Blew over half my bank last weekend - need advice!

[ShaunWhite]

Betting 3 or 4% of your bank on each of 60 random football bets I'm suprised you've got anything left.

Well, these "random" matches are not so random. This is why I watch them live, look at league tables and check both pre match info and live match stats (like sofascore) in order to pick the matches to bet on. I watch quite a lot more matches than the ones I get involved in. For example, today I kept an eye on Juventus and Atalanta and Milan matches. I could clearly see from early first half action that Juventus and Atalanta were going to win their games. Their back prices were very low as expected from the start. So I decided that I will only get involved in these games if its somewhat late in 2nd half and Atalanta and Juventus are not winning. Come 50 min mark, both Atalanta and Juventus were leading and after watching the match for a few mins, I decided that there is no way back for losing teams in these matches. So I didn't trade.

However, I traded Milan game. My pre match research showed that even with Imbrahimovic, Milan were priced way too low, given that there level is very mediocre right now. So I thought laying Milan would be a good idea before the game started. But I decided not do it before watching the game.

However from live pictures and sofascore it was clear that Milan were pressing and dominating most of the match. I decided to back over 0.5 market and lay the draw around 80 mins mark as usual (and lost, yet again).

Just now I watched Lecce vs Udinese. My pre match research showed that both of these teams tend to concede many goals. So I anticipated at least one goal in the game. I watched the 2nd half. I could see that Udinese were the better side. This feeling was enhanced by the fact that Udinese scored 2 goals already (that were disallowed). I also sensed that although the action wasn't as "intense" as I would have liked, it would be worth it to bet on over "0.5" goals - I took the bet on 78 min at 2.34 odds. I thought these odds were value given the action on the pitch. I also backed Udinese at 3.10 on roughly 67 min and then laid the draw on 85 min at 1.36. Final score 0-1, and both bets were won...

Sorry when you said you'd seen 5 value opportunities I assumed the other 60 'trades' were just speculative.

"I could clearly see from early first half action that Juventus and Atalanta were going to win their games."
I assume that's just a figure of speech rather than what you actually felt.

tbh though it's hard to comment on what you're doing because it isn't trading, it's just betting.

[Kai]

And what was the total result after those 5 clear value trades only?

Overall over these 7 "value" matches I had around £50 profit... If I got on Malaga and Espanyol games earlier instead of waiting (and getting on the market later on to my disadvantage) I'd have £150-£160 profit... Massive difference...

Well there you go, do more of these value trades and less of everything else?

Sometimes less trades equals more profit in your P&L, as strange as that sounds.

You cannot expect to find 50 high quality opportunities over a single weekend, even if you're a God tier trader, 5-7 is a perfectly good number, especially when you're starting out. Unrealistic expectations and unrealistic trading plans are one of the most common mistakes of newbie traders, at the start you're maybe expected to find value only in the most obvious situations (while the majority of aspiring traders are unable to even do that mind you), and as you get more and more practiced and experienced you should start finding value in the more subtle situations and so on, but trying to semi-watch 5 matches at the same time at the very start does not sound like a sensible approach, not to mention the burnout.

In my opinion the absolute first priority should be ensuring that you're able to spot value in the first place (!) and not worry about the number of opportunities, get this right and you're good. If you can consistently do that then there is no need for a large number of daily opportunities, because when you scale your confidence levels (through consistency) you are then in a position to scale your staking levels as well.

Think about it long term, would you rather trade 50 matches every weekend on small stakes or only trade a handful of matches with large stakes? If you look around on social media you'll find plenty of traders who trade a ton of matches but with so much inconsistency that they're never able to muster enough confidence to scale up, they are forever stuck on small stakes and thin edges because they prefer quantity over quality. I think quality is nearly always the better choice.

You're clearly very passionate about it but this process takes a bit of time, to say the least, you need to be more patient. By patience I mean that if you absolutely need to watch so many matches in order to find a few good ones, then you need to patiently wait for those and not get involved in others, that's a proper test of your discipline and mental strength. Failing to do that you're very likely to get the results that you posted.

