Daily Profit £34.55
I’m not too sure what to make of this week’s golf profit. Obviously, I’m pleased to post up a profit and considering all of the profit was made from the same person (Charley Hoffman), I shouldn’t really complain but as usual, I’m not too pleased!
Firstly, I changed my strategy when selecting the golf players this week. Well, it wasn’t my selection strategy that changed it was my staking strategy. This week, a few of my fancies were quite short in price and I decided to bet a little bit more on these guys. I thought this was a well thought out strategy but it has ultimately backfired on me as I lost £24 on 4 guys alone, so it will be back to level stakes from now on.
Also, this was the first week I had backed many guys at less than 200 on Betfair. I will not be doing this again and will go back to looking for guys at the higher prices on Betfair.
I think the most annoying thing from this week was the fact that Johnson Wagner won. I know for most people reading this you will be saying to yourself “oh yeah!” but Wagner actually came 2nd top in my ratings for this week. I was put off by the fact he had missed the cut in 4 of his last 6 events though, so I chose to scratch him from my shortlist. He was trading at 500 at the start of the tournament.
This decision to not back Johnson has ultimately cost me £100+ as I would have laid off at the end of round one as he was joint top but that’s the way the cookie crumbles!
Another bad decision from me this week was to not follow my instincts. At the end of round one, the leaderboard had a strange look to it as some people shot great 1st round scores and some people were miles off the pace. The reason for this was simply because the morning starters had much of the better weather conditions and day 2 was going to be the same. Hence, anyone who shot a decent score on Thursday afternoon had done exceptionally well and would be able to push on during Friday morning.
At the end of round 1, only 2 players in the top 15 had played from afternoon tees. Who were they…….
Johnson Wagner and Charley Hoffman!
I noticed that Adam Scott was trading at about 2.5 at the end of round 1 and I knew that he was the wrong price. The market had not realised that he had played in the best of the weather on the first day and that the exploits of Johnson Wagner on day 1 were far greater than Adam Scott’s. Wagner was 5 times the prices of Adam Scott at the end of day 1 even though they both shot the same score.
What happened in round 2? Wagner got the best of the weather and shot a round of -3. Scott got the worst of the weather and shot +4. Hence, seven shots now separated them.
Clearly, my instincts were right and I should have laid Adam Scott at the end of round one for a fortune!
I need to start have more belief in myself and start following my instincts by backing them with some real money.........
Overall, I made a ROI this week of over 50%, so I can’t really complain.
This week’s event is the US Masters and as such, I’m not going to get involved too heavily. I feel much more confident in the regular US tour events as the field is bigger and more players have a chance to win. The Masters is full of has-beens who are well past it and full of players who are out of form. If Woods plays anywhere near his best he should win this but I may look to lay Woods at the beginning depending on what his price is in a couple of days.
I’ll post up my golf selections for this week on Wednesday night.
Monday, 7 April 2008
Saturday, 5 April 2008
Retirement from horse-race trading!
Daily Loss £52.68
As you can tell by the title of the post and the loss, I had a bit of a nightmare day today and as such, I’m calling it a day with regards to trading the horse-racing.
I traded 19 races today, winning on 6, losing on 12 and break-even on 1. I increased my stakes again today and was trading with £50-£100 stakes for the most part on shorter priced horses.
Over the past 5 weeks on the horse-racing, after today’s loss, I’ve now won a combined total of £13.26. I think there is only so long you can try to ‘flog a dead horse’ and I’ve reached that point. If “Denman broke Kauto’s heart” (you gotta love Harry Findlay!), then today broke my heart. I’ve worked my ass off to try to understand the way that the horse-racing market’s work on Betfair and try to find a way to exploit any weaknesses.
I think it’s safe to say that I’ve learned a great deal over the past 2 months or so from trading the horse-racing but the time has come to stop. If I was at retirement age, I’d be able to reduce my stakes to £2 and then start all over again trying to learn the markets. However, I’m a 26 year old professional with a thriving career and I don’t have the time or inclination to start again with smaller stakes and build my way up.
