Question for who trades horse racing...

[offlimit88]

Hi, i used to trade football and i abandoned it for tennis, which i find more easy for me.
I have several strategies, and they took me lot of time to improve, and i have circa 100,150 entry point per month, in average.
I'm quite burned out, a lot of effort, for little money. Is this the same for horse racing?
Are there more entry points in horse racing in general? Are edges more big and consistent?
Unfortunately i can't scale up well with my strategies, so i am quite stuck, and seeing the impressive pnl someone has here in horse racing, i m asking if this is just a limit of tennis (in play). It s hard to have more than 1/2 % edge in this sport....

[Derek27]

When you say 100-150 entry points a month do you mean trades?

I think you'll find that one man's meat is another's poison. There are some horse racing markets where I'm bored senseless waiting for an opportunity and there are other active scalping markets where I'm firing bets like a machine gun. I've only just been getting into football so can't make a comparison but the beauty of horse racing is that the markets are so inefficient, in my opinion at least, so there are many opportunities.

[offlimit88]

Yes i mean trades.
If you scalp, maybe you can find lots of opportunities in every market in every sport, but i can't scalp (i trade with a white label company).
I would hear your point of view,assuming you have an edge, how many opportunities are present in horce racing per month, or every year?
What do you consider to be the minimum for your strategy?

[Derek27]

Yes i mean trades.
If you scalp, maybe you can find lots of opportunities in every market in every sport, but i can't scalp (i trade with a white label company).
I would hear your point of view,assuming you have an edge, how many opportunities are present in horce racing per month, or every year?
What do you consider to be the minimum for your strategy?

I've honestly never considered a minimum number of opportunities, there is an opportunity in every race - that's 10,000+ a year! Unless you're trading a very static market like pre-match football, as long as prices move there is an opportunity to make money, and horse racing markets are very volatile. Whether or not you can take advantage of these opportunities is another matter and obviously no trader gets it right every time. But the opportunities are there.

[ShaunWhite]

i can't scalp (i trade with a white label company)

What do you mean by that? Are you prop trading on a nostro account? If your options are limited by a mandate then saying what you can/can't do would help when it came to suggestions.

I don't see how number of opportunities comes into it unless you're looking for rocking horse shit. There's >300,000 dog races a year but you'd probably make more from a few dozen football or cricket matches once you're at full scale. It's Opportunities × Edge × Size that matters, none of the 3 mean jack without the other 2.

that's 10,000+ a year!

10k in the UK, but a 247 guy like you must be doing double that.

[offlimit88]

i can't scalp (i trade with a white label company)

What do you mean by that? Are you prop trading on a nostro account? If your options are limited by a mandate then saying what you can/can't do would help when it came to suggestions.

I don't see how number of opportunities comes into it unless you're looking for rocking horse shit. There's >300,000 dog races a year but you'd probably make more from a few dozen football or cricket matches once you're at full scale. It's Opportunities × Edge × Size that matters, none of the 3 mean jack without the other 2.

that's 10,000+ a year!

10k in the UK, but a 247 guy like you must be doing double that.

I can't use a software because the agent i use does not release the api. No way can i scalp with the site interface.

I trade swings between points in tennis, the fact is that my strategies are not that scalable, i can go up to 200 euro max, and my edge is tiny.
I ve tried several ideas, but one can t have a edge on everything, and when i find a new strategy, it s limited by its entry points. At the end of a year, i think i will stick to 1500/2000 trades. Sure there is people over there that can make lots of money with tennis, maybe with less trades but more scalable .
But from your answers, i m starting to realize that people who makes serious money here, the majority is in horse racing.

[sniffer66]

i can't scalp (i trade with a white label company)

What do you mean by that? Are you prop trading on a nostro account? If your options are limited by a mandate then saying what you can/can't do would help when it came to suggestions.

I don't see how number of opportunities comes into it unless you're looking for rocking horse shit. There's >300,000 dog races a year but you'd probably make more from a few dozen football or cricket matches once you're at full scale. It's Opportunities × Edge × Size that matters, none of the 3 mean jack without the other 2.

that's 10,000+ a year!

10k in the UK, but a 247 guy like you must be doing double that.

I can't use a software because the agent i use does not release the api. No way can i scalp with the site interface.

I trade swings between points in tennis, the fact is that my strategies are not that scalable, i can go up to 200 euro max, and my edge is tiny.
I ve tried several ideas, but one can t have a edge on everything, and when i find a new strategy, it s limited by its entry points. At the end of a year, i think i will stick to 1500/2000 trades. Sure there is people over there that can make lots of money with tennis, maybe with less trades but more scalable .
But from your answers, i m starting to realize that people who makes serious money here, the majority is in horse racing.

