New blog!

Right here:

http://jackofallbetfairtrades.blogspot.com/

The end and new beginning

I've started trading Betfair in January and started this blog soon after. I've learned a hell of a lot in that time and the more I learn the more I know nothing yet.

The way I've setup this blog with the name, the targets and the way I share my results have more and more started to feel like a ball and chain.

I'd like to continue in a different blog with a different name and share my adventures in a different format. Less P&L's and working towards targets and more on what I'm learning and how I think. I'm planning to trade a lot of different sports the coming year and become a jack of all trades. Guess it's going to be an expensive year for me :-)

I'm on holiday now and will come up with a new name once I get back. I'll post the link here as soon as it's setup. Hopefully some of you have been interested enough in my rants to follow me there!

Wall of text again

My apologies for the wall of text below but somehow Blogger is not in a good mood.

I made the original post with alinea's and when I saw they didn't make it to the message I edited to post to put them back again. But strangely enough all the spaces between alinea's have disappeared again and probably make it quite hard to read.

Hopefully it's worth it!

Wimbledon starts for me tomorrow

Not my best month!

Can't hide behind not having enough time. The time I did have I spent on making some bad decisions.

On the other hand I've been learning a lot again and as you can see have gotten my feet wet on a number of different sports.

Wimbledon has got me excited and I'm stoked about trying out some ideas I have about tennis trading. My last bet on tennis got me in red for over $33,- (ouch!) so the strategies certainly need some work but I'll be using much smaller stakes.

Here's a post I did on www.racingtraders.com/forum concerning my tennis activities up till now. I think it pretty much sums it up and could be of interest to people reading this blog:

I find tennis tricky in the way that it's hard to get out cheap if things go wrong.

The ticks move so much that it always hurts.On the other hand if you get it right the profit is also big.

I'm not succesfull at tennis yet so I can only tell you where I cock up.I've been trying to learn some extra strategies besides the TS one.

Seeing as the TS opportunities are not many and with the volatility in odds going on I just have to get in.

My lessons so far:Don't get greedy. I've managed to cock up a number of nice green screens just by getting in that one last bet in a situation where deep down I know I'm starting to move from being a trader to being a gambler.

Example in two sets for the win match:5-4 in sets I lay the server. If he holds his serve I can get out for about the same price, if he gets broken it's bingo. Worked well up till now. There is some timing involved as you want to get in at the price it'll end up if he HOLDS his serve. I use the Betfair graph for that.Then there's the tie break and I take a position. This is silly! It's a pure gamble. If he wins the tie break it's halleluja, if he loses I'm screwed. They are not even for nothing up till then! This has cost me.

But then I do the dumbest thing, I put in another stake because I want to make up for the tick loss. So I double my liability, get out of my comfort zone and the game has to turn (such a good idea, betting AGAINST the flow of the game..) for me to get even or maybe a bit of green. Pure n00b move!I should've taken the red on the chin and decide on wether to get in again or not based on the information at hand and not let myself be crippled by the old bet still being in there and feeling I have to compensate for that.

What I'm working on is finding more situations where there's a big upside and little downside. I suppose these are to be found more in the first half of the match then in the last half and if the green screen is there with a decent amount I should quit while I'm ahead. Also I have to teach myself to vary my stakes depending on the risk/reward ratio of the situation. Good example would be to use max stake in a TS situation as it's a proven strategy and use minimal stake in my experiments. Somehow I get caught up in this urge to maximise profits and I forget that by experimenting with max stakes I also maximise my losses and they are to be expected when starting a new discipline.Hopefully someone will learn something from the mistakes described above and I hope to be able to post some things you should do soon rather then what you shouldn't.

I've linked the thread discussing the TS strategy in an earlier post. So if you wonder what that's all about you can find it. If you're starting out trading tennis I'd say it's the best place to start!

So let's hope Wimbledon will be the start of a profitable tennis trading carreer. I am prepared to pay learning money though to try out several tactics and suss out where the money is and where I have to stear clear.

Where does the time go?

June is just whizzing by and I've had/made little to no time for trading.

But with the start of Wimbledon I'm going to get stuck in again. I'll be using the TradeShark manouvre as described in an earlier post with full stakes but will also try to make the most of all sorts of movement with smaller stakes. The TradeShark technique is great but the opportunities for it aren't always there and the volatility in a match is so high that more money is to be made there.

I think the main thing is to know when to back off. I got in trouble one match when I started betting the first tie break in a 2 set match. And as soon as I popped the bet in I realised I had more to lose then to win in that situation and that if it went bad I'd have to be extremely lucky to get it back again. Extremely lucky I was as it went south but I could get out end of the match. But it definitely wasn't skill I was displaying there.

Up till then I had been doing pretty well betting the games but all my profit went down the drain and all because of Mr Greed.

Football is scaring me a bit. Somehow I don't have a clear image how to trade it yet although more then enough info is available on the forums. I probably just have to get stuck in and run with it from there. Small stakes is the key.

My interest in horses is fading a bit becuase of all these sports that I can watch and actively trade whilst being ingame. We'll have to see if I come back to it again, it is without a doubt the best sport out there to bet on if money is your sole motivation, but seeing as this is a hobby to me I'd rather dedicate the little time I have to trading stuff that amuses me more.

No P&L this time, just look at the one below it'll be quite similar to that one as I've been really inactive.

P&L May and some tennis

Here's my P&L for May:



Not entirely what I was hoping for at the start of the month but considering the very limited time I've had not a bad result.

I haven't had any time at all for US horse racing in June as my business partner is on holiday and I'm working 7 days a week and having to work to closing time in the bar every night. Seeing as I'm not in a position to let my life revolve around my sportsbetting (yet! :-)) I'll have to let my sportsbetting revolve around my life. So expect me to delve in a number of different sports coming time trying to make sure that I can make some cash whenever I'm free.

Here is june up till now:



I got a quick bet in at baseball and darts just to get a feel for it. I believe they both can be scalped. My subscription to the extra cable sportspackage is going to earn itself back easily I hope :-) A whole lot of new sports opening up to me.

The loss on horse racing is me coming home tired. Rushing to get in on the last race of the evening, not finding a situation I normally enter the market on and then force myself to "see" an opportunity elsewhere. With a $ 17,80 red as result. Serves me right. Good thing is that it made me more determined to lesson my dependency profit wise on the US horses and broaden my horizon.

