Cheers.. Finally someone noticed my call for advice..lol..
I have been experimenting. I did the fixtheodds stuff which worked well and then the arbets which is rubbish but then tried two weeks of looking at possibilities on the horses. Kept it documented how much I would of won if I had layed all the favs or if they came in etc. But didnt excite me and lost most of the time no matter which way I did it.
So watching the tennis I noticed that I could of won a lot of money if I had bet on nadal to loose and then to win again. So spoke to betfair and asked them is this allowed and then they gave me the educational video for the greenbook. lol..
Using betfair I then seen that it was easy to get lower odds than the back bet. But then Ive been told there is no guarantee even when you bet the lay that it will get matched. Which is the problem and betfair advised betangel.
So I have now watched hundreds of videos and what I thought seemed so simple now seems very complicated and higher risk.
So I guess I am doing what everyone does now and looking for the best way forward but its hard to know what direction to go in next lol. I am downloading the free trial for a week and then will use practice mode.
Hope this works!!!
Betfair scalping for beginners
Hi Joe
A few tips for you to consider:
A. When you are trading trending markets, cut your losses and let your profits run. Don't hope and pray that the market will come back to you - if your rules say 'out', they mean 'out'.
B. Don't over-expose yourself in terms of staking.
C. Remember that you are part of the market, and that big orders by you can affect market movements.
D. Don't expect the market to do what you think it will do. The market can just about anything at any time (and it will never cease to surprise you!). If the market goes against you, don't take it personally: it's no big deal. Just close your trade, and consider going with the market's new direction.
E. Ask yourself what the psychological dynamics in the market are likely to be, and how you can exploit them. If someone gives you a technique, think about it critically. There was a post on Peter's blog a while back which showed that a football straight backing/laying system profited handsomely for several thousand bets before falling apart. So you ideally want a method that not only has a good track record, but also has a sound theoretical underpinning.
F. As a general rule of thumb, if a market is going nowhere, it will probably continue going nowhere. If it is going somewhere, it will probably continue on its travels, but don't forget that it can reverse sharply at any time (and therein lies a possible edge, btw).
G. Don't play chicken with the market, and try to force it to do what you want it to do. Leave those kinds of games to the big boys, or you will get seriously burned!
H. Try to avoid getting emotionally involved in your trades. Just treat money you win or lose as being like a score in a video game. There are techniques like meditation that can help with this.
Other forum members may disagree with some or all of the above, but hopefully I've given you a couple of things to think about.
Good luck with your trading journey.
Jeff
A few tips for you to consider:
A. When you are trading trending markets, cut your losses and let your profits run. Don't hope and pray that the market will come back to you - if your rules say 'out', they mean 'out'.
B. Don't over-expose yourself in terms of staking.
C. Remember that you are part of the market, and that big orders by you can affect market movements.
D. Don't expect the market to do what you think it will do. The market can just about anything at any time (and it will never cease to surprise you!). If the market goes against you, don't take it personally: it's no big deal. Just close your trade, and consider going with the market's new direction.
E. Ask yourself what the psychological dynamics in the market are likely to be, and how you can exploit them. If someone gives you a technique, think about it critically. There was a post on Peter's blog a while back which showed that a football straight backing/laying system profited handsomely for several thousand bets before falling apart. So you ideally want a method that not only has a good track record, but also has a sound theoretical underpinning.
F. As a general rule of thumb, if a market is going nowhere, it will probably continue going nowhere. If it is going somewhere, it will probably continue on its travels, but don't forget that it can reverse sharply at any time (and therein lies a possible edge, btw).
G. Don't play chicken with the market, and try to force it to do what you want it to do. Leave those kinds of games to the big boys, or you will get seriously burned!
H. Try to avoid getting emotionally involved in your trades. Just treat money you win or lose as being like a score in a video game. There are techniques like meditation that can help with this.
Other forum members may disagree with some or all of the above, but hopefully I've given you a couple of things to think about.
Good luck with your trading journey.
