Any open 'problem gamblers' participating in today's markets?

[Brovashift]

Hi all,

I have been reading through the forum over the last week or so, reading about tick size staking, and came across some old posts created by members who, at the time, openly admitted their problem gambling approach to trading horse racing and was just wondering if they, or anyone else in a similar situation was still participating in the markets today.

I often see some odd behaviour when trading pre off and I'm just curious to learn more about what goes on in the minds of such traders/gamblers when deciding to enter/exit the market I.e. is there a plan or decision making process, or are decisions often a result of frustration and impulsiveness?

Just looking for an open informative discussion if anyone relevant is willing.

TIA

[jimibt]

tbh - i think given the efficiency of the markets, any problem gamblers (unless purely leisure) will be no longer active.

for those that are, but haven't yet busted their final bank - adapt and survive i feel...

[Brovashift]

But are markets efficient? I think one of Peter's latest videos was saying just that, that markets can't be efficient otherwise he wouldn't have been able to do this for 20+ years...

In the posts I was reading from 2009, there was a couple of self admitting problem gamblers, which one in particular, said he had lost £7k that month by basically slamming a grand into the market and hoping it went it their favour, and when it didn't, left it go in play in the hopes it would win/lose.
Posting their results they were almost boasting about how much money they could lose

Over the last 4 days I have seen someone continuously using a 'road block' as Peter likes to called them, thousands sitting above tens of pounds. Its so obvious what is going to happen I am surprised nobody has countered it yet in some way. Only a matter of time I guess.
But also seen money getting invested into a price, filtering myself into the queue ready for a pop higher, with little money to resist the move, only for £1000+ to come and wipe us all out, my guess is stop hunting maybe... only for the price to retrace back offering no out for the HVY backer, assuming they wanted an out. If just a flush backer backing a front runner, it went off in third place and price only drifted, never came back lol.

That was my reason for the post really, as I coudn't understand it and after reading those posts I wondered if there was still some gamblers taking a 'spray and pray' approach Wouldn't mind getting inside their head if any are still about.

[Archery1969]

Markets are efficient and non efficient depending on timings and money entering those markets.

They are not efficient when a market is formed up until the big money enters, only then they become efficient.

The key is knowing or working out when that process starts and ends.

Take greyhounds, depending on grade and time/day of the week very inefficient until the last 2 or 3 minutes. Hence most market makers have made their money and out before the big type money has arrived and normal punters have either taken poor value or already traded out for a loss.

Market makers don’t start when a market has been formed for no reason. They know they have a window of opportunity before the more knowledgeable people enter the market.

[Derek27]

Hi all,

I have been reading through the forum over the last week or so, reading about tick size staking, and came across some old posts created by members who, at the time, openly admitted their problem gambling approach to trading horse racing and was just wondering if they, or anyone else in a similar situation was still participating in the markets today.

I often see some odd behaviour when trading pre off and I'm just curious to learn more about what goes on in the minds of such traders/gamblers when deciding to enter/exit the market I.e. is there a plan or decision making process, or are decisions often a result of frustration and impulsiveness?

Just looking for an open informative discussion if anyone relevant is willing.

TIA

Having poor judgement of when or where to open and close trade isn't exactly problem gambling. That's poor-quality gambling. Problem gambling is not having control of your gambling.

[ODPaul82]

Greed / Fear / Panic.

Greed - Could well be herd mentality following trend forcing it down further then it should
Fear - Emotions begin to take over, loss taking begins to consume
Panic - Exiting at entirely the wrong point.

An Elliott wave in my head best explains how each of them interact and then what had been predicted initially ends up occurring. Impulse vs Corrective.

[ODPaul82]

With the "problem gambler" part, I'm particularly a slave to a nice Spanish red, which in turn leads me into markets in a separate "fun" account that gets blown regularly. The fact that my nickname elsewhere is Wineoholic should set red flags left, right & centre.

My mindset with that is I find what I think is the smallest profitable margin and go to hit it hard with stakes that aren't suitable. A point in question were two football matches this evening, Gillingham/Grimsby & Northampton/Bolton. Both I forecast to have <=1 goal in first half. My approach was to back after a goal had been scored in first half and then reduce 20% of liability for each SOT and to double up on my stake after a goal. Hedging was to take place at 70 minutes. This was back-tested on a handful of games (About 2000).

Fear set in for me immediately when Bolton scored their second yet my rules were to re-enter the market, I overstaked on it, that set in turn fear with the other market. Panic set in when my Bolton one lost that then influenced my mind on Gillingham.

