Reading the odds

[markkirwan]

Hi Guys

Just starting out and have spent days reading everything I could I'm still a bit unsure of how to read the market odds

e.g. when the odds steam or drift etc.

Does anyone know of anything I can watch, read or listen to for help?

or are there signs on the software or betfair that I can't see!

Thanks

Mark

p.s. I was only looking at horse racing

[ShaunWhite]

Although not a given, the rule of thumb is that you'd need to observe iro 10,000 markets in order to cold read effectively, but that's a bell curve and some do it sooner and some never do.

That's not the A+B=C answer you might have wanted but a good start would be to watch all of Peter's live trading videos on his YT channel, and then watch them all again, and again. He provides a lot of commentary on what he's looking at and it should give you some pointers. It's not going to give you all the skills you need because everything he does is supplemented with 20yrs of subconscious experience but you'll get the general idea.

[Derek27]

Trading, like punting, is all about getting it right more often than you get it wrong (in proportion to your risk/reward ratio), rather than actually predicting which way the market's going.

[jamesg46]

Like Shaun says, 10,000 hours is the general rule of thumb, there are no shortcuts (at least I haven't come across any.) To make them hours more benificial you should absorb as much quality content as possible, like Shaun mentioned, Peter's youtube channel is full of quality content to help you along the way. Try not to fall into the trap of listening to every man & his dog on social media, it will send you around in circles for years & at the same time drive you close to insanity, choose one strategy and work at that before branching out into other areas or sports. It's a great journey, you simply just have to stay the distance.

[ShaunWhite]

10k hours is a bit daunting but long before that you'll transition into the breakeven grind of death. There's the old gag about a tourist asking a native New Yorker how to get to Carnigie Hall and begin told "Practice, practice, practice", manual trading is the same.

[jimibt]

There's the old gag about a tourist asking a native New Yorker how to get to Carnigie Hall and begin told "Practice, practice, practice", manual trading is the same.

nice one!! . i'd add to that, to also explore niche avenues (52nd street for example ), even if only to discount them. my journey here was matched betting (2014-2016), in-play trading (2016-2018). thereafter, i actually stopped (to re-evaluate) and discovered that my best plays were actually value betting. again, still without emotion and often allowing x losers to romp *home* before the *expected* winner. i've now adopted an approach that still uses data but widens the net to include speed ratings and a variety of other factors. this alone has proved to (me) produce the steady longer term gains that in-play trading was nominally failing on.

as ever, your own mileage will vary...

... or are there signs on the software or betfair that I can't see!

p.s. I was only looking at horse racing

mark - we've spoken before as you know!! I'd say that finding value based systems is the way fwd, unless you decide to explore pre-rece trading (which i honestly have tried [automation wise] and failed). once you seperate those two out, i personally feel it gives a lot of focus.

[Derek27]

Hi Guys

Just starting out and have spent days reading everything I could I'm still a bit unsure of how to read the market odds

e.g. when the odds steam or drift etc.

Does anyone know of anything I can watch, read or listen to for help?

or are there signs on the software or betfair that I can't see!

Thanks

Mark

p.s. I was only looking at horse racing

Hi Mark. Sorry to be off-topic but do you mind if I ask how the 'PRO staking plan' went?

[Kai]

Just starting out and have spent days reading everything I could I'm still a bit unsure of how to read the market odds

Hi Mark.

Unfortunately you can't read a few posts for a few days and expect to have the ability to read order flow (or cold read or read the market odds, however you want to call it) of the market. The majority of valuable knowledge can only be self-acquired in reality, the bits and pieces of knowledge that you can get from posts/reading will be theoretical for you, while skill and ability are practical. Skills can be learned whereas ability is either natural or inbuilt, so knowledge alone is nowhere near enough, because it will be too abstract for you to use. I've inserted a little illustration to help explain what I mean by that.



Naturally, you need a huge amount of (quality) ladder time to start noticing the subtle details of betting activity on a market, which gives you an indication of what the market is trying to do and where the bias or momentum currently if there is one. In short, it's about carefully observing where the money is coming from, how and where it's being matched, at what frequency and size and so on, so that anything unusual will stick out like a sore thumb.

Goes without saying that you also need to be able to properly manage both your emotions and your positions, which is a huge edge in itself, some can do one or the other while some can do neither, and those who can do both will end up in profit even if they were opening positions completely at random (see Euler as a well documented example).

The bad news is that developing the ability to effectively read order flow can take years, maybe never, but the good news is that at higher levels it enables you to extract (at least) something from the majority of markets regardless of sport or size without any real context behind them (meaning the edge is coming from the ladder itself (!) and not from the outside), and it goes far beyond horse racing and preoff markets since all of the markets are mechanically the same. It also opens doors to all sorts of automated approaches, both small and large scale, the benefits are endless but so is the skillcap.

[markkirwan]

Thanks for all your input guys, there is a lot to learn and i hope to learn a bit more every day

[markkirwan]

Hi Guys

Just starting out and have spent days reading everything I could I'm still a bit unsure of how to read the market odds

e.g. when the odds steam or drift etc.

Does anyone know of anything I can watch, read or listen to for help?

or are there signs on the software or betfair that I can't see!

Thanks

Mark

p.s. I was only looking at horse racing

Hi Mark. Sorry to be off-topic but do you mind if I ask how the 'PRO staking plan' went?

I use The Staking Machine linked to a bot to do the PRO staking now.

[Derek27]

Hi Guys

Just starting out and have spent days reading everything I could I'm still a bit unsure of how to read the market odds

e.g. when the odds steam or drift etc.

Does anyone know of anything I can watch, read or listen to for help?

or are there signs on the software or betfair that I can't see!

Thanks

Mark

p.s. I was only looking at horse racing

Hi Mark. Sorry to be off-topic but do you mind if I ask how the 'PRO staking plan' went?

I use The Staking Machine linked to a bot to do the PRO staking now.

You might struggle to get to grips with trading whilst executing a Martingale-like system at the same time, which goes against all trading and betting principles. Good luck anyway though.

[jamesg46]

Hi Mark. Sorry to be off-topic but do you mind if I ask how the 'PRO staking plan' went?

I use The Staking Machine linked to a bot to do the PRO staking now.

You might struggle to get to grips with trading whilst executing a Martingale-like system at the same time, which goes against all trading and betting principles. Good luck anyway though.

It amazes me that Martingale systems still float around, personally the moment someone mentions it, or even hints at it I'm off... if for a moment I was taking some interest in what they were saying, it instantly sends my bullshit radar into overdrive. Idiot abroad guy came up with a brilliant idea, he wanted to become a superhero called bullshit man, we need this just for Martingale system pushers.

[Trader Pat]

It amazes me that Martingale systems still float around, personally the moment someone mentions it, or even hints at it I'm off... if for a moment I was taking some interest in what they were saying, it instantly sends my bullshit radar into overdrive. Idiot abroad guy came up with a brilliant idea, he wanted to become a superhero called bullshit man, we need this just for Martingale system pushers.

Shouldn't be that surprising... people still use bookies and casinos

[jamesg46]

https://youtu.be/JdvGo7DsFbQ

[jamesg46]

It amazes me that Martingale systems still float around, personally the moment someone mentions it, or even hints at it I'm off... if for a moment I was taking some interest in what they were saying, it instantly sends my bullshit radar into overdrive. Idiot abroad guy came up with a brilliant idea, he wanted to become a superhero called bullshit man, we need this just for Martingale system pushers.

Shouldn't be that surprising... people still use bookies and casinos

Puts things into perspective I suppose.