Jeff
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mightymoney
- Posts: 12
- Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2012 12:18 pm
Thanks Ferru123 for the advice. I have taken a lot what you said on board. I have been playing chicken a bit. I've been going to the horse race 10 mins before starting and then placing a back bet say at odds of 5.1 on the favourite and then waiting for it to go down. When its gone down to about 4.4 Ive backed the lay. This has been done with fake money on betfair. But just to see if I could get a decent profit with one trade per horse race.
So part of me doesnt know if I should stick to this method and then if the lay odds shoot up then I can take a small loss. Or the other way is scalping and just taking tiny profits.
I do like the methods where you can set betangel so as soon as it hits profit it doesnt close it but lets the market go down and takes the profit if the market starts to go back up so you dont loose all your profit. (think I have explained that properly). So your back bet is 5.1 and then the lay keeps going down to 4.1 but then if it goes back up to 4.2 it takes the profit at 4.2.
This seems really good. But then greening up looks amazing. There seems to be a few combos here and there.
So part of me doesnt know if I should stick to this method and then if the lay odds shoot up then I can take a small loss. Or the other way is scalping and just taking tiny profits.
I do like the methods where you can set betangel so as soon as it hits profit it doesnt close it but lets the market go down and takes the profit if the market starts to go back up so you dont loose all your profit. (think I have explained that properly). So your back bet is 5.1 and then the lay keeps going down to 4.1 but then if it goes back up to 4.2 it takes the profit at 4.2.
This seems really good. But then greening up looks amazing. There seems to be a few combos here and there.
HI MightyMoney
Welcome to the forum.
You seem to be making a good start, although you are in for a long and bump road, if you stay the course.
I can see that you have already watched some of the videos, but also worth while reading some of Peter's blog entries. I tend to re read them from time to time to refresh my memory. There are some good nuggets in there (and you only need one!).
My advice is to be as active as you can (small stakes) and advance quickly from the practice mode to live. You need to develop the mental side of things too. Even using small stakes and trading at random you will not lose much (search on Peter's blog for "Outrageous" Part I, II, and III; and you will see what I mean).
Also worthwhile looking at the entries of some of the more established traders and read their posts.
Good Luck!
Regards
Peter
Welcome to the forum.
You seem to be making a good start, although you are in for a long and bump road, if you stay the course.
I can see that you have already watched some of the videos, but also worth while reading some of Peter's blog entries. I tend to re read them from time to time to refresh my memory. There are some good nuggets in there (and you only need one!).
My advice is to be as active as you can (small stakes) and advance quickly from the practice mode to live. You need to develop the mental side of things too. Even using small stakes and trading at random you will not lose much (search on Peter's blog for "Outrageous" Part I, II, and III; and you will see what I mean).
Also worthwhile looking at the entries of some of the more established traders and read their posts.
Good Luck!
Regards
Peter
This is a post I put up somewhere a while back.
It may contain some stuff that may relevent.
I don't know if this is any use to anyone, but this is my style of trading pre race and a few pointers that I use.
Try to be more selective about which races to trade.I know of many who go from race to race like a loony. You can make a few quid race after race and on the last race lose the whole days earnings and some. Look at trading less races that have a good "shape". If you have the patience (which is the most important and most overlooked aspect of trading IMHO) you can watch 20 races and then trade 1 and win a days wages.
A suggestion for those struggling is maybe find a race where the market thinks it is a 2 horse race. I'll set up a fictitious race.
The prices are 2.02, 2.76, 40, 44, 50+ the rest (another 6 runners).
You will find 2 or 3 races a day like this. You can pretty much forget the rags, although you need to keep and eye out in case 1 moves in significantly. So concentrate at the 2 at the head of the market. There are 2 scenarios here.
1) 1 or more outsiders move in and not a lot happens at the head of the market except a small drift.
2) 1 of the favs moves in which means..............yes that's right! The other moves out. The trick is waiting until that happens then jumping on the gravy train to untold wealth.
Try to get a grasp of how a market works, that is fundamentally the most important thing you need to learn. An efficient market is at 100%, the way this is calculated is by dividing 100/the odds. So a runner trading at 2.0 would be 100/2 =50% of the book. (remember the book adds up to 100) that means the rest of the field will add up to 50%.