I feel if I continue trading with these size of stakes £100+, I’m 99.9% certain that I’ll lose in the long-term and I’d rather stop now and say that I didn’t lose a penny from trading the horse-racing.
I could spend all day writing about why I don’t think it’s worked but it comes down to a few simple facts. Basically, to be a good trader at horse-racing, you need to be highly risk-averse, disciplined, controlled and take a loss when they come.
I think the best traders are people who probably have little knowledge of horse-racing and who don’t like to gamble. Unfortunately, I like to think I have a good knowledge of horse-racing and my worst fault is that I’m a gambler. I think it is nearly impossible for someone who has been gambling for 20 years to try to become a trader and I’m proof of that! Good luck to anyone else who tries this but I honestly think that it is impossible.
OK, so where do I go from here and what happens to The Experiment?
Firstly, The Experiment will continue. I am off on holiday next week from work (studying for my next professional qualification exam) and when I return to work a week on Tuesday, I will ask to resume full-time from the start of May. However, I am already thinking about what I am going to do with The Experiment and it isn’t that difficult…….
When I first started out on this adventure, the two things that I had were an excellent understanding of turf flat handicap form knowledge and knowledge of odds and probabilities. So far, none of these things have helped me at all (I chose the wrong time of year to start The Experiment as the turf season hadn’t started!) and maybe it is about time I tried to utilise these skills.
In addition to using my racing form knowledge, as you know, I’ve been building up a decent amount of knowledge of the Betfair golf markets. This is an area I am really keen to explore further and I think I can do well at this.
The Experiment from Monday 7th April…….
From Monday, I will be gambling on the flat turf horse-racing only. In particular, I will only be gambling on 5f – 1m 4f, four year old plus, low grade handicaps. This may sound a little strange considering there are only a few of these races every day (if any!) but this will give me necessary time to study the form for the following day’s races. I’ll go into the reasons for this at a later date!
When I return to work, I will aim to do my form research the night before the day’s racing and I will place my bets on Betfair the night before racing. I know this sounds very risky and I don’t have access to my Betfair account when I am at work but I do have Betfair on my Mobile Phone, so I can always check to see if my bets have been matched at lunchtime at work and if not, I can reduce the odds I’m asking for or take the Betfair SP.
I will use a staking system depending on the odds of my selections and I will also place lays on my selections at very low odds in case my horses are beat in a photo-finish.
Every night, I will aim to post up any selections on my blog with my reasons for selecting the horse or horses. I will also explain my thinking about why I have asked for particular odds and what sort of chance I think the horse has of winning.
I will continue to bet on the US golf markets every week and I will continue to use progressively higher stakes every week. So far, I have won over £350 from the golf markets in 5 weeks of trading, so I feel confident that I can increase my stakes and generate higher profits.
With regards to my £15k bank loan, I will return £10k to my bank as soon as possible and I will keep £5k back. £3.5k will go in a savings account and will be saved for a rainy day but not for Betfair!. I will keep a betting bank of £1,500 for my golf trading and my horse-race gambling.
My new target for the year is to generate a profit of £5,000+ this year. Obviously, since I’m going back to full-time work and paying £10k back to my bank, I will automatically be about £7k better off already!
A profit of £5k for the year seems like a realistic target and I’m currently at about £350 after 5 weeks, so I’m not doing too badly!
GOLF UPDATE
Thanks to the early exploits of Charley Hoffman at the US golf, I’m now riskfree on the golf. I’ve given away all of my profit on Hoffman to generate this position though, so in order to make a reasonable profit this week, I need one of my guys who are a bit further back to make a charge up the leaderboard. This week’s tournament has been a little strange though as the late starters have been getting the worst of the weather, so there is a chance that someone starting early can make a charge up the leaderboard over the next 2 days.