My tennis strategy is really easy to learn and apply and wasn't thought up by me. This excellent beginners tactic was gallently provided to us by TradeShark on the racingtraders.com forum and seeing as I believe that credit should be given where credit is due here's the thread:

http://www.racingtraders.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2282

Excellent starting point!

I made $ 7,77 after comission on the women's final today using a $30,- stake. That's a whopping 25,9% return on stake! It's the first match I had the time to sit down, watch and bet on from beginning to end. The rest of the tennis profit from June and May has been made by quickly trying to get some bets in between running to work, walking the dog, having breakfast, etc etc etc. I'll be sure to be ready to rock during Wimbledon. If this strategy keeps as consistent as it has been up till now I'll up the stake also to the level reflecting the state of my totall bankroll.

I've noticed that a LOAD of players on the Wimbledon men's winner market are available to back at 1000 on Betfair. I wish my bankroll could sustain a little gamble backing them all as quite a few of them are bound to play each other and make it into the second round. If a couple then also play each other I'd say there's value to be found. But seeing as it's a theory and I'd have to devote nearly all my bankroll to proving it I've only backed 5 of them. Of which 2 are already shortening.

The 5 players I've backed at 1000 are:

Mikhail Youzhny (currently available to lay at 980 and back at 820)
Robert Ginepri
Jurgen Melzer
Igor Andreev (currently available to back at 800)
Rainer Schuettler

Let's see how they do. Max $25,- I can lose on this so no biggie and a nice experiment.

My exit strategy is very dependable on their 1st round opponents and the prices offered closer to the tournament.

Ideally 4 of them would play each other and the 2 of them that make 2nd round will play each other then :-) I should be able to trade out a 3d rounder nicely if he was first available at 1000. Also in the 3d round I'd hedge him over lesser remaining players giving me a higher guaranteed profit.

To give you an idea, Soderling who is in the RG men's final against Federer was available at 1000 too before Rolan Garros started! And was matched for $2200,- ! So someone will be having sweaty palms tomorrow afternoon as he'll stand to lose $2,2 million if Soderling beats Federer.

Tennis Tennis Tennis

This trading on tennis has really opened my eyes to how fun it is betting on sports you like whilst it being in play.

I'm swamped at work so I'm still overdue a good post but I promise that I'll make up for it next week with some tactics I learned you can use on Wimbledon.

I wish I had more time to get stuck in Roland Garos but such is life.

More to follow, just wanted to give a small sign of life!

Tennis and dogs

I've been doing some small peddling in tennis last couple of days.

Tomorrow I'll try to do a number of trades during the matches I watch and see if I can turn a profit.

By the first looks of it I can see myself doing well and hopefully I've found a new market to exploit.

I've finally managed to hook up BetAngel to Excel but boy is that hassle for people who don't use an English Vista. I will rant about this later. But as I try to always stay positive I'll also offer solutions after the rant but I'll tell you now that I'm not too impressed with BetAngel and their support on the forums at the moment. Their silence is telling me a lot as I'm sure they've read my problems on their forum.

I'm going to try to get some dog data out of it and see if I can find some golden rules. Somehow the fact that the dogs are always 6 in a race and the odds are more "connected" (if that makes sense) between dogs then they are between horse races where you have sometimes 15 selections give me the idea that patterns can be found.

Of course together with me numerous other people are trying to break the code so I'll probably will end up mumbling to myself years from now staring at millions of lines of Excel data but at least I'll be happy in my own special way :-)

If I'm completely barking up the wrong tree please let me know but I feel that the dogs odds are much more reactive to each other then the horses are. The big outsider in the dogs is always related to the shortness of the others. If you add up the odds you mostly get in the 34-40 range and with 40 you have a real outsider in the field. Otherwise it's mostly close to 36. With horse racing you sometimes have a horse that has a huge amount layed at 1000 odds begging for backers. The sum of all the horse odds are sometimes ridiculously high which makes you wonder what some of the horses are doing there, as apprantely everyone agrees that they can only win if every other horse breaks at least two legs. A horse can go up from 450 to 1000 without really affecting the other horses a lot odds wise. With the dogs if one dog goes up or down by a significant number you'll see the others move too to balance things out again.

My father is helping me with the Excel and statistical calculations. He's much better at that then I am and regardless if it bears fruits or not it's fun to be sussing things out together and if I learn from it that I'm chasing windmills that is good to know too so I can move on.

My tennis report and all about my big scare I'll post within a couple of days. Also a monthly wrap up but I'll tell you now some weird stuff will have to happen tomorrow for me to even come halfway my target I set at the beginning of the month!

Messing around

As you can see I've not been making progress bankroll wise. To be honest I've been messing around a bit. But in a constructive manner I like to tell myself :-)

My obsession with the greyhounds is still there and I got it into my head that I should try some creative Dutching. My theory was that since you have 6 dogs in a race, them having on average a 1 in 6 chance of winning you have to gather more then 36 odds to be sure of profit in the long run. This is assuming that the Betfair market is efficient and the odds on each dog reflect his true value.

Now with Dutching you'd simply back the whole book when it's under 100% giving you a guaranteed profit. You'd use different stakes for every dog to make sure that the profit is the same whatever dog wins. I've seen some Dutching opportunities as BetAngel makes it very easy to do it automated but it's only there for a splitsecond and I'm pretty sure there are quite some people out there trying to earn easy money that way thus closing the window of opportunity real quick.

So this is where I tried getting fancy.

My idea was to try and back every dog as high as possible and thus getting a total sum of odds over 36. My goal being at least 40.

If this is still abracadabra to you I'll give a quick example.

Dog 1 I back at 3,8, dog 2 at 4,7 and dog 3 at 8,7 I now have gathered a total of 3,8+4,7+8,7=17,2 and will need to back the last 3 for a total of approximately 23.

My thought here is that if I succeed in this I should make money, in the long run, on the straight bets in itself but if I can green up before the start I'll do that. I fired in $5,- bets. It went well the first couple of attempts and I greened up for around $1,- But to my detriment I had a red screen on one, which also happened to be only 36,9 odds in total as I didn't manage to back high enough, which I decided to let run true to the system.

I didn't realise that one dog was only backed for half a stake and of course he won. I would've lost a bit if the favorite won but this should've showed me a small profit instead of a $12,57 loss.

I'm on to something I believe but there's a good chance that I'm reinventing the wheel or making something real simple real difficult for myself. It did get kinda hectic with all the bets being matched and if you try to hedge the 6 dogs in one go all the bets getting fired in with some being matched and some not. I also tried to simply hedge the dogs that showed profit and wait for the others to improve until closer to the off but that was messy too. I wish I could have 6 ladders next to each other (within the same software), that would make my life so much easier with the dogs. I have 2 24' screens so the real estate isn't a problem.

