therapy .But Exchanges did materialise and with it stunning opportunities for value betting .
So my advice is that if you want to earn 25 or 250 or 2,500 quid a day then start getting to know your game and looking for the value ,forget trading it's just a sophisticated way of losing your shirt .

[jamesedwards]

I find all of this talk about losing a fortune to gain an 'edge' disconcerting to say the least .

Coincidentally or not, this is exactly what happened to me.

When I first started out trying to trade full time, very early on I lost £2.5k unexpectedly in one market. After a few hours moping about it, I started to think about how I could leverage similar events to my advantage, and without knowing it, I soon had created my first edge. 6 years on I'm well on the way to a Betfair million, and that single event probably kick-started the whole thing.

I think too many people think if they throw enough random trading rules at a market then they'll find something that sticks. There's always someone new on here asking about how do they back at x when y goals have been scored and trade out with z mins to play etc. You would have to be so lucky to stumble across an edge that way. You're going to need luck, of course, but the more logical your thinking, the less luck you will need.

[Kai]

Personally I think that successful traders dont exist and possibly only exist for a small period in time before they bite the dust .

Yep, real eyes realize real lies

The good old "if I can't do it, must be a giant conspiracy" argument... denying reality as a coping mechanism

How tf is anyone able to succeed at something they don't even believe exists, let that one marinate for a moment

[ShaunWhite]

I find all of this talk about losing a fortune to gain an 'edge' disconcerting to say the least .The other mantra that nobody will part with a winning angle/strategy is probably only that a mantra .

Personally I think that successful traders dont exist and possibly only exist for a small period in time before they bite the dust .

It's definately not the case that people who suceeed lose big on the way. The most successful guy I know only ever made one deposit, back in about 2005.

A winning strategy : You predict that a certain product (apples or the favourite in the 2:30) is going to be popular, so you buy some. When everyone else starts buying/backing the hot product, the price changes due to supply and demand. So you sell your apples and lay off your favourite and make a turn on it. Repeat.

People get so hung up on Betfair being different or special but buying and selling a commodity as prices move is as old as the hills. Some aren't any good at it and fail, others do OK, and the very best do very well indeed. What the best have is a nose for what's going to be popular or unpopular and that's experience and instinct and can't easily be taught.


.

[Kai]

Anecdotal tradesplaining aside, please break down the logic behind it

How can someone get so confident in value betting, yet fail to see how trading could be possible

[napshnap]

I find all of this talk about losing a fortune to gain an 'edge' disconcerting to say the least .

Coincidentally or not, this is exactly what happened to me.

When I first started out trying to trade full time, very early on I lost £2.5k unexpectedly in one market.
...

Interesting, James. Was it a Aus horseracing market?

[ShaunWhite]

When I first started out trying to trade full time, very early on I lost £2.5k unexpectedly in one market.
...

In 2006 I managed to lose 7k out of my 8k bank in one race and I didn't have another bet for 10yrs it hurt so much. It wasn't 'trading' that was to blame, it was me being a fckn idiot, loading up a lay position like a maniac to try and escape a 50 red. Then the Internet went down, the flag dropped, and of course the 5.0 or whatever it was romped home.

Strarting again in 2016 I learnt you don't stake x% of your bank, you risk x% of your bank. Not as a potential trading loss with a nice tidy close, but a loss where you can't get out. Aka risk management. The 'trader' mindset just encourages people to stake too big, and when shit happens they're screwed.... and doing this everyday shit will happen eventually. No drama since learning that.

And when you can't deposit and rely on the income you get very protective of your working capital

[henbet22]

When I first started out trying to trade full time, very early on I lost £2.5k unexpectedly in one market.
...

In 2006 I managed to lose 7k out of my 8k bank in one race and I didn't have another bet for 10yrs it hurt so much. It wasn't 'trading' that was to blame, it was me being a fckn idiot, loading up a lay position like a maniac to try and escape a 50 red. Then the Internet went down, the flag dropped, and of course the 5.0 or whatever it was romped home.

Strarting again in 2016 I learnt you don't stake x% of your bank, you risk x% of your bank. Not as a potential trading loss with a nice tidy close, but a loss where you can't get out. Aka risk management. The 'trader' mindset just encourages people to stake too big, and when shit happens they're screwed.... and doing this everyday shit will happen eventually. No drama since learning that.

And when you can't deposit and rely on the income you get very protective of your working capital

So is automation the best/easiest way to get the necessary separation to stop the boom bust cycle. Asking for a friend.

[jamesedwards]

I find all of this talk about losing a fortune to gain an 'edge' disconcerting to say the least .

Coincidentally or not, this is exactly what happened to me.

When I first started out trying to trade full time, very early on I lost £2.5k unexpectedly in one market.
...

Interesting, James. Was it a Aus horseracing market?

No, it was US horse race. An unexpected DQ.

[rkuk]

Save yourself some time. This is what I have learned in the last six weeks.

Simple random laying of outsiders doesn't work, you eventually run into a high priced dobbin that wins and you give back any past winnings plus some on top.

Laying the favourite doesn't work, its a maths thing, there's plenty on the net about that particular strategy.

Dutching half the field up to say 25 odds doesn't work either because a when high priced outsider, that you haven't backed, comes in (often in 2 races a day) you lose much, much more than you can win. You can limit this by avoiding certain races but still the strategy is a loser.

Dutching the whole field by backing at the Lay price doesn't work because you rarely get the whole book filled at the expected price. If you do it too late the market is too volatile, if you go early there is no activity and there's no-one to match all your bets.Vice Versa for Bookmaking by laying the field at the back price for the same reason.

Laying an outsider before the off and using the in-play trader to Back out in play doesn't work because once again every now and then the blighter runs its heart out and wins, obliterating your past successes. So you place a stop to protect yourself only for it to get taken just before the horse falls on its backside so then you still lose when you should have won on top of your normal losses.

Automated scalping doesn't work, the video on BetAngel TV makes it look a breeze but it doesn't happen like that in the real world. You always lose more than you win.

Using WOM doesn't work despite what some betting books say, maybe it did when Betfair was new, but it certainly doesn't now.(See my other recent thread)

No-one will actually tell you what DOES work, mainly because practically no-one on this forum, that doesn't work for Bet Angel, actually makes any serious money.(OK, there must be a few, but very few).

Just because someone does a lot of posts doesn't mean they are an expert, except perhaps in making forum posts.

I will tell you that I am making some profit trading odds using the charts but even then its only very tiny amounts although I am only using small stakes.

I believe I read somewhere that Betfair say that 98% of their accounts run at a loss.

So in conclusion, making £25 a day will be hard, very hard indeed. If it were easy the market couldn't exist.

This is interesting. I'm completely new and have watched loads of Peter's videos and I am having a really hard time. It's as though every decision I make just goes against me and on the trades where it's going correct I'm actually making pence, but when it goes against me I'm losing pounds. Now the optimist in me thinks 'if this was reverse then I'd be doing OK' lol. So it must be a me problem. I just need something safe and relatively low risk to start with. The more things I have watched, the more I am learning to try and be more selective about which horse races I attempt to trade - so I am doing less. If I arrive at the market and can't understand the relationships then I have started ignoring it and moving on.

It looks like you need quite a bit of bankroll to make good gains (I know Peter has proven that to not be the case on a video, but that's the difference between master and newbie).

I think with this game there's just so much to go at and multiple ways to attack it, that it has become overwhelming for a beginner. Hundred of videos and articles to read but it can become a blur. I know this individual post is very old and unsure if the forum poster is still around / trading but it would be interesting to know their viewpoint now