I’ll post an update up for the golf on Sunday night.
As you can tell by the title of the post and the loss, I had a bit of a nightmare day today and as such, I’m calling it a day with regards to trading the horse-racing.
I traded 19 races today, winning on 6, losing on 12 and break-even on 1. I increased my stakes again today and was trading with £50-£100 stakes for the most part on shorter priced horses.
Over the past 5 weeks on the horse-racing, after today’s loss, I’ve now won a combined total of £13.26. I think there is only so long you can try to ‘flog a dead horse’ and I’ve reached that point. If “Denman broke Kauto’s heart” (you gotta love Harry Findlay!), then today broke my heart. I’ve worked my ass off to try to understand the way that the horse-racing market’s work on Betfair and try to find a way to exploit any weaknesses.
I think it’s safe to say that I’ve learned a great deal over the past 2 months or so from trading the horse-racing but the time has come to stop. If I was at retirement age, I’d be able to reduce my stakes to £2 and then start all over again trying to learn the markets. However, I’m a 26 year old professional with a thriving career and I don’t have the time or inclination to start again with smaller stakes and build my way up.
I feel if I continue trading with these size of stakes £100+, I’m 99.9% certain that I’ll lose in the long-term and I’d rather stop now and say that I didn’t lose a penny from trading the horse-racing.
I could spend all day writing about why I don’t think it’s worked but it comes down to a few simple facts. Basically, to be a good trader at horse-racing, you need to be highly risk-averse, disciplined, controlled and take a loss when they come.
I think the best traders are people who probably have little knowledge of horse-racing and who don’t like to gamble. Unfortunately, I like to think I have a good knowledge of horse-racing and my worst fault is that I’m a gambler. I think it is nearly impossible for someone who has been gambling for 20 years to try to become a trader and I’m proof of that! Good luck to anyone else who tries this but I honestly think that it is impossible.
OK, so where do I go from here and what happens to The Experiment?
Firstly, The Experiment will continue. I am off on holiday next week from work (studying for my next professional qualification exam) and when I return to work a week on Tuesday, I will ask to resume full-time from the start of May. However, I am already thinking about what I am going to do with The Experiment and it isn’t that difficult…….
When I first started out on this adventure, the two things that I had were an excellent understanding of turf flat handicap form knowledge and knowledge of odds and probabilities. So far, none of these things have helped me at all (I chose the wrong time of year to start The Experiment as the turf season hadn’t started!) and maybe it is about time I tried to utilise these skills.
In addition to using my racing form knowledge, as you know, I’ve been building up a decent amount of knowledge of the Betfair golf markets. This is an area I am really keen to explore further and I think I can do well at this.
The Experiment from Monday 7th April…….
From Monday, I will be gambling on the flat turf horse-racing only. In particular, I will only be gambling on 5f – 1m 4f, four year old plus, low grade handicaps. This may sound a little strange considering there are only a few of these races every day (if any!) but this will give me necessary time to study the form for the following day’s races. I’ll go into the reasons for this at a later date!
When I return to work, I will aim to do my form research the night before the day’s racing and I will place my bets on Betfair the night before racing. I know this sounds very risky and I don’t have access to my Betfair account when I am at work but I do have Betfair on my Mobile Phone, so I can always check to see if my bets have been matched at lunchtime at work and if not, I can reduce the odds I’m asking for or take the Betfair SP.
I will use a staking system depending on the odds of my selections and I will also place lays on my selections at very low odds in case my horses are beat in a photo-finish.
Every night, I will aim to post up any selections on my blog with my reasons for selecting the horse or horses. I will also explain my thinking about why I have asked for particular odds and what sort of chance I think the horse has of winning.
I will continue to bet on the US golf markets every week and I will continue to use progressively higher stakes every week. So far, I have won over £350 from the golf markets in 5 weeks of trading, so I feel confident that I can increase my stakes and generate higher profits.
