Monday 30 August 2010

Bank Holiday Monday - Day Two

Opening Bank: £106.70

Daily Target (2.5% of bank): £2.67

The Grenoble v Le Mans match resulted in a 0-1 win for Le Mans. Stakes of just over £50 yielded a profit of £20.67 after commission. Another ill-advised foray into a second match (Bologna v Inter Milan - result 0-0) lost all bar £3.21 of that profit. There are two lessons to be learnt from this. Firstly, 0-0 games are a potential banana skin for the football trader and, secondly, so is trying to keep too many plates spinning at the same time.

Profit: £3.21

Bank at end: £109.91

Tomorrow's proposed trade:


As a result of the past two days' trading I have thought long and hard about my methodology. This blog, and the 'experiment' were initiated to help me overcome my lack of discipline....so what am I doing setting up trades with about half my bank exposed - albeit marginally?

Going forward it is my intention to expose no more than 20% of my bank at any one time, and to reduce that exposure at the earliest opportunity. I will do more than one trade per day where possible, but will stick to this fundamental rule...

Tuesday evenings present me with a time issue as I meet with some guys for an hour's torture on a badminton court meaning I leave home at about 8.50 pm. This means I need to find something I can trade for the first half only...

Tomorrow's In-Play coupon is not brilliant but at least most of the matches are English, so there shouldn't be any problems with trading them in-play. The game I've got my eye on is Southend v Gillingham, and my preference there is to trade 0-0 1-0 and 0-1 in Correct Score, with cover on the U1.5 First Half goals market.

My thinking is that to make my target of £2.74 I only need invest about £10 - IF the game stays 0-0 for 25 minutes.....this is because as with any 'time decay' market the odds on 0-0 0-1 and 1-0 will all shorten appreciably as long as no goals are scored. If it is 0-0 at 25 minutes I should be able to lay 0-0 for about a £2 profit on a £4 back, and leave 0-1 and 1-0 until half time. That's the plan....but will there be sufficient liquidity in the FHG market to secure the necessary cover?

Sunday 29 August 2010

First Day's Trading.

Bank at start: £100.00

Daily Target (2.5%): £2.50

A little foray into the Correct Score market in a Ligue 1 match between Girondins Boudeaux and Marseilles this evening. French matches are notoriously low scoring so a simple correct score trade covering 0-0, 1-0, 0-1 and 1-1 was augmented by stake covering backs to 3-0 0-3 2-1 and 1-2. The game finished 1-1 for a profit of £17.39 from stakes totalling just over £40.

Whilst trading this game I noticed that the Mallorca v Real Madrid match in Spain was 0-0 at sixty minutes so I spent a speculative £9 laying under 2.5 goals. Needless to say the game ended 0-0!!!

Overall a great start, with a profit of £8.39 - so I will withdraw £1.69 and roll the other £6.70 back into the bank...

Bank at end: £106.70

Tomorrow's proposed trade:

A quick look at the In-Play football markets for tomorrow revels a match very similar in prospect to the Bourdeaux trade mentioned above. Grenoble entertain Le Mans in a Ligue 2 match, and research into previous encounters between these two sides suggests a similarly low scoring affair in prospect.

Bank Holiday Sunday, August 29th 2010

Hi, my name is Dave and I have been trading the sports markets on Betfair for about 4 years now on and off. 


My main downfall, and I know I'm far from being alone in this, is discipline! Staying in a market for too long, not taking a small profit, entering a trade with no defined exit strategy for when it all goes wrong... I'm sure many will identify with this!


 I have read many wise words on the subject of compounding... indeed one Albert Einstein is reputed to have described compound interest as 'The Eighth Wonder of the World'. 


I decided to conduct a simple experiment using the concept of compounding to turn £100 deposited into a Betfair account on the 29th August 2010 into £2000 by New Year's Eve 2010. To aid me with the discipline aspect of the experiment I have decided to stand or fall in this endeavour publicly... those interested can follow the journey and see what we can all learn from the experience.. To achieve the goal of £2000 by New Year's Eve 2010 the daily compounding rate is a modest 2.427% per day. To make the sums just a little bit easier I will work to a daily target of 2.5%. On day one, therefore, my target is to make £2.50 net of Betfair Commission. My bank at the start of day two will be £102.50 - producing a target for day two of £2.56. By December 30th, with a day to go, the bank should be £2136.78 with an achievable looking target of £53.42 to make from the New Year soccer markets....


With a modicum of luck and a following wind there will be days when I make more than the 2.5% target...on those occasions I will roll up to 5% back into the bank, withdrawing half of any surplus over that amount...so I would hope to have recovered the £100 initial investment within the time frame all being well.


Equally there will be the odd day where it all goes horribly and spectacularly wrong - and I will take a loss. When that happens I will not follow the above rule again until the target immediately prior to when the cock-up occurred is reached.


In the main I intend to use the soccer markets to achieve my goal, but there will be the occasional foray into other areas of sports trading. Trading horses pre-race, whilst potentially VERY profitable, to be frank leaves me bored witless very quickly, but I might do two or three races per day for the time being. There will be occasional trades on Rugby Union and League, F1 and cricket. I know lots of people make a load of money trading tennis, but again the games bores me so I probably will be leaving that one alone. In the winter months there will be the odd dabble or two into snooker and darts. And lets not forget golf, a much more tradable sport now the one time master of all he surveyed seems to fallen off the pace a bit recently....