I've tried to connect BetAngel to Excel to gain better insight in the dogs but seeing as I have Dutch Vista and Dutch office it doesn't work. I think BetAngel can only deal with the English language package which sucks bigtime! Hopefully this will be fixed, I did notice that there were no replies from BetAngel staff in my thread so there's always a chance there stonewalling it. In that case I'll have to nag them all day when I finally get the money together for the course! :-)

So the dogs have been a losing discipline once again but I am enjoying thinking up strategies and giving it a go.

The $15,- I dropped was due to a thread on www.racingtraders.com/forum where someone pointed out that Bari was getting odds as a huge underdog while they were 1st in the Italian serie B and playing the number 18. I first backed them at 10 for $5,- and the draw at 19 for $5,-. Then just before the off I saw that Bari was up to 32! So I just had to stick another $5,- in. This match was attracting 4 times more the liquidity then any other match in the serie B was and it was all due to a LOAD of mony being layed on Bari winning and the draw so obviously someone knew something I didn't.

I was working and thought I'd just try to trade it out for a green screen early in the match. The draw had already come down to 10 and I was thinking of laying that but decided to wait for a couple of minutes as it was coming down so quick.

Well Bari scored real quick! So I quickly popped up the Betfair website to green up for a huge amount and was already composing a raving blogpost in my mind about what a great opportunist I was and how betting is all about finding edges and exploiting them when I found out that this match didn't go in running on betfair...

And not so surprisingly Bari lost 3-2, figures.

But I must say that it gave me a lot of entertainment and at least I could think of myself as really smart for almost a full hour before it went all pear shaped. I did decide though that with the start of the new season I'll be also betting as much football as I possible can is it gives me a lot more pleasure watching the game at the same time then the horses and dogs do where mostly I have no live pictures and I really don't get too excited over seeing them running.

I made some money back with the US horses which I haven't been trading seriously this month really up till tonight. I sat down and focused and get an easy $27,- proft and I thought that a lot of races weren't optimal tonight. So although I'll abandon my target of $400,- this month I will try to sit down for a couple of more nights and do some bankroll building with the US horses. Mainly so I can blow it on other sports again! But I'm sure all this practicing, number crunching and coming up with out of the box strategies will pay itself of in the long run. Besides it's fun!

Still here, still busy

Just a quick not to let you all know I'm still around. I'm really busy in my business at the moment but hope to post something somewhat meaningfull somewhere this weekend.

Bankrollwise I'm having a terrible time but not due to bad running but due to a lot of experimenting. I'm quite confident that this will repay itself infinitely in the future and I'm severely enjoying doing it. Learning a lot!

More soon.

Sorry for the wall of text below

I put in alinea's but somehow they get taken out when I publish.

Maybe to long a post?

Time flies

Wow where did that month go? Have hardly been able to trade and it's almost half over!

Guess I'll have to step it up a bit to get to my target. Although the target is just there for fun. I'm not going to trade more then I can do whilst being concentraded as I'll otherwise just be setting myself up for losing.

Although I don't have a lot to show for this month up till now I am having fun. I'm trying some new tactics and some new markets and it's fun trying to get my head around them with minimum stakes.

Basically I'm learning more about the mechanics. Also if you play with small stakes you have the luxury to not have to compete with the big dogs. I read a lot on forums that people have been trading for x time but still never win. I'd say they'd have to go find their niche like I do instead of trading the favorite UK horse 3 minutes before the off. That's when all the heavy hitters are scalping the market and it's no place for the lesser gods to be as long as there are greener pastures elsewhere. That's my tip for the day. Look at different horses and longer before the off if you haven't been able to turn a profit. Watch the market carefully and see how money gets matched. Then think long and hard how you can exploit it.

One weird thing I saw was a $1000,- lay at 1000 odds giving this guy a liability of 1 million!

This is on a UK horse 14 hours before the off. Just to give you an idea where I'm roaming around looking for an edge ;-)

Now this looked too good to be true, there was still $696,- open. I was racking my brain wondering why the hell someone would do this. Worst thing is, it's a 6 horse race!! So I'd say any horse that's at the start should have some sort of a chance. Really don't get why anyone would do that but seeing as he has at least a million $$ in his Betfair account I'd say there's a good chance he knows what he's doing. So I've backed it for $10,- just to see. I'm hoping to lay it back a lot lower.

I posted it on the http://www.racingtraders.com/ forum to see if someone else had a clue why this was happening and went to check http://www.racingpost.com/ to have a look at the race and the prognoses. Something I should've started with of course! But still learning.

Turns out that this is probably the worst horse in history. Wouldn't be surprised if it has 3 legs. No chance at all of winning. Terrible record, terrible trainer, terrible jockey.

This is what they had to say about the horse:

Dancing Wave
Guaranteed sixth place prize money if she completes but major surprise if this 6f AW claiming winner is not well tailed off.

So the person putting the lay bet it probably perceives it as a free $1000,-

Still if you have a look here:

http://www.racingpost.com/horses/horse_home.sd?horse_id=702205

Out of 34 starts the horse won 2, got in 2nd 8 times and 3d 4 times. I have much too little knowledge of horse racing to compare tracks, conditions and competition but I'd still say that you'll have to be pretty sure about yourself to stick a million on this one and say that even if you'd do this race a 1000 times it would never win.

I'm off to bed and will see how things look tomorrow. It would be great if I can lay it back at 500 or so. Then I can green up for the full $10,- stake. Although I'm also contemplating going for $5,- on the other 5 horses and have a $5000,- freeroll on this one. The fact that it's only 6 horses is making me nervous, it just seems to me that the chance of this one winning is much higher then 1000-1 The racingpost has her at 500-1, that's where I pulled my lay price from I'm aiming for. I'm not putting it in yet as I don't want to wake up tomorrow and find it at 150 -1 selling myself short for a nice sum.

I bit of redemption

Seeing as I've been withdrawing money and am aiming for different monthly goals greyhound and horse wise I'll be posting my P&L up till now in May from now on.



Looks good huh!

I was trading a US horse and I noticed that the back side was much much higher then the layside, we're talking more then 50 points higher here, but some of it was eaten regardless. Jammed $5,- in there thinking I could do a nice little green up if it got eaten.