So you've lost a chunk of your bank, not a big deal if you're in this for the long haul, you've lost a battle but you can still comfortably win the war. Extract the lessons from the experience and try do do better next time.

[Alexander_99]

You cannot expect to find 50 high quality opportunities over a single weekend, even if you're a God tier trader, 5-7 is a perfectly good number, especially when you're starting out. Unrealistic expectations and unrealistic trading plans are one of the most common mistakes of newbie traders, at the start you're maybe expected to find value only in the most obvious situations (while the majority of aspiring traders are unable to even do that mind you), and as you get more and more practiced and experienced you should start finding value in the more subtle situations and so on, but trying to semi-watch 5 matches at the same time at the very start does not sound like a sensible approach, not to mention the burnout.

In my opinion the absolute first priority should be ensuring that you're able to spot value in the first place (!) and not worry about the number of opportunities, get this right and you're good.

I find it easier to spot good opportunities when a perceived favourite is leading - then I could look at the match, check the odds on favourite and judge whether they seem to be too low or not.

What I have struggled with for the last 2 months is the opposite case, when a very strong favourite team is either losing at any stage of the game, or drawing late in the game. Because in this scenario, the odds to lay the other (leading) team tend to be quite high right till near the end of the match. I find it very difficult to judge then if the odds are value or not, and as a result I don't know what to do.


I am always in two minds, "ok so the odds to lay the leading team are still kinda high, but the favourite is pushing forward strongly and attacking, they are expected to get the equaliser and then go ahead to win the game, so I guess I should lay the leading team now / but on the other hand maybe I should wait 10 more mins for the odds to drop, try to get more potential profit for my liability, and if the pattern of play is the same, then I'll enter the market..."

This tends to result in inaction and typically me in missing out (like in Brescia vs Lazio game). I mean I expected Lazio to win comfortably before kick off. I also knew they tend to score many late goals recently. They were attacking for most of the game. Then the red card for Brescia came. I could / should have laid Brescia (or backed Lazio) pretty much at any time in 2nd half. However the lay odds on the draw were still as high as 1.5 (maybe higher) on 80 minutes, so I kept delaying it right till the end and missed out. These situations occurred plenty of times...

On the contrary, in Roma vs Torino, I decided to try to enter the market and back Roma (and also lay Torino) much earlier, on around 65 min), and I ended up losing.

[Jukebox]

You lost your money on the 50/60 bets you did make - look there for your answers as to where you went wrong. Your answers will not be in the bets you didn't make.

[Alexander_99]

Sorry when you said you'd seen 5 value opportunities I assumed the other 60 'trades' were just speculative.

"I could clearly see from early first half action that Juventus and Atalanta were going to win their games."
I assume that's just a figure of speech rather than what you actually felt.

tbh though it's hard to comment on what you're doing because it isn't trading, it's just betting.

Yeah, what I meant was that I've seen only several opportunities that in my opinion were DEFINITELY value. The other 50 or so trades, I did them because I watched the game, and thought there was a reasonable chance that a goal will come / a team would equalise, or whatever. But I certainly wasn't sure if the odds I was taking at the time were value or not.

[Kai]

I certainly wasn't sure if the odds I was taking at the time were value or not.

I think it's as simple as that, if you're unsure about the odds then simply don't take the trade and wait for the right opportunity (price + time), easy to say but can be extremely difficult to implement. The most obvious things in football often have shit prices attached to them, contrary to popular belief on social media and elsewhere just because something is obvious that alone doesn't really qualify as a trading opportunity. If you have to wait a long time for the prices to become cheap enough and reach your comfort zone I don't think that makes the opportunity any better for you, it probably makes it worse, since you now have even less time to catch a goal.

Maybe look at fixed liability staking to slightly expand your entry prices, or cheaper trades that have a lot more time to develop than just the last part of the match. But I don't think it's worth going for jackpots as your bread and butter, only to spice up your trading once your edge is well established. If you're looking to catch more than one goals for a jackpot approach, you would have to of course re-evaluate after every goal, to make sure the value is still there, otherwise you're just throwing your profit away and needlessly increasing the already large variance in your results.