With regards to my £15k bank loan, I will return £10k to my bank as soon as possible and I will keep £5k back. £3.5k will go in a savings account and will be saved for a rainy day but not for Betfair!. I will keep a betting bank of £1,500 for my golf trading and my horse-race gambling.
My new target for the year is to generate a profit of £5,000+ this year. Obviously, since I’m going back to full-time work and paying £10k back to my bank, I will automatically be about £7k better off already!
A profit of £5k for the year seems like a realistic target and I’m currently at about £350 after 5 weeks, so I’m not doing too badly!
GOLF UPDATE
Thanks to the early exploits of Charley Hoffman at the US golf, I’m now riskfree on the golf. I’ve given away all of my profit on Hoffman to generate this position though, so in order to make a reasonable profit this week, I need one of my guys who are a bit further back to make a charge up the leaderboard. This week’s tournament has been a little strange though as the late starters have been getting the worst of the weather, so there is a chance that someone starting early can make a charge up the leaderboard over the next 2 days.
I’ll post an update up for the golf on Sunday night.
Friday, 4 April 2008
A little better......
Daily Profit £15.67
Overall, I'm happy with today's profit but I did pretty bad today. I was up £23 after 3 races and things were looking rosy. It looked like it was going to be a great day.......
I then managed to go on an unbelievable run of 7 losing races in a row (apart from a few lays on horses) and it wiped out all of my day's profit and more!
After a 5 minute break to compose my thoughts, I managed to get back in front and ended the day OK.
I traded in 18 races, winning on 8, losing on 8 and break-even on 2.
I increased my stakes slightly today and it at least managed to improve my daily profit. I'm starting to think that there is something psychological with me and using higher stakes. Every time I use higher stakes, my trading goes very erratic and I'm liable to pick out some really bad drifters! I backed a horse at 5 today with £30 and I put a stop loss of 5 ticks. Before I could blink, the stop loss had been met and I was all red! The horse then went on to start the race at 8!
I wasn't surprised to see Inglis Drever and Kauto Star lose today. They both had hard races at Cheltenham and I laid both to lose today for smallish stakes, so that helped the profit overall.
I'm looking forward to Aintree tomorrow again and I'm hoping that I can maybe improve my trading slightly and post up a healthier profit.
I noticed that Adam Scott has made a blistering start to the golf tournament. This sort of thing can mess up my whole golf strategy as most of my players will not come down in price considering Scott is so far in front. Could be a tricky week on the golf for me!
Overall, I'm happy with today's profit but I did pretty bad today. I was up £23 after 3 races and things were looking rosy. It looked like it was going to be a great day.......
I then managed to go on an unbelievable run of 7 losing races in a row (apart from a few lays on horses) and it wiped out all of my day's profit and more!
After a 5 minute break to compose my thoughts, I managed to get back in front and ended the day OK.
I traded in 18 races, winning on 8, losing on 8 and break-even on 2.
I increased my stakes slightly today and it at least managed to improve my daily profit. I'm starting to think that there is something psychological with me and using higher stakes. Every time I use higher stakes, my trading goes very erratic and I'm liable to pick out some really bad drifters! I backed a horse at 5 today with £30 and I put a stop loss of 5 ticks. Before I could blink, the stop loss had been met and I was all red! The horse then went on to start the race at 8!
I wasn't surprised to see Inglis Drever and Kauto Star lose today. They both had hard races at Cheltenham and I laid both to lose today for smallish stakes, so that helped the profit overall.
I'm looking forward to Aintree tomorrow again and I'm hoping that I can maybe improve my trading slightly and post up a healthier profit.
I noticed that Adam Scott has made a blistering start to the golf tournament. This sort of thing can mess up my whole golf strategy as most of my players will not come down in price considering Scott is so far in front. Could be a tricky week on the golf for me!
Thursday, 3 April 2008
This week's golf bets
Going to try something a bit different on the golf trading this week. So far, I've did remarkably well trading on players who start at 500+ before the tournament by backing them and laying off during the tournament.