Only $ 1,36 got eaten and of course I can't lay that back as it's below minimum bet, and seeing as I was the lowest backer I couldn't green up either. Layside was still being matched quickly so I decided to wait until the suspension. If at least $ 4,- gets matched I'll lay it and green up. If the $ 1,36 stays I'll consider it a loss and let it ride.

The horse won! Earning me a nice $ 87,93 after comission. Best thing is I had livevideo too and saw it happen!

Now if I would've been able to green up I would have done that for sure, but I think that the odds I was offered were so good (especially as the layside was getting matched for quite some money a lot lower thus to me reflecting the probable real value) and my stake in it was minimal versus my bankroll so it wasn't worth redding that up.

So my Betfair bankroll is up to $ 424,69 now and that's after the $ 25,- withdrawal. So new all time high and back on track again.

As for the greyhounds. My idea of sticking to $ 5,- stakes until I make $ 100,- and then going up to $ 10,- until I hit $ 200,- etc etc seems like a good idea and I'm $ 0,11 cents closer to that hundred then when I started this month :-)

I realise that the letting it ride stories are close to each other and you might get the idea that I'm turning to the dark side but don't worry I'm not looking to gamble. When put in this exact same situation again I'll do the same though. As far as I see it the market thought this horse was going to win 1 in 40 races and I was getting over 90 to 1 on my $ 1,35 and no opportunity to green up. I think I made the correct decision, that the horse won the first race and I didn't have to make this decision 40 times to see a return is very very lucky though.

April P&L

Here's my monthly P&L:

Considering I blew $ 158,- on that lay bet that suspended before I could back it I had a pretty good month.

So what to do with May?

I think I'm going to go bold and say that I want at least $400,- out of this month. In other words I'm going to try to more then double my bankroll this month.

And just to complicate matters I've had to take out $ 25,- to cover the attheraces.com subscription which I've been using way too little up till now.

Moving to Korea

Bankroll $ 338,68

As they eat dogs in Korea and they've been severely pissing me of again.

If you've read most of my blog you've probably noticed that I have a love-hate relationship with the greyhounds. One day I'm over the moon because I've had one or a couple of good sessions and the other day they've been raping me again and I hate the mutts.

The thing I've been lacking is structure. I use the same stakes I use with the horses and if I get destroyed I get destroyed bigtime.

Last night I came home from work and earned a quick $ 9,- on the US horses after work. Today I did some greyhounds and lost a quick $ 9,- before work. Lifes all about balance huh! Thing is, why use the same stakes as with the horses when I'm not consistently profitable over a longer period? It's stupid! Why pay more if I can get the exact same experience with minimal bets!

It only starts making sense raising the stakes when I'm consistently profitable, because I then maximise my profits. I'm done maximising my losses. So there. :-)

What I 'm going to do now is make a virtual dog wallet. I'm going to use minimal stakes until I make $ 100,- profit of the dogs from the first of May. Once I hit $ 100,- I'll move up to $ 10,- if I fall below $ 75,- I'll go back to $ 5,- again.

This way I'll keep building bankroll with my US horse profits and not have to give up on the dogs. As I shall crack'em! Can't stand not being able to do well on them. Strange thing is that I've been profitable on them overall this month. I'm up $ 23,44 on the dogs in April up till now. But with way too many ups and downs and good sessions followed up by terrible sessions. The fact that I've dropped almost 1/3 of my monthly dog profits in 5 races (without getting caught and having it go in play) today shows me I need to work on consistency bigtime.

Tonight I did well on the US horses so I'm happy overall. As you can see by my bankroll I'm slowly but surely recovering from the $ 158,- hit when I got caught and the race got suspended with a lay bet open.

In May I don't even want to make a big deal of that dreaded $ 400,- mark but just go right over it and move on to $ 500,-

US horse racing resources

Bankroll: $ 302,45

As promised I'll let you in on what I've found out about US horses.

Lot of credit goes to Geno, who commented earlier and I chat on MSN with. He pointed me towards a number of sites.

Correct post times that get updated so refresh while you get closer to the race:

www.ebetusa.com/racing

Here you can find a lot of streams etc:

http://www.ildado.com/horse_racing_live_broadcasts.html

What I've found up till now:

Golden Gate and Hollywood:

http://www.calracing.com/video.php register here and you can stream them both.

Keeneland:

http://ww2.keeneland.com/racing/frames/livecoverage.aspx

Philadelphia:

http://www.philadelphiapark.com/video/asx/PPLive.asx

Tampa Bay:

http://stream.robertsstream.com/stream.asp?stream=tampa_bay_mbr&referer=TampaBay

Turf Paradise:

http://totalwebcasting.com/live/turf/live.aspx

I have all the streams as a bookmark in a folder on my desktop. So I can keep the mediaplayer open and only have to click on the name of the track and get the stream. No messing around with internet sites etc etc.

What I'm looking for desperately is a stream for Mountaineer Park and Penn National! If someone can help me here that would be great! They usually attract a lot of liquidity. Anything I find myself I'll update in this post and will let you know it's updated in the newest blogpost.

If you have a stream of any other US track that Betfair allows wagering on that I might have forgotten I'd be very much obliged if you'd let me know.

What I do now is simply ignore the Betfair time. It is useless. I check the ebetusa site to see which race is up next as the order the races are posted in on Betfair are wrong too!

Then I put on the livestream so I can visually see when the race is about to start. I'm noticing that I don't really like trading the races without a stream as my edge is so much bigger with it. Sometimes I get an extra couple of minutes of trading even after the post time of the ebetusa site! And the real money comes in then while at the same time people without the streams are getting desperate to get matched.

In my experience up till now the race won't suspend on Betfair until a couple of horses are in their box at the starting line. So if you stick to hedging once they're about to load up the first one you should be fine.

DISCLAIMER: Please see for yourself when the races get suspended, the stream might be a bit in front or behind compared to mine and it can be detrimental if you take my word on something that is potentially extremely costly to you.

I will take no responsibility at all :-) I provide the links, you can provide the common sense to use them to your best interest yourself. If you look a couple of blogposts down you'll notice that I'm not the king of not getting caught and I'm still recovering from the last time I got caught with my pants down.

I hope this helps some of you to be able to trade the US horses better. It sure has helped me!

Getting back in the saddle

Bankroll: $ 283,18

Just a quick post to let you know I'm still around as Geno has been getting a bit worried judging by the comment by him in my last post :-)

Basically I've been spending a lot of time getting setup in a fashion that this won't be happening again. That and losing money at the dogs and making it back and a little bit more at the horses.