If 1 runner is 50% of the book and the other is 36% (100/2,76) that means that 86% of the book is concentrated on 2 runners. They dominate the market and another runner would have to move a huge amount to impact these 2 prices. Which leaves us to concentrate on 2. What you are looking for next is a sign that something is going to happen, like i said it always will. So what are the signs?
Look at the range of prices that the runner has been trading at, if you look at the ladder you will be able to see this. The critical points are the bottom and top (resistance points) When it gets there something will happen, if it "breaks through" then it will almost certainly go much further. If it doesn't then it will "bounce". It rarely just sits at the end of the trading range dormant. What usually influences this is the other horses. Remember what happens to 1 has to effect all the others, the one most likely to be effected is the next shortest price runner (2nd fav in this case)
A good trade would be if the fav has reached the bottom of it's range, which means punters are reluctant to take a lower price that this, and the 2nd fav if near the top end of it's trading range, which means punters are reluctant to LAY a bigger price. If the fav were to hit the bottom and "bounce" the 2nd fav would stream in, this will gather momentum, don't be greedy and don't use a stop loss. It is not unusual for the prices to jump around. It is the medium term trend (swing) you are trying to capture.
With practice, patience and enough matched you can make a living trading 1or 2 races a day.
This is simplistic and there are things that can go wrong. Watch the market and try to understand what the market is doing. See how the movement of 1 runner effects the others and in what proportion. This is KEY. Some use the excellent graphs BA has. For me all I use if the BF market graph within BA with a 10 second refresh, the ladder tab with both horses on, and TELETEXT live shows. Don't over think it, don't over complicate it. It really isn't rocket science, and that's the main issue for most I fear. Take a step back, use low stakes to practice. Trading horses at odds on a 10 tick wrong decision will cost you a fiver (to give it some perspective). Before you make every trade you need to set a point that you will exit, don't set this too tight. A 2 or 3 tick's is no good. But you need an escape route. Letting it go and hoping it will come back or even worse letting it go in play is trading suicide and amateur. Don't do it!
If you spend enough time watching the markets and understanding what's happening you will crack it eventually.
I have talked a fair bit about perspective, and here is something to think about. Good traders will earn more that a doctor does (which is frankly disgusts me), that doctor spent maybe 6 or 7 years learning his trade. It doesn't take that long to learn to trade, but you need to put the hours in for sure. The other thing is that doctor didn't get to operate on a patient after a few days did he? He learnt the procedure and maybe practiced it in the classroom lots and lots of times, until he became so good at it when he did finally have a patient on the operating table in front of him, he had the skill and confidence to do the business.
There are no half measures here. To a certain extent, if you can trade with £50 you can trade with £100 or £1000 (as long as the market is liquid enough) The level of skill is exactly the same, the reason you entered and exited the market should be the same. Once you can effectively trade on 2 runner markets like this and your confidence and experience grows, then more complex markets can be tackled.
The main problem with this is if you have a limited time to trade on your day off from work, sitting there all afternoon and not making any trades is tough, and the discipline that requires is rare to find. But what is better, sitting there and not losing half the wages you have worked so hard for or feeling a bit frustrated but living to fight another day. My priory is not to LOSE and PROTECT my bank at all costs. The rest comes I promise.
Summary:
1) Keep it simple
2) Be patient
3) Have realistic expectations
4) Be patient
5) Understand the market
6) Have a reason to enter the trade and a reason to exit it
7) Have an escape route planned, and stick to it
8) Be patient
and finally........ Be patient
Does this make sense to anyone?
Disclaimer:
I don't have all the answers, the way I trade suites me and my attitude to risk. It works for me but it may not work for you. Take out the bits that make sense and discard the rest. Eventually you will form you own style. There is no "holy grail" and there is no easy road to Betfair nirvana. I wish you all well.
It may contain some stuff that may relevent.
I don't know if this is any use to anyone, but this is my style of trading pre race and a few pointers that I use.
Try to be more selective about which races to trade.I know of many who go from race to race like a loony. You can make a few quid race after race and on the last race lose the whole days earnings and some. Look at trading less races that have a good "shape". If you have the patience (which is the most important and most overlooked aspect of trading IMHO) you can watch 20 races and then trade 1 and win a days wages.
