So i've got £800 to start trading with, this is money that i can afford to lose. Although i don't fancy losing it any time soon
I've practiced with betangel, i've done trading on both to win and to place markets. My question is what would be the best way to go about making £50 a day? would it be trading on every event and aiming for just a few pound?
Also would it be worth it to put 1/3 of the bankroll on betdaq just incase?
Any suggestions would be great, just want some direction. Im trying to create a plan.
Are you full-time, or is this alongside a normal job?
My first advice is forget aiming for £50 per day. This takes time, you will make mistakes, we all have. If you have a set amount in mind to win, that's no different to somebody chasing losers
Step 1 - Understand the markets, understand why prices move.....and don't lose money. Breaking even at the beginning is a terrific result
Step 2 - Start posting more greens than reds. If you make £1 per day, that's a result
Obviously, take your progression from there
My final advice is not to get cocky, complacent or rash. Never let a bad trade go 'in play' and never gamble to win back a loss, or to achieve a set amount of money. Always have a sensible staking plan, never trade 100% of your bank, and never open BF or BA when you have alcohol in your veins
Hi, I think you shouldn't set any profit targets at such an early phase. You should probably adjust your mindset a bit and forget about making money for now and just focus on learning and not losing too much money as you learn, because your bank is basically useless at this point. In fact, perhaps it's best that you don't even deposit the majority of that money to BF because there's a good chance that you might lose it. Luckily, you don't need to lose money to learn how to trade horses, so a minimal deposit like 20-50-100 pounds will do just fine.
For this starting phase it's probably best that you read about horse racing as much as you can, but also watch as many trading vids as you can find on YouTube. That will give you some basic idea about how trading horses looks like, those videos where traders are "thinking out loud" are worth their weight in gold because you get to see their thought process and that's priceless for somebody who is starting out. You get to see the reasons behind their positions and how they manage those positions so you learn a ton from just watching videos.
Whether you are successful or not will of course depend on many factors, mainly on how much time and effort you are willing to invest in it, but and also on how you deal with failure and loss. Everyone fails at the beginning, the trick is to keep trying until you find a way. Each failure is an opportunity to learn and to try again, each time more intelligently. And each successive attempt has a higher chance of succeeding than the previous one, because with each attempt you keep learning and improving.
You need to ensure that there's quality in the way you work and learn, otherwise you risk running around in circles for years without really getting anywhere, like so many people sadly do. Needles to say, if you adopt a methodical approach then it's possible to progress very fast and success can only be a matter of time if you have a structured plan in place. For starters, you need to absorb all the (quality) info that you can find, watch all the (quality) videos that you can find and get familiar with the trading software. Next, it's time to get some actual ladder experience and to try and use the things that you've read about, it's best to avoid training mode and stick to minimal stakes instead. That way mistakes won't be as punishing and your emotions won't get in the way so much because you obviously won't care about pennies, so your focus will solely be on the strategies that you're trying out and not on the mental side of trading.
After you get some consistency going it's probably time to (slowly) up the stakes and see how well you do with real money, this is where "emotions" like greed and fear of loss come into play. A quality way of working is to record all of your races and then analyze them afterwards, especially the losses. Make notes, try to find mistakes and reasons for your losses, try and correct those mistakes the next day and so on. Sometimes you will suffer a loss without really making any mistakes, it's just part of trading and you need to accept that. Analyze the races where you made minimal profit, see if there were opportunities that you missed and try to look for those same opportunities the next day. Watching a video of yourself trading will give you a fresh pair of eyes and you will notice things that are maybe impossible to notice while you are actually trading. Eventually you will start noticing patterns in price movements and market behavior so look for ways to best exploit that. After a while it should all become routine, for that you'll probably need a few thousand markets under your belt, perhaps less if you're clever and work hard at it. Whenever you hit a wall for whatever reason try and ask for help/advice on forums like this, or directly from known traders if possible. It all sounds like a lot of effort and it is, but the rewards can be quite substantial as you already know.
That being said, learning how these markets behave is one thing, but you will also need to develop some mental skills as well because they play a massive part, on racing markets especially. The mental side of trading plays a big role here, all it takes is one slip up and you can ruin all that good work that you did on previous XX number of races, so consistency and concentration are of paramount importance on horse racing markets.