I'm planning a big US horse racing post in which I'll combine all the info I've found with links and everything. In short you'll be getting all my hard work for free and I don't even have Google adds on this page! But if you've stuck around long enough to read all my ramblings I probably owe you some so it's in the pipeline.

I've pretty much dealt with the loss and know how to avoid it now. Also Tinerzz who posts on www.racingtraders.com told me to only back for a while and although I still find it silly to pass up good lay opportunities when you see them it has helped me. And I did pass them up because if you try something you have to give it a fair chance.

Not only because you don't have that extra pressure of having a huge liability becuase I'm not too worried about that as long as I have the off time correct, but more so out of a learning perspective.

I think people tend to be either back or lay persons. So they will instinctively prefer to get in on one side. And I'm a layer. By forcing myself to look at backing only for a while I've learned a lot about the market.

Oh and for you Greyhoundtraders out there.. I said earlier that this: http://live.williamhillradio.co.uk/radio-main.php?st=HR is a good spot to listen to dog commentary. Well it still is but I also gave some bad advice. I said that if you wait for them to say "here comes the bunny" or something to that extent you'd still have time to close your position.

Now that depends very much on who the commentator is and how much he had to drink the night before. I got caught the other day, luckily with a back bet, and no of course he didn't win, and have noticed since then that it's certainly not consistent enough to trust it.

That's all for now. Hoping to end up between $ 325,- and $ 350,- for the month and pas the $ 500,- mark in May but we'll see how things go. Certainly not going to force anything just to hit a certain goal as that is a recipe for more disaster and I've had my share for a while.

Disaster

Bankroll: $ 254,29

Worst case scenario has happened. An US race went of 2 minutes earlier then posted on both Betfair as the website I use. I had a liability open of $ 158,- and the odds of the horse were 8 so an outsider. And the bastard won.

I guess the $ 400,- mark is bad luck because every time I break it something happens.

Good news is that I won't have to worry about that bad luck as it'll be some time before I'm back up there. A quick look at my older blogposts showed me that I was at this bankroll amount at the 3d of April so 3 weeks of trading down the drain.

What I learned from this is that the website I use (www.ebetusa.com/racing) shows the correct time but they also update it as it can change closer to the race. What I did was write down all the times I could see on the screen so I wrote this one down about 40 minutes before the off. When I checked the other times I wrote down I noticed that some of them changed too. So the solution is to double and triple check closer to the off.

It's terribly frustrating but as I can see where it went wrong and what I can do to make sure it doesn't happen again it's just a bit of learning money. Better now then later on when I have even bigger amounts open.

I just wish I would've gotten caught with a back bet open on this horse that race!

Frustrating day

Bankroll $ 379,98

One to forget quickly.

I had a great start. Went over $ 400,- in the first two trades and then went up to $ 417,-. I was already seeing myself going through the $ 500,- mark in no time at all. If it wasn't going to happen today, tomorrow for sure! This is easy!!

As usual that is the moment everything goes south..

So I started doing one stupid trade after the other. Can only blame myself, for the first time I've been trading I felt my old friend tilt creeping in. Luckily I know the feeling well and I stept away and took a shower. I was at $ 189,- then.

Just got back in and did a couple of good trades and started getting my confidence back when I just got destroyed by a freak amount of money being dumped in completely against the market with 30 seconds to go. So that was another $ 10,- down the drain. I know this happens and it's part of the game but the timing sucked. On the other hand I was pissed of enough with today that this didn't really matter anymore.

Time to quit as my motivation is completely gone and I would trade with scared money if I'd continue now.

Milestone

Bankroll: $ 398,79

I've been struggling to break the $ 400,- mark. Not that I've had that much trading time since saturday but somehow the milestones seem to affect me a bit. Maybe being a bit too eager and looking for bigger wins but certainly not consciously doing so.

I had the same with the $ 225,- and the $ 300,- milestone. Got there quickly and then needed a couple of sessions to clear the last bit. The solution would be to set my next target at $ 250.000,- and see if I'll get to the $ 249k quickly and then take the money and run like a bandit :-)

Anyhoo, my better half has promised me to go enjoy the nice weather outside with the kids for a couple of hours tomorrow afternoon so I can get some greyhound time.

Staking revisited

Bankroll: $ 387,42

Last time I talked about my staking strategy I was still seeing if the theory I came up with would work for me in practice too. Having more experience under my belt I've come up with a system that fits me well. And although I believe that correct staking is very much based on ones personality and how you deal with risk vs reward vs loss I think the way I do it is a good start for everyone new to this.

First of, I'm in no rush to make lots of money. For me this is a hobby and I'm running a marathon not a sprint. Of course this hobby is all about making money so I am naturally trying to make as much as possible but I don't think raising the stakes out of my comfort level is the way to go. For me it's very important to not go bust so I try to keep my ROR (Risk of Ruin) as small as possible.

So I have never more then 10% of my bankroll on either back or lay. That's the simple base of my whole staking plan and by only doing this you should be fine when starting up. So if you're bankroll is $ 150,- you never have more then $ 15,- on back or lay. Easypeasy! I do work with milestones. So I'd for instance say that if my bank goes over $ 200,- then I'll move up from $ 15,- to $ 20,-. If I go under $ 125,- I go back to $ 10,-.

So what's the big deal? Well because I keep going up or down in stakes in direct relation to my bankroll I would have to have a huge losing streak to go bust. I'd even dare to say that if I go bust I'll quit it all together. Very important is though is that you are a pure trader and never bet. You always close a trade before it goes into play, red or green.

Seeing as I'm still very much a learning trader I split my bets up in 1/3s. So with my bankroll being over $ 300,- my max stake is $ 30,- but I have $ 10,- units set in my software. Depending on how sure I am about what's going to happen yet I click once, twice or three times to get my amounts in. So if I don't get any big signs I'm straining to get my money in I'll only put in $ 10,-. Same when I'm not sure if the counter bet will get matched easily. This happens a lot when I'm trading US horses. I trade on a horse where I'm completely confident that the odds won't go against me, but I am afraid that I won't get matched on the other side. Then I just put in a single unit. If it gets matched a new one goes in instantly.

When I see patterns I know I can exploit I mostly put in 2 units and if it starts going the right direction I'll quickly pop in the 3d one. I'm a swing trader, not a scalper. I seldomly go for one tick only.