You can also look for trends during play, they can point to where the value is and they can be traded without goals having to be scored, but they can also squeeze value out of a situation if it's too obvious to the market. Once you take a position if a trend then develops in your favor that can be a good indicator that you're on right side, some traders practically do just that, with catching a goal in their favor being just a bonus.

[Alexander_99]

Maybe look at fixed liability staking to slightly expand your entry prices, or cheaper trades that have a lot more time to develop than just the last part of the match.

You can also look for trends during play, they can point to where the value is and they can be traded without goals having to be scored, but they can also squeeze value out of a situation if it's too obvious to the market. Once you take a position if a trend then develops in your favor that can be a good indicator that you're on right side, some traders practically do just that, with catching a goal in their favor being just a bonus.

What do you mean by "fixed liability staking"? If you mean having a fixed size liability for every trade, then I am kinda doing that already - majority of my trades have liability of around 2% of my starting bank (£500). Or do you rather mean "fixed stake size" with variable liability, so for example I could stake £50 every single time regardless of odds?

Also, could you go into more detail (and maybe give an example) of what kind of trends one could look for during play and how they can be traded without goals being scored? Do you mean something like "team X is attacking and has all the momentum so I'll lay the opposite team Y instead and trade out later when the odds rise" ?

[Kai]

Also, could you go into more detail (and maybe give an example) of what kind of trends one could look for during play and how they can be traded without goals being scored? Do you mean something like "team X is attacking and has all the momentum so I'll lay the opposite team Y instead and trade out later when the odds rise" ?

Yeah, I mean real trends, besides minor price corrections at freekicks/corners and decaying odds, the trending part if present is mostly in the first half before decay gets into full gear. Someone posted this Arsenal graph at the end of first half earlier tonight, you can see just how sharp the drift was at times, the market has no choice but to accelerate the decay if a team is getting battered, all of the traders are jumping on and value seeking gamblers are piling on as well. The graph would look different if Arsenal were on top of their opponent instead, sometimes the price of the favorite barely drifts before HT if they are dominant enough.

Bear in mind that this was a very strong team playing at home against lower league opposition with teenage debutants, and still they drifted quicker than under usual circumstances, people who jump on these trends are hoping to catch a goal as well, but the point is to catch these moves, sometimes in a minute or several minutes or sometimes it makes sense to ride it much longer, the weight of money can also pile up so it gets a bit obvious that the market wants to push up from the order flow perspective as well, that's why it's possible to trade like this without watching the game. Certain ingame situations can start trends too, or accelerate the decay, like injuries to vital players or subs etc.





Regarding staking you have to find your own comfort zone, people constantly want to make money during the learning phase although a more realistic expectancy is for them to actually lose money while they learn. Proper stakes should only be used if you're 100% certain that you are able to profit.

[Derek27]

And over this last weekend, after around 65 trades in 40 or so matches, I lost nearly £300 - so 60% of my bank.

Were you staking the same when your bank was down?
Eg 2% of your initial £500 would be a max loss of £10.
When you were down to £250 then 2% is a £5 max loss

When somebody has a 'blown bank' or blows half their bank in a weekend, it's unlikely stakes were proportional to the bank. Money management is one of the most important, yet overlooked skills amongst new traders.

[ShaunWhite]

Also, could you go into more detail (and maybe give an example) of what kind of trends one could look for during play and how they can be traded without goals being scored?

At it's simplest level (although as you imagine it's as complex as you want)...

Find a boring game, back the current result. The price on the current result will start to decay.
If at anytime you think a goal might be scored, green up.
Don't try and be a hero, if it's starting to warm up then green up.
Match selection, such as two equally bad teams will help. And as Kai has pointed out some points in the match might decay faster than others.
Don't wait until a goal has actually been scored if at all possible obviously. You can even exit when there's a corner and back it again after it's been taken if you wanted to.

