Trading day number 2

Another, small scale, successful day. My Betfair balance now stands at £56.61. Not bad, if you consider that it is a ten percent increase over 2 days!!
I've learnt a couple of valuable lessons
1. In play trading on tennis seems to work, as no real 'suprises' happen.... unlike football...
2. steer clear of football 'in play trading'. It's just too volatile, and a sudden goal can leave an open position looking pretty dam grim!!
3. Don't bet - trade.

These seem to be some pretty clear personal guidlines from a full days trading. My biggets trade was worth no more than £10 of my own money on the day. I feel like i will continue a week or two like this, and then increase my stakes to £30 and then finally to £50. Obviously, this all depends on my trading and planning being successful!!

Trading day number one

A reasonably successful day. I only ever used small amounts of cash... averaging at £5.00 but varying from £2 - £15. By 'laying' low and 'backing' high, i made myself into a number of hedged position. A hedged position meaning that i would get a favourable result no matter which horse or team won.

Main wallet

51.32

51.32

so thats £1.32 profit on the day. Ok, not massive money, but its a start :)

There was a you tube clip for this betrader pro software which i use, and i wanted to include it here on the blog, but it seems to have gone awol. when i find it, i'll post it!!

So.... here we go !!!

I've spent the last days experimenting with the betting site and some applications. Euro 2008 has been an eye opener... i've been up, down, even...some teams have let me down some exceeded my expectations. I've used trading software, betted on rank outsiders and sure favourites. from all of this, i have developed some sort of a plan....
1. Tennis - First round of competitions bet on the top 5 strongest players. its highly unlikey that someone like Nadal will lose in the first round. Its as guaranteed a win as you are likely to get, all thhough the return is small.
2. bet on cricket -'live in play' unlike football, which can be too fast moving, there is plenty of time to hedge a position in cricket betting if things start to go against me.
3. trading on horses 20 minutes before the race. By laying and backling the favourite a number of times, i can make a situation where i can hedge my bets and have a profit 9small) no matter which horse wins.
To do this, i've been using the bettrader pro software, which i will publish a link too later on tonight.

Personal rules.
1. Don't chase losses
2. let profits run
3. Hedge at the earliest opportunity
4. concentration
5. discipline

i've upped my betfair account to £50, and starting today will publish my results for each day as i get on... wish me luck !!!!

How i've got on

I must say that the whole process is kind of interesting... its almost a psychological therapy session into how my mind works in regards to risk. The strange thing i noticed, is that i am more annoyed with losses than i am pleased at results... i wonder why??
My tactics towards betting seem to be working so far. I have bet only small amounts, either 2 or 5 pound stakes. I hedge wjhere ever possible. I don't bet on outsiders. i bet on favourites who are favourites for a reason. For instance take a tennis player like nadal - its highly unlikely that he is going to go out in the first round of a competion. the odds might be low... (maybe 1.13) but its easy money. like i said, at the moment i am using only small stakes, but as my confidence grows, i will increease them.
Euro 2008 has also been kind to me via Betfair at the moment as well. With the football, i take the clear favourite, and bet on them and a draw to show two colums in the green. I watch the match and keep an eye on it as its in play as well.

7 day update

here's a seven day update for my results on betfair...

Cricket: GBP1.67 | Horse Racing: -GBP3.55 | Motor Sport: GBP0.14 | Soccer: GBP5.30 | Tennis: GBP1 Total P/L: GBP4.99 -

which isn't bad, i'm sure you'll agree... a fiver up on the week.

Tennis and Euro 2008

I've spent the last couple of days playing with the Betfair site, and so far, i am quite impressed. One of the great things that it lets you do, is to bet on games 'in play'. Basically, this means that i can watch a match on the tv, and add to or change a position in real time as the match carries on.
The standard betfair site doesn't refresh very fast, but i downloaded Betfair rapid from the site, and it is a lot more useful ;)
I've also noticed a couple of trading software packages out there in internet land, so i'll perhaps see what opportunitys these packages present and how useful they can be.
For now, however, here are todays results ....

Soccer: GBP1.98 | Tennis: GBP0.24 Total P&L: GBP2.22




Technorati Tags: trading, betfair, software,

Using blogger

.... and clearly cutting and pasting like that didn't work very well, so i'll have to refine it for my next post!!!
Midnight now, and off to bed.

Just a quick entry

still getting to grips with the Betfair Website
had a couple of little bets, one involved me somehow hedging myself into a position whether Spain won or drew at football. Important to note that had USA won, i would have been out of pocket by about 8 quid... which would not have been good !!

Tennis Showing 1 - 1 of 1 markets

Market Start time Settled date Profit/loss (£) Tennis / Federer v Gonzalez : Match Odds 04-Jun-08 14:15 04-Jun-08 17:00 0.27

Soccer Showing 1 - 1 of 1 markets

Market Start time Settled date Profit/loss (£) Soccer / Spain v USA : Match Odds 04-Jun-08 21:00 04-Jun-08 22:55 0.64

Using Betfair

Using Betfair seems to be pretty straightforwards. I like to use the decimal odss, which make a lot more sense to me than the fractional odds. Another really good thing about Betfair, is that not only can you back asomething to win, but you can also lay it to lose!! Marvelous. I imagine that i am going to be able to pick losers a lot more often than winners, so this could be a good move for me.
I've spent the last couple of days getting the hang of the website, and will spend this weekend also getting used to it. After that, I'm going to post my selections and results in this blog so that you, the world, can see my results... Wish me luck :)

What do I know about sport and betting??

The answer to this is not a great deal. I'm not a massive sports fan, and am perhaps one of the few people in the country not to follow a football team. If i'm going to watch sport, its usually boxing or martial arts, but even thats not often. I go to the odd cricket match, as much for the beer as anything else, and thats about it. Does this sound good?
However, I'm always one to work things to my favour. Ok, i don't know a great deal about sport, but that means that i will be betting objectively, rather than on my favourite team to win every match. In fact, the only result I will be interested in, is my bank balance result :)

Signing up to Betfair

Signing up to Betfair is relatively simple and straightforwards... and i even earned myself a little money doing it!! :p
I'm a member of another website called Greasy Palm which is an online shopping site. By signing up to betfair through this site, i managed to earn myself 15 pounds cash back before i had even started!! This seems to be the way forwards :)

Stumbling on to Betfair

So, this is the first blog entry. Where do we start?? Some way of an introduction i guess would be the best. So, my name's Dave, and I've spent most of my adult life travelling around the world, the last time being when i cycled from England to South Africa. The times i call the 'in-between bits', i return to England to save for my next trip. My ambition, is to be able to create a constant income through whatever means, ideally internet based, in order to enable me to travel full time. I'm not a greedy person. I figure that if i can earn ten pounds a day, then that would be enough to support me as i cycle from country to country.
But how to get this income?? Well, I've got a couple of websites up and running, which no doubt i will write more about in later entries, and these give me some small income, but to be honest, only a little more than it actually costs to run them in the first place. And then i found... Betfair.
Now, i'm not going to lie... I don't expect to make myself a millionaire from betting on Betfair, although no doubt some people do. In fact, to break even, or with a little profit would suit me just fine. The one thing I had noticed though, was that there were very few blogs written by Betfair users, and so i thought, hey, why not give it a go?
So, this blog will cover my online betting escapades with Betfair... the ups the downs and the in betweens. Hopefully it will be of use to people new to Betfair, and also those people who have been using it for some time now. And what do i expect to get out of it?? Hopefully, some readers, regular or passers-by who may look at this site and my others and increase my income to that magical 10 pounds a day mark. So, here's to the future !!! ...