If I see a big wave coming up and I want to be on it as soon as possible I just ram in the 3 units and try to not fall of :-)

When I do the counter bet I pretty much do the same. I try to get the most out of the situation whilst at the same time not bringing myself into anymore risk then necessary. If I put in 1 unit it's easy, I just put the counter in as far up/down as I think it will go within a reasonable time. If I put in 2 units and there is a gap I just put it just under/over the closest bet on the other side. If however back and lay are closed and there is a string of amounts I'll put one down midway I think the odds are going soon and the other one where I think it will end.

Main thing of this system is that if I'm not sure and put in only one unit and it goes against me I'll only use 1/3 of what I would've lost if I put in everything. If I'm really sure I stick in everything and don't lose any value and maximise on the situation. So I try to achieve through this that I limit the amount of learning money I pay when things go bad yet growing my bankroll as quickly as my stakes allow.

Hope this makes sense! If not ask! And if you think I'm not going about this in a smart way, have some suggestions or think I should do it completely different I'd love to hear.

I can't overemphasize the importance of discipline concerning your staking and how you deal with profits and losses. I'm certainly not saying that you should follow mine, try to suss out what works for you but do come up with a plan and stick to it. This should help you not chasing losses by suddenly thinking the Martingale system is a good idea. (and we all have an inclination to quickly make up for a loss by upping the stakes) Also the other way around, thinking you've got it nailed and suffer from invulnarabiltiy complex and suddenly use much bigger stakes. It's just a worry less when you alway know what you should be betting and leaves more room in your head to concentrate on the market.

Couple of days ago I got the fright of my life though. I was trading an US race and suddenly the race suspended. I had the starting time wrong (which you should ALWAYS check here: https://www.ebetusa.com/racing/ and not trust the Betfair time) and I had a liability out there of - $157,-!! as I layed first. What I could win was marginal as it was the outsider. If he would've come in that would've devestated my bankroll and would have forced me to go severely down in stakes. So what I'm planning to do is when I hit $ 1000,- to first take out everything over that and get my better half that dishwasher. Then I'm going to get another $ 1000,- and keep that in my Neteller account just as a insurance against something stupid happening. So if I through some sort of cockup, internet failure, Betfair breakdown or whatever else could happen I lose a big chunk of my bankroll I can just replenish it and keep going as I was.

Hopefully I'll pass the $ 400,- mark tomorrow. I'm hoping to end April over $ 600,-.

A nice day of.

Bankroll: $ 325,54

After nearly two weeks without a day of I finally could sit down and have a nice and long session.

I've been wondering what I would be able to make if I could get stuck in it for a whole afternoon or evening instead of just doing the odd hour here and there.

Well I made over $ 45,- today! Happy days!

I'm getting more and more comfortable with the dogs and I'd say that I could at least double my stakes and just as easily got matched as I did today. So good things are ahead as my bankroll grows.

I'll try to get into some of the techniques I use in the next posts as just stating my new bankroll and how I did on the dogs and horses will grow old pretty quick for both you my loyal reader and me as well.

Blogpost disappeared?

Bankroll: $ 268,22

I could've sworn I did a blogpost when I hit $ 250,- but can't see it anymore.

So either it's disappeared or I'm writing blogposts in my dreams now :-)

Good news is that I'm doing fine tradingwise as you can see. US horses and doggies only though so I still have to pop my cherry with some hefty UK sessions on which I'll probably be paying some learning money.

Something in me is saying to just belt on to $ 500,- and get a decent income from the dogs and then see further. We'll see how things go. Now it's of to bed as it's yet another hectic busy day tomorrow working silly hours.

March totals

Just a quick extra post as I was planning to do this but forgot about it.



Here's my total P&L for March:

I think it would be nice to do one end of every month and see the way they go up and down from month to month.

Stay focused

Bankroll: $240,46

Got raped on monday with the US horses. I was doing stupid things thinking I was the king of trading. Getting into the market way too soon, before it is formed and thinking I could easily get away with big tick profits. Naturally this just ended in me taking a couple of big hits and seeing my bankroll melt away.

So I took a break, thought about what happened and decided it was my own fault for being cocky. Sat back down and got to work.

As you can see by my new bankroll, I made it all back and then some! Best bit is that I had yet another profitable session on the dogs which makes me really happy.

Work is getting really busy though, last year April, May and June were the busiest months of the year and the way it looks now we're reasonably recession proof and should do the same, and maybe even more as last year. Hopefully I'll have enough time of to keep this momentum going.

Tomorrow I'm planning an 1,5 hour session with the dogs before work. Friday the same with hopefully some evening horses also.

Getting the hang of it.

Bankroll: $226,95

As you can see new all time high! :-)

I'm starting to get the hang of the greyhounds. Or better said I've developed 2 tactics that work but there's nothing subtle about it. But hey, they turn profits! This will at least give me some confidence with the dogs instead of feeling like I'm only donating. From there on I can work on honing my skills and maximising. It's all about making as much as possible in the timeframe available. Check out this video form a poster at www.racingtraders.com called tomas.tomass to see what I mean with making the most of the time available :

http://www.racingtraders.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1298

He's a maniac! I wish he would adopt me and raise me as one of his own :-)

What I've found to be an essential tool for greyhound racing is the William Hill Greyhound radio channel which you can find here:

http://live.williamhillradio.co.uk/radio-main.php?st=HR

First of all they will tell you what the favorites are before each race. This is good as the markets form only a couple of minutes before the off and you have to be quick. Having someone telling you where to look whilst you can keep focussing on the movements is better then having a website open all the time and having to check that. Also you hear what a lot of punters are hearing, so whatever the commentators are saying can become a self fulfilling prophecy and thus interesting to listen to.

Secondly they'll let you know when the race starts exactly. There is some lag involved though so if you close your position when they say: "the bunny is on the move" or something like that you should be ok. Really close it then as you have probably only a couple of seconds to get out.

Busy day at work tomorrow and have to be there early so no greyhounds for me. I'll be home in time for another good session of US horses though. With a bit of luck I can get myself well on the way to the $ 250,- mark after which I'll raise my stakes again.

I still have to get involved in those UK races and start using that www.attheraces.com sub I paid for. Tuesday I should be able to free some time for that. The biggest challenge is to get my girls to leave me alone. The computer is in the living room which I like cause I can be behind it and still be in contact with my family. But when higher concentration is needed it's a real pain in the arse. Especially since my laptop is broke so I can't move to the bedroom. Once that is fixed again it should be easier for me to find some peace and quiet. Downside is that the screen would be too small to look at the stream and have enough space for the betting software. Hopefull just the audio will do the trick for me.