However, one issue I've found with this strategy is that you really need players to do very well before you can lay them off for a decent profit.
An easy example was Parker Mclachlin last week. I had £1,500 return on him left at the end of the tournament and he was in the top 10 for the last 2 days and only dropped away at the very end. I was adamant that I wasn't going to trade my £1.5k return in for £15 when he was only 3 shots back in the final round and this decision ultimately cost me £15 profit.
Looking back, his lowest price matched was around 20 which is disappointing considering he was in with a shout of winning the tournament.
This week, I've selected golf players who are quite well fancied and who I think have a decent chance of winning the tournament. I'm guessing that if any of these guys make it into the top 10 with the final round to play, they will be trading at a much lower price than someone who started the tournament at 1000 and I should be able to make more money from these guys.
It will be interesting to see what happens...........
Incidentally, look out for my guys in round 1. In the 4 tournaments where I've traded, I've had the leader at the end of round 1 3 times. Fingers crossed it's 4 out of 5 tomorrow!
Just in case I do stumble across the leader, I'll put in lays tonight on all of my players and I'll be happy to get any of them matched in round 1.
Below are my players and the current returns. My exposure is £66 this week, so I'll see if I can make a profit or not!
However, one issue I've found with this strategy is that you really need players to do very well before you can lay them off for a decent profit.
An easy example was Parker Mclachlin last week. I had £1,500 return on him left at the end of the tournament and he was in the top 10 for the last 2 days and only dropped away at the very end. I was adamant that I wasn't going to trade my £1.5k return in for £15 when he was only 3 shots back in the final round and this decision ultimately cost me £15 profit.
Looking back, his lowest price matched was around 20 which is disappointing considering he was in with a shout of winning the tournament.
This week, I've selected golf players who are quite well fancied and who I think have a decent chance of winning the tournament. I'm guessing that if any of these guys make it into the top 10 with the final round to play, they will be trading at a much lower price than someone who started the tournament at 1000 and I should be able to make more money from these guys.
It will be interesting to see what happens...........
Incidentally, look out for my guys in round 1. In the 4 tournaments where I've traded, I've had the leader at the end of round 1 3 times. Fingers crossed it's 4 out of 5 tomorrow!
Just in case I do stumble across the leader, I'll put in lays tonight on all of my players and I'll be happy to get any of them matched in round 1.
Below are my players and the current returns. My exposure is £66 this week, so I'll see if I can make a profit or not!
Better than a loss......
Daily Profit £5.42
Traded on 16 races, winning on 8, losing on 5 and break-even on 3. My largest win was £9.50 and my largest loss was £8.40.
Overall, another disappointing day and I'm really struggling to get things going with the horse-racing trading.
I think part of the problem with trying to employ a lower risk strategy is that I'm stopping my losses to a great extent which is a huge improvement on my trading from last month. However, I'm then not letting my winnings run and I'm being far too risk averse and banking profits too early.
I think I need to find the happy medium between my wild trading of last month and my lower risk trading this month. If I could just find the correct strategy, I'll be much happier.
As I said last week, I've decreased my stakes considerably for the timebeing as I'm low on confidence and just trying to get back to basics and make some profits. Obviously, the clock is ticking with regards to trading the horses as I can't afford to play a low risk low return strategy every day as I'd be much better off at work!
I'm still hoping that I'll turn things around and I'm slowly getting my confidence back but I'll be looking to increase my trading stakes as soon as possible to allow me to get back to trying to make a decent return.
I'll post up my golf bets later along with the strategy I'm looking to employ this week.
Traded on 16 races, winning on 8, losing on 5 and break-even on 3. My largest win was £9.50 and my largest loss was £8.40.
Overall, another disappointing day and I'm really struggling to get things going with the horse-racing trading.