A suggestion for those struggling is maybe find a race where the market thinks it is a 2 horse race. I'll set up a fictitious race.
The prices are 2.02, 2.76, 40, 44, 50+ the rest (another 6 runners).
You will find 2 or 3 races a day like this. You can pretty much forget the rags, although you need to keep and eye out in case 1 moves in significantly. So concentrate at the 2 at the head of the market. There are 2 scenarios here.
1) 1 or more outsiders move in and not a lot happens at the head of the market except a small drift.
2) 1 of the favs moves in which means..............yes that's right! The other moves out. The trick is waiting until that happens then jumping on the gravy train to untold wealth.
Try to get a grasp of how a market works, that is fundamentally the most important thing you need to learn. An efficient market is at 100%, the way this is calculated is by dividing 100/the odds. So a runner trading at 2.0 would be 100/2 =50% of the book. (remember the book adds up to 100) that means the rest of the field will add up to 50%.
If 1 runner is 50% of the book and the other is 36% (100/2,76) that means that 86% of the book is concentrated on 2 runners. They dominate the market and another runner would have to move a huge amount to impact these 2 prices. Which leaves us to concentrate on 2. What you are looking for next is a sign that something is going to happen, like i said it always will. So what are the signs?
Look at the range of prices that the runner has been trading at, if you look at the ladder you will be able to see this. The critical points are the bottom and top (resistance points) When it gets there something will happen, if it "breaks through" then it will almost certainly go much further. If it doesn't then it will "bounce". It rarely just sits at the end of the trading range dormant. What usually influences this is the other horses. Remember what happens to 1 has to effect all the others, the one most likely to be effected is the next shortest price runner (2nd fav in this case)
A good trade would be if the fav has reached the bottom of it's range, which means punters are reluctant to take a lower price that this, and the 2nd fav if near the top end of it's trading range, which means punters are reluctant to LAY a bigger price. If the fav were to hit the bottom and "bounce" the 2nd fav would stream in, this will gather momentum, don't be greedy and don't use a stop loss. It is not unusual for the prices to jump around. It is the medium term trend (swing) you are trying to capture.
With practice, patience and enough matched you can make a living trading 1or 2 races a day.
This is simplistic and there are things that can go wrong. Watch the market and try to understand what the market is doing. See how the movement of 1 runner effects the others and in what proportion. This is KEY. Some use the excellent graphs BA has. For me all I use if the BF market graph within BA with a 10 second refresh, the ladder tab with both horses on, and TELETEXT live shows. Don't over think it, don't over complicate it. It really isn't rocket science, and that's the main issue for most I fear. Take a step back, use low stakes to practice. Trading horses at odds on a 10 tick wrong decision will cost you a fiver (to give it some perspective). Before you make every trade you need to set a point that you will exit, don't set this too tight. A 2 or 3 tick's is no good. But you need an escape route. Letting it go and hoping it will come back or even worse letting it go in play is trading suicide and amateur. Don't do it!
If you spend enough time watching the markets and understanding what's happening you will crack it eventually.
I have talked a fair bit about perspective, and here is something to think about. Good traders will earn more that a doctor does (which is frankly disgusts me), that doctor spent maybe 6 or 7 years learning his trade. It doesn't take that long to learn to trade, but you need to put the hours in for sure. The other thing is that doctor didn't get to operate on a patient after a few days did he? He learnt the procedure and maybe practiced it in the classroom lots and lots of times, until he became so good at it when he did finally have a patient on the operating table in front of him, he had the skill and confidence to do the business.
There are no half measures here. To a certain extent, if you can trade with £50 you can trade with £100 or £1000 (as long as the market is liquid enough) The level of skill is exactly the same, the reason you entered and exited the market should be the same. Once you can effectively trade on 2 runner markets like this and your confidence and experience grows, then more complex markets can be tackled.
The main problem with this is if you have a limited time to trade on your day off from work, sitting there all afternoon and not making any trades is tough, and the discipline that requires is rare to find. But what is better, sitting there and not losing half the wages you have worked so hard for or feeling a bit frustrated but living to fight another day. My priory is not to LOSE and PROTECT my bank at all costs. The rest comes I promise.