The liquidity on the markets was poor, my execution was poor, but more importantly my mindset was f**ked.

Horses I now automate purely based on data, tennis I won't touch if I've had a drink as I know my sober mind.

Hope this of semi help to anyone including anyone going back over historic posts.

[ruthlessimon]

Over the last 4 days I have seen someone continuously using a 'road block' as Peter likes to called them, thousands sitting above tens of pounds. Its so obvious what is going to happen I am surprised nobody has countered it yet in some way.

Journal it, note the price they wanted (filled/dragged/pulled etc) & how it differs to the sp/win. then make a thread detailing the findings

[Brovashift]

"Hence most market makers have made their money and out before the big type money has arrived and normal punters have either taken poor value or already traded out for a loss.

Market makers don’t start when a market has been formed for no reason. They know they have a window of opportunity before the more knowledgeable people enter the market."

This is interesting, is it the same in horse racing markets? Do sports markets have Market Makers, or are you just using the term to refer to the sporting equivalent?

[Brovashift]

Over the last 4 days I have seen someone continuously using a 'road block' as Peter likes to called them, thousands sitting above tens of pounds. Its so obvious what is going to happen I am surprised nobody has countered it yet in some way.

Journal it, note the price they wanted (filled/dragged/pulled etc) & how it differs to the sp/win. then make a thread detailing the findings

This sounds like I'd need to level up ...

Funnily enough I didn't see it at all today, maybe they read this thread last night and thought the games up lol. It felt like a very different environment today comapred to the past few days... thin markets I thinik with crazy price swings.

What could the price and sp/win data tell us about what they were trying to do? Genuinely interested

[Archery1969]

"Hence most market makers have made their money and out before the big type money has arrived and normal punters have either taken poor value or already traded out for a loss.

Market makers don’t start when a market has been formed for no reason. They know they have a window of opportunity before the more knowledgeable people enter the market."

This is interesting, is it the same in horse racing markets? Do sports markets have Market Makers, or are you just using the term to refer to the sporting equivalent?

Sports markets have market makers too. They seed the markets when there formed with very poor value odds to the rest. Those odds shorten the closer you get to the start as money starts coming in. Market makers are usually out at that point.

[Brovashift]

"Hence most market makers have made their money and out before the big type money has arrived and normal punters have either taken poor value or already traded out for a loss.

Market makers don’t start when a market has been formed for no reason. They know they have a window of opportunity before the more knowledgeable people enter the market."

This is interesting, is it the same in horse racing markets? Do sports markets have Market Makers, or are you just using the term to refer to the sporting equivalent?

Sports markets have market makers too. They seed the markets when there formed with very poor value odds to the rest. Those odds shorten the closer you get to the start as money starts coming in. Market makers are usually out at that point.

Humm... does that mean there is opportunities when the market first opens i.e. the evening before? Not going to be much money available though, is there?

[Archery1969]

This is interesting, is it the same in horse racing markets? Do sports markets have Market Makers, or are you just using the term to refer to the sporting equivalent?

Sports markets have market makers too. They seed the markets when there formed with very poor value odds to the rest. Those odds shorten the closer you get to the start as money starts coming in. Market makers are usually out at that point.

Humm... does that mean there is opportunities when the market first opens i.e. the evening before? Not going to be much money available though, is there?

Market makers are there at the start, until 10 mins before, depending on the market.

Not much money but people make mistakes and the market making bots snap mistakes made.

But each market is different:

- Horses, market forms the night before, they are out come 11.00am.
- Greyhounds, market forms the night before, they are out 5 mins before start. Depends on grade.
- Football, market forms upto 3 days before, they are out a few hours before.

[Crumpets]

The best advice I received (from this forum) regarding this kinda behaviour was that if it appears race to race, daily, month to month etc...it's probably not dumb money. Regardless of how aggressive/temperamental it behaved.

I used to tear my hair out wondering why clearly vulnerable positions were not being taken on pre-off by bigger players.

My issue, i think, was that i assumed all smart money was subtle, sneaky, and restrained. My conclusion now is that a lot of smart movers are wielding big clubs in the market. If it works, it works I guess. Psychology and emotion are very powerful tools to be exploited

I have no idea what anybodies p/l looks like at the end of the day. Nor how they build their positions, or mitigate their losses. I just assume that if they're there regularly, it's working (for now). If it stops working, the money runs out and they leave.

And a few grand here and there is small change to some.

[Crumpets]

...and even if I am convinced it's "dumb money", I often try to pretend it's smart. Market knows best and all that jazz