I think part of the problem with trying to employ a lower risk strategy is that I'm stopping my losses to a great extent which is a huge improvement on my trading from last month. However, I'm then not letting my winnings run and I'm being far too risk averse and banking profits too early.
I think I need to find the happy medium between my wild trading of last month and my lower risk trading this month. If I could just find the correct strategy, I'll be much happier.
As I said last week, I've decreased my stakes considerably for the timebeing as I'm low on confidence and just trying to get back to basics and make some profits. Obviously, the clock is ticking with regards to trading the horses as I can't afford to play a low risk low return strategy every day as I'd be much better off at work!
I'm still hoping that I'll turn things around and I'm slowly getting my confidence back but I'll be looking to increase my trading stakes as soon as possible to allow me to get back to trying to make a decent return.
I'll post up my golf bets later along with the strategy I'm looking to employ this week.
Wednesday, 2 April 2008
A small profit to start the month
Daily Profit £9.52
Another strange day on the horse-racing for me. I did OK but I’m suffering from a complete lack of confidence and I’m finding it quite hardwork.
I traded on 18 races today, winning on 10 and losing on 8. Not sure why I didn’t break-even on any but that's the way it went.
My largest win was £15.69 and my largest loss was £8.96. I had a few £5 losses though which pulled my profit down for the day.
I was up £16 after 6 races, so I maybe should have stopped then! I could have then said I made £16 an hour on the horses today……….
I’m trading tomorrow again, so I’ll see if I can improve on this profit somewhat.
I’ll be searching the golf market tonight for some bets, so I’ll post these up tomorrow night with a bit of luck.
Another strange day on the horse-racing for me. I did OK but I’m suffering from a complete lack of confidence and I’m finding it quite hardwork.
I traded on 18 races today, winning on 10 and losing on 8. Not sure why I didn’t break-even on any but that's the way it went.
My largest win was £15.69 and my largest loss was £8.96. I had a few £5 losses though which pulled my profit down for the day.
I was up £16 after 6 races, so I maybe should have stopped then! I could have then said I made £16 an hour on the horses today……….
I’m trading tomorrow again, so I’ll see if I can improve on this profit somewhat.
I’ll be searching the golf market tonight for some bets, so I’ll post these up tomorrow night with a bit of luck.
Tuesday, 1 April 2008
Review of First Month
Well, that’s the first month over for The Experiment. I just wanted to have a quick review of the month and comment on how I think it’s went.
At the start of the month, if someone had said I would have made £380 profit, I would have been over the moon. As I said at the start of my blog a while ago, I expected the first 2 or 3 months to be very difficult and I didn’t expect to win much at the beginning.
If I’m 100% honest, I actually expected to post a loss in the first month as I knew it would take time to understand the Betfair markets and that’s part of the reason for having the £15k betting balance. I expected to be dipping into this balance a fair amount but I think I quickly realised that it would be foolish for me to trade with large stakes in the first month and therefore, the £15k has been largely untouched.
I transferred £1,000 across to my Betfair account at the start of the month and I’m pleased to say that I still have £1,000 in my account today. I have transferred out my £380 profit through the course of the month and it’s quite satisfying to know that I’ve made a 38% return in 1 month.
My cumulative profit for the month looks like this:
As you can see, it was quite a slow start to the month but things have really picked up in the second half of the month.
I think the one thing that is slightly disappointing for me is the make-up of my profit for the month:
As you can see, the majority of the profit has come from golf and not from horse-racing.
At the start of the month, if someone had said I would have made £380 profit, I would have been over the moon. As I said at the start of my blog a while ago, I expected the first 2 or 3 months to be very difficult and I didn’t expect to win much at the beginning.
If I’m 100% honest, I actually expected to post a loss in the first month as I knew it would take time to understand the Betfair markets and that’s part of the reason for having the £15k betting balance. I expected to be dipping into this balance a fair amount but I think I quickly realised that it would be foolish for me to trade with large stakes in the first month and therefore, the £15k has been largely untouched.