Personally, I'd deem trading points on tennis as scalping. I assume you've tried swing trading tennis across games/sets ?

[ruthlessimon]

seeing the impressive pnl someone has here in horse racing

Wrong attitude imo.

Potential profitability should be a minor factor in deciding the trade racing (or any sport tbh) - those who focus on the monetary goals, invariably set themselves up for failure & disappointment

The big pull should be the depth a sport offers - & free flowing markets like pre-race have incredible depth - which is correlated to profitability. The best trader's are usually really interesting people, & it aint no coincidence (so long as they're talking about trading )

[Kai]

I trade swings between points in tennis, the fact is that my strategies are not that scalable, i can go up to 200 euro max, and my edge is tiny.

If you are using a market making approach between points with smaller stakes without the ladder interface ( ) then I truly sympathize, no wonder you feel burned out. This can never work without the ladder, you would need to be fast enough in cancelling your bets to avoid being swept up by the courtsiders, every second and click counts. If you're not market making then the edge must be much smaller because I'm not sure there's really much else to do between points that would produce a good enough +EV.

Maybe think of it this way, if you have a very minor ladder based edge that is limited to small stakes only, then it doesn't make too much sense to use it without the ladder. Not sure if you're aware but some of the biggest edges come from the sports side of things and not from the ladder, those types of edges are endlessly scalable and do not depend on using the ladder interface either.

Have you looked at TradeShark's Youtube channel recently? I don't know much about the man but wasn't he considered to be one of the better tennis traders out there back in the day? He uploads entire trading sessions and if you look at his approach you will realize it's all based on reading the match itself and not the ladder, in fact he looks like he has effectively zero ladder skills and doesn't really need the ladder, but an edge like that would be very scalable.

I ve tried several ideas, but one can t have a edge on everything, and when i find a new strategy, it s limited by its entry points. At the end of a year, i think i will stick to 1500/2000 trades. Sure there is people over there that can make lots of money with tennis, maybe with less trades but more scalable .
But from your answers, i m starting to realize that people who makes serious money here, the majority is in horse racing.

So what you are basically asking is what type of edge would be reasonably scalable without the ladder interface? Because that would be a very long discussion Not sure why you're assuming that everyone uses more or less the same approach. 100 trades per month is not much really, many traders do 100+ within a day or even an hour. Not sure where you're from exactly but it doesn't sound like something one could live off with those stake sizes, maybe you could strengthen your edge by somehow obtaining a normal Betfair account with API access?

[Kai]

seeing the impressive pnl someone has here in horse racing

Wrong attitude imo.

Potential profitability should be a minor factor in deciding the trade racing (or any sport tbh) - those who focus on the monetary goals, invariably set themselves up for failure & disappointment

The big pull should be the depth a sport offers - & free flowing markets like pre-race have incredible depth - which is correlated to profitability. The best trader's are usually really interesting people, & it aint no coincidence (so long as they're talking about trading )

Completely agree, the screens are always greener on the other side? People love chasing green screens but most of the time only end up chasing losses, those that aspire to become great traders are usually the ones that have the best chance of success from my experience. Learning to trade and looking to profit are 2 very different things in my book but most people are unable to tell the difference!

[offlimit88]

So what you are basically asking is what type of edge would be reasonably scalable without the ladder interface? Because that would be a very long discussion Not sure why you're assuming that everyone uses more or less the same approach. 100 trades per month is not much really, many traders do 100+ within a day or even an hour. Not sure where you're from exactly but it doesn't sound like something one could live off with those stake sizes, maybe you could strengthen your edge by somehow obtaining a normal Betfair account with API access?

I would like to be a market maker, but as you said it is quite difficult without ladder. But i think i m doing my best offering my odds, it s not about the ladder,that is not crucial for my type of trading, but if i want to approach other strategies (like scalping) , then i will need it for sure.

All my strategies rely on live events , example :
I know that a player is good in converting breakpoints, i back him when he is A-40, and if the price is good, and other factors etc etc

Unfortunately these opportunities are numbered. So if you say that 100 trades per month are few, and i agree, i have to find other strategies, and so other edges and other entry points.