The key battle whether you are successful or not will probably be in your head, rather than on the market itself, because you need to have a proper trader's mindset to master horse racing. Big no-no's like chasing losses etc will become very evident if you introduce analysis in the way you work, everything that you're doing wrong from the mental side of things should come out to light through your analysis, so you will have an opportunity to correct that. But of course, simply being aware of a specific problem is not a solution on it's own, it can take a ton of work and mental fortitude to get rid of your bad habbits and to correct any major flaws in your mindset. However, if your "head" is perfectly fine, then it should be smooth sailing and you can only focus on obtaining knowledge and experience.
So once again, I think it's best if you don't set too many daily/weekly/monthly profit targets, because you don't really get what you wish for, you only get what you work for. In other words, if your trading is good then profit will come on its own and it wil be pretty clear what your average daily profit is. If that's not good enough then you will have to simply work harder and try to improve. That is all strictly IMHO of course, mostly from my own experience.
Hope that helps, good luck.
Last edited by Kai on Tue Aug 18, 2015 10:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
My first piece of advice is to echo what both LeTiss and Kai have already said and thats forget any daily or weekly targets for now it will only lead to dissapointment - your only goal should be to lose as little as possible over the first few months - break even or make a small profit and thats a bonus.
Not all markets behave the same, for example in UK horse racing bumpers, novices and maidens are the most volitile and usually have big price swings. You should certainly watch and make notes on all the markets race types etc but there is no one stratergy that will suit all markets so over time you will find which stratergys suit you best and which markets they can be applied to for greater profits - many seasoned traders avoid certain market types for this reason and stick to what they can make constant profits from.
Everyone has a differnet psychology when it comes to risk, reward, patience etc all of which play key parts in trading which is another reason why someone can do something perfectly profitable but someone else may struggle following the exact same methods, to echo whats already been said watch as many video's as possible as well as live markets and slowly you will find what suits your psychology and attitude and therefore ultimatly starts to make long term constant profits.
Dont fall into the trap of watching a few videos and thinking it just a case of clicking the mouse a few times and hey pressto easy money - the mouse is being clicked in these videos as the trader takes many factors into account to make there desision - factors which the trader has spent 100s of hours learning by studying the markets.
You can and will make a profit from this providing you are disaplined, determined and patient.
I've read all of the three posts above, firstly i'd like to just say thank you to you guys for giving me such a detailed and constructive reply. With what you guys have said in mind i've created a playlist on youtube with any video that commentary and is trading horses. I've opened up word on my other monitor, i'm going to be taking some notes. Anything that i wonder to my self, e.g how does the volatility of the market affect trading? i will note that down and set out to find the answer.
Hopefully after watching all these videos in detail i will have a nice platform to build upon. I've also got a few online blogs where people update their progress, they interest me because i can see them thought process and see where they made mistakes and why. I've also decided to forget about the profit per day thing and trade with small stakes for a least a month. Im going to analyse every race i trade on briefly on excel after i finish trading that race, after doing so i will go on to the next race. Also decided that two days per week i will record at least five races to analyse what i did right and wrong.
My main aims are to:
Learn from my mistakes, by taking all the information i can from when i have a good or bad trade.
Be critical of my own performance.
Learning as much as possible and trying to be consistent.
One question i have though about betfair and their site going down, has bf ever gone down during a trade for you guys? Im trying to figure out if in the future it is worth having a betdaq account just incase.
Again, thank you all. Oh and by the way i'm doing this along side being at University.
You sound like you are taking the correct approach, trading is not a way to get rich quick and slow and steady will always yield better results long term do what you have stated then if in doubt research, watch video's or ask the question there is always plenty of help, advice and views from all levels and experience of traders to draw from and help you on your way.
Bf goes down more frequently than you might think most recently just last week, seach thr forum for the topic "BF Down" for this reason its always best to have a betdaq account as a back up and if possible another device not using the same internet connection in case of personal internet issues with your main laptop/PC.
I just want to make i know what to do when bf goes down, as an e.g. there's two minutes for the race to go in play i have £100 backing the horse to win and it's matched and another £100 waiting to be backed. Bf then goes down, firstly what will happen to my £100 that i had matched and what happens to the other £100 i had waiting to be matched is it cancelled?
Also how would i know what to odds to close my trade on betdaq? i'm assuming the odds and money in and out on bet angle will just stop moving?
Matched bets still stand and are settled depandant on race outcome, unmatched bets are voided, you can also select "take SP" for unmatched bets you have in the market, if the event just fails to turn in-play BF should still reconcile these bets but if a crash happens well before the off using BD is the better option, if you cant manually calculate the odds quickly in your head and you have a £100 back bet with betfair just lay for £100 on Betdaq at whatever odds are avalible and you ll get a few quid profit or loss or break even dependant on actual result but thats better than a total loss doing nothing
