My Journey So Far

[new to betting]

Back in Feb I wrote a post roughly saying I was struggling to make 50p-£2 a race. In actual fact I was struggling to make 10p a race! 30p would be a really good trade for me.
We are now in march and I decided to do this trading malarkey 'properly'. By properly I mean give myself a plan, execute it and stick to it.
Now I know everyone's goals are different but I think mine is quite unique, and to most laughable.

This year my only goal was to pay for bet angel and because of my OCD I have planned it so I can hopefully pay for the years subscription 1st Jan. So I am working my way through all of the subscription plans to do this. Some, if not a lot of you will say this is a waste of money but I cant help the way I am and lack of funds!
So for me to achieve this plan I need to make roughly £1.15 a day, yes that little! But remember I was struggling to get 10p-30p a trade.
I looked at this as a way to get lots of practice in, and its working!
I'm now making between 50p-£1.50 a race and my best yet is £8.49. Now, this may sound silly to most of you but remember I am very new and my bank balance is very very low.
I do a bit of pre race trading and mix it up with in play trading if I feel happy doing so.
I'm actually loving it now and I think I am lucky as I am home by 14:30 every day so get lots of practice in.
My new goal now is to continue to fund BA and have a balance of at least £500 by close of play December.
This is a little out of my reach I think but it is keeping me going. I am already up on my target but know that £1.15 is the least I need so anything else is a bonus and extra practice.

What I am trying to get at is, if you are new to this and like me struggle to make over £1, stick at it and look at it as a blessing. When you break the £1 mark it feels great and when you smash your targets it feels way better.

My advice from a novice,

Give yourself a plan and stick to it.

Work out how much you need to win to afford BA (doing this put my mind at ease, £1.15 a day from march 1st is not a lot).

Most importantly, HAVE FUN!!!

I know my wins are laughable but I know if I keep my head down and stick to what I'm doing they will grow and they have been, as will yours!

Well I hope I haven't sent you to sleep or hurt your sides at my expense.

Thanks for reading if you got this far

[Yirkaa]

Hey NTB

I am glad it works well for you now but I will give you a bit of my experience with trading. I am trading on and off for almost a year. I am breaking even maybe bit on upside and I had trading days like you when everything seemed to go perfectly, hey I remember day when I made 50 pounds one day whereas my average day profit was around 3 pounds! But then I got hit hard later and my 50 pounds was gone by next month without changing my staking or strategy. I was losing pretty much every day. I quit for 3 months because I had no confidence and was discouraged after seeing my nice steady profit graph go in hell. Funny thing is I never actually lost money trading. All I lost was my previous winnings but it was still enough to stop me from trading. I do not mean it as a discouragement just a word of caution because this will happen to you. You will get hit but instead of quitting try to shake it off, learn and dont get discouraged. QAnd do not make mistake like I did putting goals for week, month or day. If you have ultimate goal to pay for year subscription of BA thats okay but the road there will be bumpy so do not put additional pressure on yourself.

Good luck and cheers

[mugsgame]

Hey NTB

I am glad it works well for you now but I will give you a bit of my experience with trading. I am trading on and off for almost a year. I am breaking even maybe bit on upside and I had trading days like you when everything seemed to go perfectly, hey I remember day when I made 50 pounds one day whereas my average day profit was around 3 pounds! But then I got hit hard later and my 50 pounds was gone by next month without changing my staking or strategy. I was losing pretty much every day. I quit for 3 months because I had no confidence and was discouraged after seeing my nice steady profit graph go in hell. Funny thing is I never actually lost money trading. All I lost was my previous winnings but it was still enough to stop me from trading. I do not mean it as a discouragement just a word of caution because this will happen to you. You will get hit but instead of quitting try to shake it off, learn and dont get discouraged. QAnd do not make mistake like I did putting goals for week, month or day. If you have ultimate goal to pay for year subscription of BA thats okay but the road there will be bumpy so do not put additional pressure on yourself.

Good luck and cheers

This is a good attitude to trading Yirkaa - You will do well in the future. MG

[marko236]

HI New to betting,

I'v been trading for about 3 months now and in the same boat as you, my advice to you is if you are making money every week try investing some or all you spare income and push forward a bit faster, i just think you'l get a bit bored just trying to cover your ba costs.