I was messing around with the profit loss on Betfair and seeing how I was doing. I realised that I have been spending way too much time on this for over 3 months now and only the last 14 days have shown me some consistent profits. Which could always end up being a fluke but let's stay positive here for a bit. Thing is that this isn't for everyone. You have to have some sort of stubborn perseverence combined with discipline, good money management and a healthy adversity to pure gambling to make this work for you. And then you need a ridiculous amount of practice in which you'll have to deal with disappointment and loss all the time.

And I do this as a bloody hobby!?!

Good day, Betfair sucks at starting times

Bankroll: $ 209,36

I had a good day making profit on both the dogs as the horses.

I should have $ 10,- more but I got caught out with Betfair not having to correct starting time and suspending an US horse race more then 2 minutes before their starting time!

Anyone who knows of a good internet stream or radio that will tell/show me when the US horse races start would be my hero. Paid subscription is fine too as long as the monthly fee isn't ridiculous. A stream that does pre race commentary too would be ideal! I found a page that offers a lot of streams for differen't tracks but that would mean I have to switch stream every time I switch track. Not going to work for me.

It's my own fault though, I checked every race on here: https://www.ebetusa.com/racing/ which will show you correct starting times and some early odds to go by. I was talking over MSN to a new friend who also trades US horses and I simply forgot to check this one. But it's a pain anyways as it's just more hassle if I have to check the clock all the time instead of having the big one in my face flashing red.

Also the biggest reason I was ticked of is because it was a bit of an ego thing. If this wouldn't have happened it would've been my best day ever. But the way things are looking now I should be able to beat my record a couple of times next month. Will probably need to too with my new challenge tackeling the UK horses coming up. I have no doubt that's going to cost me some learning money.

Once again someone has told me he's making consistent money on the dogs every day. Funnily enough he was asking me what the right way to go about US horses is. So maybe it's just different ways of approach that's the key. The advice I got though it to not bet the favorite but look at 2nd and 3d favorite as it's a bit easier. Liquidity shouldn't be a problem as I'm still doing minimal bets until I turn consistent profits.

Maybe I'm just trying to swing trade too much on the dogs but it's hard to not to with so much ticks going up and down in that market. I'm just more of a swinger then a scalper. Which is what worries me about the UK markets because I have the idea that scalping is the way to go there.

First cashout!

Bankroll: $ 200,18 after $ 25,- withdrawal!

Made it :-) Best thing is, earned the last couple of $$ on the greyhounds so double victory there.

Next stop is $ 250,- after which I'll raise my stake to $ 25,- I think I'll have to make a push for $ 500,- at least before I consider cashing out, maybe even $ 1000,- I'll have to see how fast the bankroll grows.

Main thing is that I have to go buy that dishwasher for my girlfriend asap without crippling me betting wise. That will buy some more space to pursue my betting carreer :-)

Close to my subscription!

Bankroll: $ 223,38

I was hoping to nail it today and cash out but I'm still $ 1,62 short of my $ 225,- after which I'll cashout $ 25,- and get myself a GBP 9,99 www.attheraces.com subscription. This will give me pictures with my UK horse trading and will hopefully also provide enough pre race commentary info that will earn the sub back 10 fold.

I don't think I'll have time for the dogs tomorrow afternoon, which if you think in terms of getting that subscription quickly is a good thing :-) And I'm working late shift and thursday is mostly a busy day on the job so I'll be too late to do the US horses. Friday I have a day off so hopefully everything I'll loose on the dogs during daytime I'll make up and then some in the evening.

The downside of the subscription is that there's no escape for me anymore from the UK horses and I'll have to get in there for real now and make something of it. Up till now I've been avoiding it a bit because it feels like the "big league" and if I fail there that's the end of my trading. There's no point in continuing trading US horses if it doesn't lead me to the market where I can truly get as much matched as I'll want anytime soon. The US horses are good to me at the moment but it is getting my toes a bit wet and not a lot more. The liquidity simply isn't there to have a future.

Quick update

Bankroll: $ 211,52

Had another good session with the US horses as you can see.

Dogs have been costing me money as usual but I still have the feeling that I'm getting closer to profitablility with them. Just need to scratch some stupid moves from my game and I should be ok. And practice practice practice of course!

More later this week, maybe after work tonight, just a quick update now.

New short term goal

Bankroll: $ 200,53

My yesterday afternoon date with the dogs I had to raincheck as I had to spend some quality time with my youngest daughter. It was such nice weather we went out for the afternoon and visited some friends, my grandmother and did the shopping for dinner. Then I cooked for my girls (I have 2 daughter aged 2 and 4 and of course my girlfriend) and sat down for some serious US horse trading.

Nice to have passed a milestone bankrollwise. Yesterday trading was a bit weird though as I expected another night of good US horses trading but all the money was at the greyhounds that apparantely was shown live on Sky. Once I caught onto that I got hit by a general api error and couldn't place any bets for almost 2 hours. Doh!

The markets were a bit weird all night and I'm happy I got away with a small profit. Especially the total lack of liquidity on some markets was terrible. In one race I got a backbet in on a horse way above it's value (was the 2nd favorite) so I was already celebrating. Especially as it was more then 4 minutes before the off so plenty of time to get it matched as profitable as possible. Hardly any bets where matched anymore! And I had to bail at a 7$ loss! Go figure! Which reminds me to next time write something up about the websites I'm now carefully starting to use to give me an extra edge. To be honest though, at the moment all they provide me with is extra loss..

So the new short term goal! Seeing as I don't have acces to Sky or Setanta being in Amsterdam, Holland I've decided to get an online sub for the internetTV/video section of www.attheraces.com I don't do inrunning so the slight lag compared to the tv feed won't hurt me, although I have to be a bit carefull if I completely base a decision on what is said on tv. For the GBP 9,99 I only have to make a couple of good decisions based on their info to make it worth my while. So once my bankroll hits $225,- I'm taking out $20,- and getting the subscription.

Bad start, nice end

Bankroll: $196,45

Today started out real bad. I made a small profit on 2 races and then I accidently shut down BetAngel and started it up again. I have the default stake at $15,- and I now use $5,- stakes instead that I spread around so I have no more then $15,- to $20,- on the back or lay side at a time.

So instead of taking my time and checking if all the settings were as they should be I just jumped right in. And instead of having a quiet look at the market first and then decide what was best I was ticked of with myself shutting down the software and losing time having to start it up again.