If you find a really dull 15 or 20mins you can make a few %. Dull matches are probably easier to profit from than ones that are end to end or 'exciting' imo. What you want as a trader is predictability and that's more often in the status quo rather than goals. Look at how many minutes in a match actually have a goal, a lot less than minutes when f-all is happening. And all the time f-all is happening the prices are on a predictable trajectory towards either 1.01 or 1000.

Out of curiosity, what return on investment do you think people make over a month ie Total £ Won/(Total value of back bets + Total liability of lay bets) ?

[Alexander_99]

And over this last weekend, after around 65 trades in 40 or so matches, I lost nearly £300 - so 60% of my bank.

Were you staking the same when your bank was down?
Eg 2% of your initial £500 would be a max loss of £10.
When you were down to £250 then 2% is a £5 max loss

When somebody has a 'blown bank' or blows half their bank in a weekend, it's unlikely stakes were proportional to the bank. Money management is one of the most important, yet overlooked skills amongst new traders.

Yeah, what I've been doing is continuing with 2-3% liability stakes of my initial starting bank even when I was significantly down. So say I've started with £500 and my liability was £10 per trade. When my bank was down to £300 I'd still continue with £10 liability per trade.

I was thinking, that if I continuously adjust my liability to be proportional to my available bank at the time, it will not be clear if my strategy is working long term, since the returns on each trade I win would vary too much.

[Jukebox]

Do you still favour saving time with calculation over protecting your bank?

[Alexander_99]

Find a boring game, back the current result. The price on the current result will start to decay.
If at anytime you think a goal might be scored, green up.
Don't try and be a hero, if it's starting to warm up then green up.
Match selection, such as two equally bad teams will help. And as Kai has pointed out some points in the match might decay faster than others.
Don't wait until a goal has actually been scored if at all possible obviously. You can even exit when there's a corner and back it again after it's been taken if you wanted to.

If you find a really dull 15 or 20mins you can make a few %.

Oh yeah, I've been doing that on occasions already. Thing like backing under goal markets, backing the current leading team, backing the current score in "boring" games. I confess, I did try to be a hero on more than one occasion and didn't green up when it warmed up (and when my instinct told me to green up), and ended up in the red instead. While in other games I felt a bit uncomfortable holding my position and greened up way too early.

I have to say I am a "contrarian" at heart on many things in life (not just football), and I just simply would me more interested in strategies that have the potential to give massive occasional payouts and rather longer sequences of losses in between. Collecting tiny profits here and there seems way too dull. I certainly can do this, but I'd view it only as a "supplement" to my main trading diet, so to speak. But I will definitely look a bit more into trading "boring" games.

As to your question about monthly return on investment - I don't know. I guess since there is so much variance in football, it could vary a lot from months to month depending on the amount of trades... I guess maybe around 15-20% return over a 1000 trades?

Psychoff when he opened his blog a decade ago went from 5000 (or less) to 100,000 in 6 months - are such returns even possible nowdays? Was it significantly easier to profit from football in that era?

[Alexander_99]

Do you still favour saving time with calculation over protecting your bank?

Ok, point taken.

[Kai]

I will definitely look a bit more into trading "boring" games.

Good trading is often boring, I'm sure you've heard that before, and with good reason too. There's not much genuine excitement left when you're well familiar with all possible outcomes after so much practiced routine, especially when you know that the most likely outcome of your trading activities is profit. But there's plenty of excitement to be had outside the markets!

Psychoff when he opened his blog a decade ago went from 5000 (or less) to 100,000 in 6 months - are such returns even possible nowdays? Was it significantly easier to profit from football in that era?

Isn't that around 500 profit per day on average? There's plenty of traders around that make around those figures on various sports, not just football. Peter and others have been sharing similar results for years, but I guess not many people actually have a benefit from sharing results so that's why this sort of question regularly pops up, but yes it's definitely possible. The footballing markets are certainly liquid enough to make 100k per day with a scalable edge, the potential is there, but realizing some of this potential is a different matter entirely, sports traders aren't exactly used to operating on Goldman Sachs levels