Summary:
1) Keep it simple
2) Be patient
3) Have realistic expectations
4) Be patient
5) Understand the market
6) Have a reason to enter the trade and a reason to exit it
7) Have an escape route planned, and stick to it
8) Be patient
and finally........ Be patient
Does this make sense to anyone?
Disclaimer:
I don't have all the answers, the way I trade suites me and my attitude to risk. It works for me but it may not work for you. Take out the bits that make sense and discard the rest. Eventually you will form you own style. There is no "holy grail" and there is no easy road to Betfair nirvana. I wish you all well.
-
mightymoney
- Posts: 12
- Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2012 12:18 pm
Cheers PeterLe
Great advice. I have just read all three blogs and going to jump into some of the other blogs to.
Watching some of the markets today. Noticed a huge difference how much money already is in the market on betfair compared to betdaq for the murray vs federer match.
I know Peter writes that the amount of money in each market doesnt always go for you or against you but betfair seems to be the most popular despite the huge fees.
Even though I like the horses I am keeping an open mind and Ive been watching the football, tennis and cricket this morning for the Sri Lanka vs Pakistan third test. The odds were low for a draw on the lay. 3.15 on the lay and now the back for the draw is 5.6 which is a huge jump. Decent profit to. But still have that problem if someone would match my bet. Only done it in pretend mode just by watching the odds on betfair.
I do like how this green book/trading works. I am aware I need to walk before I run and concentrate on one market which I will do while I learn the others in the background. Just seems more positive at the moment.
Happy Days!!!
Great advice. I have just read all three blogs and going to jump into some of the other blogs to.
Watching some of the markets today. Noticed a huge difference how much money already is in the market on betfair compared to betdaq for the murray vs federer match.
I know Peter writes that the amount of money in each market doesnt always go for you or against you but betfair seems to be the most popular despite the huge fees.
Even though I like the horses I am keeping an open mind and Ive been watching the football, tennis and cricket this morning for the Sri Lanka vs Pakistan third test. The odds were low for a draw on the lay. 3.15 on the lay and now the back for the draw is 5.6 which is a huge jump. Decent profit to. But still have that problem if someone would match my bet. Only done it in pretend mode just by watching the odds on betfair.
I do like how this green book/trading works. I am aware I need to walk before I run and concentrate on one market which I will do while I learn the others in the background. Just seems more positive at the moment.
Happy Days!!!
-
mightymoney
- Posts: 12
- Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2012 12:18 pm
Cheers Mugsgame.
Thats brilliant.. Really appreciate what you and the others have written. Will try this in theory this week with practice to build my confidence.
I have taken everything everyone has said on board. The next step is defo practice, then small stakes and then bigger stakes over time. Got full time hours to get stuck into this.
What you said about the horses is something I defo noticed. But at the same time I did the mistake of looking to book on every race thinking I could win everyone every time..lol..
I will read everyone's comments repeatedly until it becomes second nature.
Thanks so much!!!
Joe
Thats brilliant.. Really appreciate what you and the others have written. Will try this in theory this week with practice to build my confidence.
I have taken everything everyone has said on board. The next step is defo practice, then small stakes and then bigger stakes over time. Got full time hours to get stuck into this.
What you said about the horses is something I defo noticed. But at the same time I did the mistake of looking to book on every race thinking I could win everyone every time..lol..
I will read everyone's comments repeatedly until it becomes second nature.
Thanks so much!!!
Joe
Joe
There is a spreadsheet somewhere in this forum that allows you to randomly enter and to have a stop loss x ticks from your entry point and a profit target y ticks from your entry point. If I were you, I'd play with it using very small stakes, and see what you observe...
Jeff
There is a spreadsheet somewhere in this forum that allows you to randomly enter and to have a stop loss x ticks from your entry point and a profit target y ticks from your entry point. If I were you, I'd play with it using very small stakes, and see what you observe...
Jeff
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mightymoney
- Posts: 12
- Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2012 12:18 pm
Defo going to do small stakes..I will try and find the spreadsheet.