If scalping is the way to go to produce more trades per day, then i will definitely study it

[sniffer66]

So what you are basically asking is what type of edge would be reasonably scalable without the ladder interface? Because that would be a very long discussion Not sure why you're assuming that everyone uses more or less the same approach. 100 trades per month is not much really, many traders do 100+ within a day or even an hour. Not sure where you're from exactly but it doesn't sound like something one could live off with those stake sizes, maybe you could strengthen your edge by somehow obtaining a normal Betfair account with API access?

I would like to be a market maker, but as you said it is quite difficult without ladder. But i think i m doing my best offering my odds, it s not about the ladder,that is not crucial for my type of trading, but if i want to approach other strategies (like scalping) , then i will need it for sure.

All my strategies rely on live events , example :
I know that a player is good in converting breakpoints, i back him when he is A-40, and if the price is good, and other factors etc etc

Unfortunately these opportunities are numbered. So if you say that 100 trades per month are few, and i agree, i have to find other strategies, and so other edges and other entry points.

If scalping is the way to go to produce more trades per day, then i will definitely study it

I know it's not usually the done thing to recommend trader sites on here and there are many scam ones. But, as Kai mentioned him, If you are looking to explore opportunities in tennis trading you could do a lot worse than subscribing to the TradeShark blog or at least checking out his videos. The daily email and Skype chat can be very useful. Yes, I'm a member but probably one of the most legitimate trading pages out there. Decent advice at a pretty nominal, one off cost.

[Kai]

I would like to be a market maker, but as you said it is quite difficult without ladder. But i think i m doing my best offering my odds, it s not about the ladder,that is not crucial for my type of trading, but if i want to approach other strategies (like scalping) , then i will need it for sure. If scalping is the way to go to produce more trades per day, then i will definitely study it.

Bear in mind that market making in general is an approach that has severely weakened on tennis in recent years because there is generally less liquidity and less market noise around, so it is naturally more difficult to get matched at good prices. And regarding scalping, besides sitdowns I don't personally feel that tennis offers too many scalping opportunities compared to other sports.

If you're out of ideas I suggest checking out the Tennis Automation section on the forum, Dallas has done fantastic work there as per usual. Not suggesting to turn to automation instead but to use his automation examples as hints and guidelines on where to potentially find and develop an edge for manual trading, I think that's what I would do.

I have also sent you a PM with a tennis trading example of my own, it showcases an approach around trading lower prices that has worked for me in the past. The way that I understand the markets, I feel the essence of trading tennis is to actively look for the upside whilst limiting your downside, I think one could start by working out which points/games are important and which ones aren't, which ones offer the biggest rewards and which ones don't.

I'm sure some would say that tennis is the perfect sport for trading and the perfect inplay market and it would be very difficult for me to disagree, based on how the market is structured, the number of opportunities and the amount of volume, particularly around lower prices.

All my strategies rely on live events , example :
I know that a player is good in converting breakpoints, i back him when he is A-40, and if the price is good, and other factors etc etc

Unfortunately these opportunities are numbered. So if you say that 100 trades per month are few, and i agree, i have to find other strategies, and so other edges and other entry points.

I guess that's a statistical edge then, those are from my experience the weakest types of edges for manual trading, so it's not much of a surprise that you feel burned out, like you say. Think I expressed my opinion in more detail here on why I think that is the case, that was in the context of football but still applies to tennis imho.

Hopefully that helps a bit, best of luck either way.

[rik]

isnt break point conversion pretty much just the same as return points won for each player, havent found that any players are particularly good at converting break points. djokovic this year is on 49% with just 42% return points won but than the previous year he converted a couple % less than his return points won. in my experience price movement on match odds slightly favours betting on service holds, more often possible to hedge with game betting prices than when betting on breaks.

[westbamtrading]

I've abandoned Pre race trading and horses in general and my P&L has shot through the roof! Respect to those who can, but I had to admit that I couldn't do it. I started to trade mid to long term ... events that occur over a few days, near watch-less trades, and like I said, my P&L has exploded.

Obviously its down to the individual, but I had to think about when I was earning big back in the early 2,000's (traditional high-street betting), and none of it came from horse racing ... so why was I trying to do it now?

I understand the usual arguments about how many horse races there are in a day, but think of the amounts of events that happen on a daily basis, .. there is so much opportunity beyond horse racing, I'm kicking myself that I didn't look beyond the usual suspects - Horse Racing - Soccer - Tennis earlier. But when it comes to YouTube videos (how I got started) that's where the main emphasis is .. and I can't understand why other types of trading isn't talked about. Ice Hockey, I'm making a mint with Ice Hockey.

However, consider the sheer amount of events that go on everyday in every sport around the world, and to say one is lacking opportunities means you're not looking hard enough .. or looking at all.