Reply to recent comments

I tend to always forget to reply to comments but since I’ve been short of subjects to write about recently, I’ll write a post replying to the couple of recent comments.

Leon

Sorry to hear about your issues with the internet connection. It’s seems a shame that just as you had been approaching the £100 profit a day on a very consistent basis, something like this comes along and stops you from trading! I know you’re having a break from trading for a month or so soon, so maybe you can pack up your trading tools now and just have a complete break for a while. Even though you’d miss the money, I’m sure you’d enjoy the break……..

Steve

Cheers for the comment again. I do find it quite difficult to update the blog when I’m not trading as I don’t want to write for the sake of writing. However, I will keep the blog going and I will continue to trade at least once a week, so I’ll update it weekly at least.

The reason I win large amounts on some races is that I only trade the horses in each race that I think can win. Instead of greening up before the race, I just keep the riskfree bets on each horse and leave lays in running at lower odds. Obviously, depending on how much I fancy the horse to win, this will influence my odds to lay at.

So, even though I lay in running, I don’t actually have to watch the race as I put my lays in pre-race. I’m sure I could maximise profits by watching each race but this obviously stops me from trading the next race, so it is a fine balancing act.

When one of my horses win, I will win a decent amount. Usually, one of my horses will run well and I will win a small amount. If my horses run poor, assuming I am riskfree, I will break-even.

This will probably shock most traders but I don’t use a certain staking plan. I just go by how much I fancy the horse to win the race. Obviously, the more I fancy the horse, the more I will want riskfree on it and the higher stakes I will use. In many cases, I end up trading horses priced 10+ on Betfair, so you can’t really use large stakes. I usually aim to get around £100 riskfree on a horse I like, so I use the stake that I think is most suited to getting me my riskfree bet.

I’ve developed my own trading strategy over the past few months and it is probably very unorthodox to say the least. When a trade swings the opposite way to what I thought, I never red up on the field. I will just continue to trade the same horse in the same direction as I initially thought. This probably goes against anything I’ve read in a book but it suits my strategy.

I don’t want to start a debate on trading styles but by redding up when a trade goes against you, you are effectively hammering your own nail in the coffin. However, by following your initial instinct and repeating your previous trade, you are effectively giving yourself a better chance to recover from the initial swing.
If I back a horse at 7 for £100 and it swings out to 10, by laying off at 10, it means I take a loss. However, by backing at 10 for £200, I can increase the average odds I’ve backed at and can help swing around the movement, so that it goes back into the direction I want.

Obviously, my trading strategy is very risky and involves ‘balls of steel’, but it works well for me. Every so often, I’ll take a large hit to my P&L of anything up to £100 but when it works, I can make some very large profits indeed.

I will never let any more than £100 exposure go in play. If I am facing a large red on the field before the off due to poor trading, I will select the horse (s) I feel are most likely to run well and back these outright. Obviously, this increases my red on the field but I will live with the fact that I will get some races wrong and lose.

Overall, I think my whole strategy is based on a belief that I can pick winners and horses that run well. Hence, when a trade goes against me, as long as I think the horse will win, I don’t really care how much red I am on the field. If I am correct and the horse will win, then I want a red on the field and a massive green on the winner anyway!

Steve, I hope that answers your questions.

Thomas

Cheers for the comment mate. One problem I have with full-time is that I have a decent job and very good career prospects. Therefore, to give up my career, I would need to earning in the region of £50k every year. Obviously, I don’t earn that much at the moment in my current role but in time, I expect to earn this much.

I did give up a part of my job to trade in the afternoons but this was foolish as I didn’t have the necessary trading skills to make a go of it. Obviously, I’m in a much better place now and I’m sure I could do much better now but I’m quite enjoying being back at work full-time and only playing around on Betfair for extra cash.

One thing I would say is that I am keeping my Betfair bank separate from my other income, so I hope to continue to build up this bank so that I would maybe have the option of trading part-time on Betfair in the future. I would need to be guaranteed to earn around £100 a day before I would considerate it though.

If anyone else has any questions, please leave me a comment.