I practiced just doing it manually on the tennis. But this was scalping and theres no guarantee my trades would of been matched. But with a £2k stake I would of won £650. Feds odds kept going up and down between 1.4 and 2.4 for most of the match. Almost got into trouble in practice but held out for a bit and feds odds went back down. Dont think in real life I would be as greedy. Think I would always try and aim for 10% profit on each market in the beginning until confidence and knowledge boosted. I do practice with small stakes to. Even £2 & £50 practice stakes. So when I do real money £2 stakes it will look more realistic. Downloading software on Tuesday to do a week of practice and then will try the software for real the following week with £2 real money stakes.
I am really enjoying this so far. Everyone is giving so much valued advice!!!
Cheers Jeff!!
Joe
I practiced just doing it manually on the tennis. But this was scalping and theres no guarantee my trades would of been matched. But with a £2k stake I would of won £650. Feds odds kept going up and down between 1.4 and 2.4 for most of the match. Almost got into trouble in practice but held out for a bit and feds odds went back down. Dont think in real life I would be as greedy. Think I would always try and aim for 10% profit on each market in the beginning until confidence and knowledge boosted. I do practice with small stakes to. Even £2 & £50 practice stakes. So when I do real money £2 stakes it will look more realistic. Downloading software on Tuesday to do a week of practice and then will try the software for real the following week with £2 real money stakes.
I am really enjoying this so far. Everyone is giving so much valued advice!!!
Cheers Jeff!!
Joe
Good luck, but I question whether many pros do that well!mightymoney wrote:Think I would always try and aim for 10% profit on each market
Rather than aiming for a particular figure, I'd just gratefully take whatever the market is kind enough to give you. Jeff
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mightymoney
- Posts: 12
- Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2012 12:18 pm
Yeah the results did seem a bit to easy lol.. I just need to get to the stage of £2 stakes in real money but not rushing there until a week tomorrow. Confidence in the software first..lol.
Be easier to be more realistic once I play with real money lol
Cheers
Joe
Be easier to be more realistic once I play with real money lol
Cheers
Joe
-
mightymoney
- Posts: 12
- Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2012 12:18 pm
What you say makes sense. Just get the method right first.
Cheers!!!
Cheers!!!
just after some advice i looked at betfair a while back so already used my free trial only just come back to it now, beucase already had used my trial had to put my scalp orders in via betfair.com
so after 1st race today i green up and made 17p profit from using £2 stake, the second race i green up with 14p profit, in second race i tried to get 3.4 matched instead of 3.45 and it didnt get matched so had to cancel green up without it by time i got 2.30pm race i thought to myself is it really worth it so stopped scalping and green up for 3p profit
my question i have when you try scalp horse racing do you need to do more than 1 horse and what is a realistic sized you have to make decent profit as the video shows 200 stake as it seems £2 stake no where near enough or am i not being realistic and profit was good for £2 stake
so after 1st race today i green up and made 17p profit from using £2 stake, the second race i green up with 14p profit, in second race i tried to get 3.4 matched instead of 3.45 and it didnt get matched so had to cancel green up without it by time i got 2.30pm race i thought to myself is it really worth it so stopped scalping and green up for 3p profit
my question i have when you try scalp horse racing do you need to do more than 1 horse and what is a realistic sized you have to make decent profit as the video shows 200 stake as it seems £2 stake no where near enough or am i not being realistic and profit was good for £2 stake
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steven1976
- Posts: 1744
- Joined: Tue Jan 19, 2010 6:28 am
Guess it depends if you are doing it for fun or looking to make money from it. If you won 17p on every single race for 12 months I guess you would be 1700 quid up if there is about 10,000 races and you traded them all.
So getting to understand the front of the markets and how and why they match money is important using small stakes before using larger stakes that you may not feel comfortable using. What works with 2 pound stakes may not neccesarilly work with 200 pound stakes. So play with a liabilty that your comfortable with and dont think about what you want to win.
So getting to understand the front of the markets and how and why they match money is important using small stakes before using larger stakes that you may not feel comfortable using. What works with 2 pound stakes may not neccesarilly work with 200 pound stakes. So play with a liabilty that your comfortable with and dont think about what you want to win.