I transferred £1,000 across to my Betfair account at the start of the month and I’m pleased to say that I still have £1,000 in my account today. I have transferred out my £380 profit through the course of the month and it’s quite satisfying to know that I’ve made a 38% return in 1 month.
My cumulative profit for the month looks like this:
As you can see, it was quite a slow start to the month but things have really picked up in the second half of the month.
I think the one thing that is slightly disappointing for me is the make-up of my profit for the month:
As you can see, the majority of the profit has come from golf and not from horse-racing.
Horse-racing
Number of days traded – 10
Number of winning days – 6
Number of losing days – 4
Profit - £34.33
Overall, I have made £34.33 from trading 10 days this month. On average, I have earned £3.43 per day for around 3 hours trading a day. Hence, I’m earning £1.14 an hour from trading horse-racing!
Golf
Number of events traded – 5
Number of winning events – 5
Number of losing events – 0
Profit - £351.08
Overall, I have made £351.08 from trading 5 golf events. This is an average of £70.22 per event. I reckon I have probably spent 4 hours on each event as I’ve only been trading my pre-tournament backs and I haven’t been trading in running apart from 2 hours at the World Golf Championships.
Hence, I’m earning £17.55 an hour from trading golf tournaments!
Summary
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that I’ve been much more successful at trading golf rather than horse-racing. This was difficult for me to understand at first but I think I’m now starting to know why……
I find that the horse markets on Betfair are very efficient and very few errors are made by traders in the horse-racing markets. In comparison, I find the golf markets quite inefficient and there appear to be numerous errors made every time I’m watching the golf market. Therefore, I think there are far more opportunities for traders to exploit the golf markets and that’s what I’ll be looking to do in the future.
The Future
As you know, I have a full-time job but at the moment, I have reduced my hours to enable me to carry out my horse-racing trading 4 days a week.
Clearly, I am unable to justify working reduced hours at work when I’m only earning £1.14 an hour from trading the horses. I could be at work in the afternoons earning a guaranteed £30+ every afternoon and instead, I’m earning £1 an hour on Betfair!
However, as I said before, I expected the first month to be very difficult and therefore, I’m not going to give up on the horse-racing just yet. I’m hoping that I will learn a great deal from my first month of trading and this can allow me to push on in month 2 and increase my profits from trading the horses.
Clearly, I’m having great success from trading the golf markets and I will continue to trade the golf markets in the same was as I have been recently.
Scalability
Clearly, now that I have one month’s Betfair experience under my belt, I need to look to increase my profits. At the moment, I’m much more confident with the golf market than the racing markets and I think I need to use this to my advantage more.
So far on the golf, I have only backed players for £2-£5 stakes and I’ve managed to make ‘supernormal’ returns. I think the time is right to increase my stakes and try to win more.
From this week, I will be backing players with £5-£10 stakes and I will be happy to have an exposure of £100+ going into any tournament. I need to have more confidence in my ability to pick golf players at decent prices and not worry too much about the fact that I may lose some money. I’m 100% in terms of generating a profit on the golf at the moment, so I shouldn’t worry about having a loss at an event.
On the horse-racing, I will continue to trade with £10-£50 stakes as I really don’t feel comfortable trading with higher stakes. When I traded with £50-£100 stakes, my trading was very erratic and I was having some massive wins and massive losses in the same day which is not good for the heart!
In the second half of the month, I will look to increase my stakes on the horse-racing if I feel more confident. If I don’t gain the confidence to trade with higher stakes on the horse-racing, I will stop trading the horse-racing and return to work. I will then trade golf and other sports as so far, I have only dabbled in the golf market and the horse-racing markets. I’m sure there are other opportunities for someone like me to try to exploit.
I’m trading every afternoon this week from tomorrow and I’m really looking forward to Aintree this week. I’ll be trading at Aintree which will be the first big meeting I’ve traded at, so I’m looking forward to it.
