Change of Direction...

Is what is definitely needed at this point. As a leisure only trader, the opportunities to pre-race trade the nags are disappearing with the end of summer and evening racing. I must confess I'm not going to miss it. Whilst it's been an education, the cut throat scalping is probably best left to those with big banks and balls to match.

Greyhounds I find even more unpredictable, so where now. Tennis has the liquidity, and there are good strategies out there to accommodate the swing in odds that do occur in most matches. The only hesitation I've had so far, is the ability to keep up with play thus not missing the trade. Despite many advising on which live score sites to use, I've yet to find one that is capable of providing a decent update speed.

For now I think I will stick to Football, and in particular the Under / Over 2.5 goals market. In fact that's what I've been up to over the past few days. Daily profit / loss figures as follows;

25th Aug - £0.58p
26th Aug - -£1.64p
27th Aug - £1.83p

Not a bad start. Still feeling my way with £1-£2 bets with various strategies. Only time will tell.

Catch you all later.

It's a Funny Old Game...

No evening racing last night, well let's face it that's going to be the case a lot more soon, so decided to have a look around the In play football matches.

Yes, there was the Liverpool v Villa game, and the Norwich v Sunderland matches, but it was still early doors, and wanted to trade on something before these games kicked off.

The Danish league had Odense v Randers starting at 6pm. Decided to investigate the Under / Over 2.5 goals market. For once I did some homework, and headed off to Soccerway.com which I find is a good source of stats, especially for Unders and Overs. Well things looked promising. Both teams had been in high scoring matches recently so I opted to back Over 2.5 goals at 1.67 for a £1. I was going to use my standard £2 trade, but just wanted to test the water with this hence the £1.

At half time it was 0-0. So much for my homework. I double checked the stats again, and they indicated that most of the goals had been scored in the second half of a game. With this in mind I backed Over 2.5 goals again for another £1, this time at odds of 3.85 - so I am now trading at my usual £2 level, but have staggered my entry points.

Good news - second half kicked off, and "GOAL" almost instantly. Odds once settled were hovering around 1.98 - 2.02. The green hedge figure was showing 0.68p, so I hedged up for profit.

The game finished 1-0, glad I got out when I did - no sign of the goalfest that I predicted pre-match. Nice little profit in the end, but also made me think more about backing strategies, and that sometimes by backing in stages may be more beneficial.

A Little Dabble...

Is all it has been for me over the past 3 days. No real quality time to trade - hence no blog posting either.

From the small amount of trading that I did undertake, I can confirm that not one market went into the red - I appear to be learning to read the signs, and judge my entry points a little better, as opposed to randomly charging in.

Profits as follows;

Football = 48p

Horse Racing = 37p

Will aim for more trading next week.

Quick Update...

Not a lot to mention tonight, only a few markets played.

Horse Racing = 21p profit

Football = 12p profit.

Another small, but green day.

That's all folks.

Bit of Footie...

Due to other commitments, just didn't get around to any trading yesterday.

Today I took the decision to dabble on the nights premiership games. I wanted to play in each of the 4 premiership matches, but had no plan as to what markets to choose. In I blindly blundered, no checking stats sites or any stuff like that. The outcome of my selections were as follows;

Burnley v Man Utd - backed £2 on Under 2.5 goals. Had Sky Sports News on, and the opening pace of the game appeared to indicate goals - lost my bottle, and got out after only 5 mins - 2p profit.

Hull v Spurs - again backed £2 on Under 2.5 goals. Got out before the first goal - 15p profit.

Birmingham v Portsmouth - backed £2 on the 0-0 in the Correct score market. Thought this would have few goals. Would have made a great profit if my bottle hadn't gone after about 12 mins. Still made 27p profit though.

Liverpool v Stoke - just for a change £2 back bet on Under 2.5 goals. Damn, a goal after 4 mins, and I was starring at a loss of about £1.30. So, I decided to back again once the market settled. Layed a few ticks lower, and repeated. Final outcome only -1p loss before the goals flew in. Decent escape me thinks.

So, with a couple of minor raids on the horses and dogs - I know what about sticking to one market only - but hey ho, no harm done on this occasion. Anyway, screenshot of the day below 50p profit overall.

Grid v Ladder

When I first started to look at the multitude of trading videos that are available on the web, my attention span when watching these appeared to be minimal - this was mainly down to the fact that they were always shown in the ladder format. Now, at this stage having only ever used Betfair itself, this ladder layout appeared totally alien to me, and I found it hard to relate it to the usual Betfair grid style.

It was soon apparent that to trade with a tad of success, some trading software was required.

After trialling a number of packages, I opted for Fairbot. A sensible piece of kit, especially for the junior trader, and it gets the thumbs up from me.

Having got to grips with it's functionality, I decided to start trading. Initially, not knowing any different I started to use the grid interface - after all it looked liked Betfair, and that was what I was used to.

Then one day I decided to see what all the fuss was about with the ladder interface - to my surprise having spent some time now market watching in the grid layout, it soon became clear that you got a far better visual representation of the movement of the market in the ladder.

As they say what goes up must come down - well it's kind of true when looking at the markets. If a horses price is coming in (i.e. odds shortening), then some of the other horses must be going out (i.e. odds increasing). With the ladder view, you can see this price movement very clearly, and it is by monitoring this movement you can make you trades, hopefully getting in and out whilst the market is still moving in your chosen direction, and greening up for a profit.

My advice to all beginners is, learn to use the ladder, the ladder is your friend...

Catch Up Time...

Just to clarify, Saturday's post related to my results from Friday's trading.

I did trade on Saturday, and the results are shown below;




A glorious -£0.50p loss. I've read elsewhere that trading on Saturday can be brutal, also aligned with the start of the premiership, the API was dead slow, as was my infant trading instincts. Rather than try to dig myself out of the hole I'd nicely made, I gave up and took my spade away before I could dig any deeper!!!

Didn't bother at all with Sunday, decided to watch the football, and also to stay clear of Betfair.

So, back in the saddle today. Hopefully fully refreshed after yesterday's break. A new week, let's hope for improved profits - OK some profits would be nice, I'm not greedy after all I am only dealing with pennies. Even so, it would be fab to see those pennies grow into pounds etc...

Well as I am now taking the time to write this blog, what does that tell you? Have I bombed yet again, or taken the swag and run for the night! Fortunately folks it was the later. My best day yet - yahoo !!! Check out the figures below;




Yep, that's right a nice overall profit of £0.80p. That's 20p shy of a quid. I'm well chuffed, the break must have done some good.

Onwards and upwards as they say...