[honeymill]

Hi NTB
Liked reading your post. I've been using Bet Angel in real mode since Christmas. In the past four weeks I have doubled my bank, only to see two thirds of that gain slip away in the past few days. As somebody mentioned, these are my tuition fees.
I do lack a plan and my confidence is now a bit wobbly. I can't find an angle for trading yet so I am scalping. Actually I'm somewhere between scalping and trading as I try to enter a few points away from the current price, hoping for a gain of 3 to four ticks on short prices.
Based of one of the videos, I built a scalping system in automation, but get caught out when the price changes suddenly. I know there are a lot of options within the Auto builder, but I don't understand the terminology and can't find a guide to same on Bet Angel.
I've got Windows Vista, but didn't know that the very nice people at Microsoft quietly dropped Excel in their latest version. None of the write ups seemed to mention that at the time.
It would be nice if this particular discussion was confined to beginners for a while, with the older Angels coming in later on with their comments. Betfair is changing and maybe fresh thinking is called for, for instance getting out of the pre race market 5 to 10 minutes before the off when the spoofers etc get up to their devilment.
Stick to whatever betting plan you like and the best of luck to you.

[mugsgame]

Betfair has always been changing, this is nothing new. How do you think you can stay successful for 7 or 8 years if you don't have fresh ideas and react to changes? Do you think the "Older Angels" just do the same old shit day after day and are resistant to change and new ideas?

I'll leave the thread to you young pups with your fresh ideas, Getting out of a market before it has started is a good one

Don't let the spoofers scare you off. Frustrating as they can be, why not learn their method of operation and take advantage of it using this new fangled automation stuff.

Looking forward to see what you guys come up with.

[marko236]

Mugs is right the market does change all the time due to new people coming in with different ideas to trade and gamble.

I don't just trade i look for all opertunitys, i gamble when the odds are good enough to make a profit, i'l dutch when theres a good chance of getting it right.

When i trade i only go for 1 tick so i need to have a high number of succesful trades so i only trade little usually 3 or 4 trades an hour.

And this is where i get told off all day i hardly ever use stops and if my sportsbook is looking ok i'm happy to let it go inplay.

[new to betting]

Hello everyone, sorry for the late reply. Having a hectic lifestyle at the moment and haven't had chance to sit down for 5 mins lol.

Yirkaa...... £50 in one day seems like a pipe dream at the moment but I hope I get there, even if its just the one time! I have had some losses and I'm slowly learning to walk away but its very hard. Your words are far from discouraging! Its nice that people like you like to share your ups and downs. I understand the pressure of having regular goals, Iv been there before I stumbled into BA and its very stressful. Number 1 goal is to pay for BA and a side goal is to have a wallet of at least £500, I know this is out of reach so I am not too focused in it. I'm looking forward to all the bumps (learning curves) but I'm sure I wont say that when I hit them haha.

Marko236.... I hope your journey is going well. Spare income is non-existent at the moment as much as I would love to plough my personal stash into it I would highly regret it if it all went tits up. At the moment I am not bored of covering the costs, as I say, its only £1.15 a day any I can confidently hit that target, this gives me a choice to stop or carry on and it puts a massive smile on my face. (At the moment) its not about having that extra income, its about learning and enjoying it.

Honeymill..... I'm glad you enjoyed my post. Happy days about doubling your bank but not so happy about losing a chunk of it. With regards to a plan make it small id say and build it up. as you hit your plans your confidence grows. You seem to know what your doing and I'm not clued up with the terminology lol, I'm sure it will come. I'm steering clear of automation. I don't think our 'fresh' thinking is going to change the way betfair run there business so ill stay out of that one lol.

Mugsgame..... I think I can spot the spoofers, I think its when there is a sudden change to the feel of the market or loads of money appears. If I'm wrong I'm wrong but things like this I can deal with. Not sure how but I seem to do ok with it.

Thank you for all your comments and input. Its good to read peoples own views on everything.
Hopefully my next blog thing will be me saying I have hit my goals and have new ones! Its a slow journey on a long road but when (not if) I get there I will be one happy 'pup'.

[Euler]

Best advice is to protect your trading capital at all times. I've seen to many people blow their capital by making silly mistakes. But no matter how much you stress this, people still continue to do it.

Your return on turnover can be quite small, so trying to recover a bank can be really tough if you flush it down a bad trade / trade turned gamble. Just don't go there. Slow and steady and compound your capital to larger amounts.

[new to betting]

Thank you for your advice Euler much appreciated

[marko236]

As Euler said protecting your bank is most important, it's one off the first mistakes most of us make when we start trading, i'v seen posts of people saying there doing well and then posting that they have just lost like 75% of there bank in one day!

New to betting is doing the right thing by slowly learning and risking very little, aslong as i'm making money month to month i'm throwing every spare penny into it.

[new to betting]

Thanks marko236. I know it's pittance what I'm making but I am enjoying it. Even if I end the month having only just made enough to hit my personal goals I'll be happy. If it means IV Learnt a lesson then that to me is priceless.
Take the other day for example, had my biggest loss of £39. Yes that's a huge loss for me lol. I know what I done wrong and will try my heardst not to repeat it again...... Lesson learnt...... Worth it's weight in gold and money saved for next time I'm in the same situation.

Thanks for all your feedback guys, it's nice to see so many people with there input, positive or negative, it's all good and all going in