Lastly, I’d like to say thanks for all the nice comments I’ve received over the last month or so. I know I don’t respond to everyone’s comments but I do read every comment and think carefully about what has been written. My lack of response is usually due to lack of time on my part but I’ll try to be more proactive in responding to comments going forward!
Number of days traded – 10
Number of winning days – 6
Number of losing days – 4
Profit - £34.33
Overall, I have made £34.33 from trading 10 days this month. On average, I have earned £3.43 per day for around 3 hours trading a day. Hence, I’m earning £1.14 an hour from trading horse-racing!
Golf
Number of events traded – 5
Number of winning events – 5
Number of losing events – 0
Profit - £351.08
Overall, I have made £351.08 from trading 5 golf events. This is an average of £70.22 per event. I reckon I have probably spent 4 hours on each event as I’ve only been trading my pre-tournament backs and I haven’t been trading in running apart from 2 hours at the World Golf Championships.
Hence, I’m earning £17.55 an hour from trading golf tournaments!
Summary
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that I’ve been much more successful at trading golf rather than horse-racing. This was difficult for me to understand at first but I think I’m now starting to know why……
I find that the horse markets on Betfair are very efficient and very few errors are made by traders in the horse-racing markets. In comparison, I find the golf markets quite inefficient and there appear to be numerous errors made every time I’m watching the golf market. Therefore, I think there are far more opportunities for traders to exploit the golf markets and that’s what I’ll be looking to do in the future.
The Future
As you know, I have a full-time job but at the moment, I have reduced my hours to enable me to carry out my horse-racing trading 4 days a week.
Clearly, I am unable to justify working reduced hours at work when I’m only earning £1.14 an hour from trading the horses. I could be at work in the afternoons earning a guaranteed £30+ every afternoon and instead, I’m earning £1 an hour on Betfair!
However, as I said before, I expected the first month to be very difficult and therefore, I’m not going to give up on the horse-racing just yet. I’m hoping that I will learn a great deal from my first month of trading and this can allow me to push on in month 2 and increase my profits from trading the horses.
Clearly, I’m having great success from trading the golf markets and I will continue to trade the golf markets in the same was as I have been recently.
Scalability
Clearly, now that I have one month’s Betfair experience under my belt, I need to look to increase my profits. At the moment, I’m much more confident with the golf market than the racing markets and I think I need to use this to my advantage more.
So far on the golf, I have only backed players for £2-£5 stakes and I’ve managed to make ‘supernormal’ returns. I think the time is right to increase my stakes and try to win more.
From this week, I will be backing players with £5-£10 stakes and I will be happy to have an exposure of £100+ going into any tournament. I need to have more confidence in my ability to pick golf players at decent prices and not worry too much about the fact that I may lose some money. I’m 100% in terms of generating a profit on the golf at the moment, so I shouldn’t worry about having a loss at an event.
On the horse-racing, I will continue to trade with £10-£50 stakes as I really don’t feel comfortable trading with higher stakes. When I traded with £50-£100 stakes, my trading was very erratic and I was having some massive wins and massive losses in the same day which is not good for the heart!
In the second half of the month, I will look to increase my stakes on the horse-racing if I feel more confident. If I don’t gain the confidence to trade with higher stakes on the horse-racing, I will stop trading the horse-racing and return to work. I will then trade golf and other sports as so far, I have only dabbled in the golf market and the horse-racing markets. I’m sure there are other opportunities for someone like me to try to exploit.
I’m trading every afternoon this week from tomorrow and I’m really looking forward to Aintree this week. I’ll be trading at Aintree which will be the first big meeting I’ve traded at, so I’m looking forward to it.
Lastly, I’d like to say thanks for all the nice comments I’ve received over the last month or so. I know I don’t respond to everyone’s comments but I do read every comment and think carefully about what has been written. My lack of response is usually due to lack of time on my part but I’ll try to be more proactive in responding to comments going forward!
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