At the time it seemed like a great idea to fire in 2 quick bets one tick away from each other and hope to exploit the gap. Thankfully I´m the kind of person that immediately gets severely punished everytime I pull stunts like that. Not getting away with it ever at least teaches me the lesson straight away.. You can probably guess that my bets where instafilled and the gap that was there was gone and the market shot up and I was looking at over $18,- loss if I would green up now.. Not good. Not good at all. I took a deep breath and decided that being pissed of was for later and damage control was for now.

I watched the market heave up and down (but all the time well above where I was hoping it would be) and I soon decided I was up shit creek and should just accept my loss. If there was space to make or save money I could always do that after redding up and putting new bets in instead of hoping to save this particular bet. I redded up at a loss of $ 12,65. So my night was pretty much down the drain after the 3d race.

But I sucked it up. Didn't get mad. Didn't decide to make up for it pronto but just focused, stayed confident and got stuck in it.

Here's my P&L for the US horse racing:

As you can see apart from the one stupid big one very little losses compared to the winners. And the amounts lost also much less then I would have had not too long ago. This is the first night that I traded so many races and I was well and truly in the zone. I did a lot more bets then I usually do. Exploited the markets going up and down during the same race and was generally confident about my ability to deal with what was going on. I think one of my biggest wins over myself tonight was that whenever the market turned against me I'd stay level headed and just quickly device a strategy to solve the situation. And sometimes I'd be confident the market would come around again because someone just dumped a lump sum and it wasn't a major shift. Other times I'd realise I simple misread the market in the first place and should take my loss and use that knowledge to get in at the right point.

I did a couple of races on the Aussie market just for good measure and then decided to call it a night. Here's the P&L for that:

So all's well that ends well but I could have made a nice big step to bankroll building if I weren't so impatient and hasty at times. (more speed less haste Tim, more speed less haste..)

Tomorrow I'm going to give back some of my winnings as the greyhounds and I have a date with destiny and I still haven't nailed the way to profit on those buggers yet.

One step forward, two steps back

Bankroll: $ 148,73 Added $ 45,- which I had doing nothing on Neteller so now it's: $ 193,73

I just realised after typing the titel that I'm showing a higher bankroll then last time but it's been some ride!

Quick P&L since of the differen't markets since my last post:

Greyhounds : - $ 7,68
UK & US horses : $ 2,70
Aussie horses : $ 6,96
Football : - $ 4,-

The random football bet was just trying out laying the 0-0 and planning to get out after 20 minutes. And seeing as it was Liverpool - Real Madrid you can see how that went wrong. I do want to add more sports to my toolbox at some point. Probably when I have a bigger bankroll and don't mind losing a bunch of minimum bets.

Greyhounds are killing me. My dog is lucky I don't take it out on the complete species :-) There's nothing left of my initial confidence that it was easy money. I checked my profit and loss on the dogs since I had that first good session and I've lost over $17,- to them. That's including those initial profits. Problem is that I can see the profitability just staring me in the face. I think I'm having trouble with it being a less then three minute window where I have to learn to trust my instincts and insta react. And to have instincts that are good I need more practice. So I'm at peace with the fact that them mutts will surely cost me some more before they start making me some.

Most of my money earned on horses is from the US horses as I can, and do, play them almost every day and I'm starting to get to know the markets pretty well. Mostly when I lose money is because it's not a good night to bet on them due to liquidity etc and me really wanting to have a go as it's 99% hobby and 1% possible additional income to me. (which doesn't mean I'm not fanatic about not losing) So biggest challenge is not trading when the markets aren't optimal and I'm sitting behind my computer eager to go. Any new trader looking for a start. Just check out the favorite. See which way the market is going (in time it get's easier and easier) and abuse the gap. Because of the gap it's much easier to see which way the market is truly going as one side is rather still and the other side is moving towards it. Then you have to think which side you want to bet on first. Very important! I got killed today by a race starting 2,5 minutes earlier then Betfair thought it would and thus suspending betting while I still had a back (thank god for that!) bet matched but not layed yet. And of course the bloody horse didn't win so I lost $5,- So when you are betting US horses beware! There are sites out there that give correct times. Check www.racingtraders.com for that as I saw it mentioned in one of the treads on the forum.

Aussie horses are fine providing there is liquidity and the response time is doable. Sometimes it's just too slow and you put yourself in bad spots because you can't place/cancel bets fast enough.


One last tip when doing gap trading. You want to make the most out of the gap as bets coming in on either side will swoop outstanding money on a couple of ticks quite often. So what I do is if I have for instance backed for $15,- I'll put in three $5,- lay bets at different points. So 1/3 is matched quickly, 1/3 is matched when there's a nice heave of the market and the other 1/3 is best case scenario. If the 2nd and 3d don't get matched within reasonable time and I have the feeling the market isn't going the way I'd like it to go I quickly bring them to the front. Try it as it will give you a significantly higher return instead of putting the whole 15$ in front and then kicking yourself as a bet gets put in swooping away 12 ticks. This also shows the downside of US markets, someone can come in at any time and swoop away a huge amount of ticks the wrong way leaving you in the kaka.

Reactions

Someone send me an email saying he left a reaction on the blog. I've set the reaction to moderated and don't have any reactions waiting for moderation so something is wrong there.

For now I've set reactions to unmoderated until the unavoidable spam starts to arrive, then I'll put it back but at least I'll be sure I'll get all reactions.

So if anyone sent me an reaction and it didn't get posted yet I never saw it and it's gone :-( Safe bet is that if you don't see it pop up within 24 hours I didn't recieve notice. Please mail me then at peterwebbhereicome*AT*gmail.com (added a little spamfilter there ;-)). You can e-mail me with any question, comment or advice you have for that matter!

BetTrader growing on me

Bankroll $142,01

I have to take back some of the stuff I said yesterday.

Today BetTrader acted a lot better and maybe it had something to do with some api slowness.

I decided to go back to minimum bets for a bit until I get this software firmly under control. Something I should have done in the first place ofcourse so only myself to blame for my losses lately. So just to have some sort of target I'll rebuild to $150,- at $4,- stakes and then go back to my initial staking plan. Should take me long enough to get to grips with BetTrader.

The Betfair graphs pop up really quick and I didn't have a single one not showing up unlike last night. So when I open a race, or switch my attention to a different horse I just quickly pop open the Betfair graph and see what price range has been traded on. After that the BetTrader graph is fine to show me the trend.

Also hedging seems to be a lot faster but it still feels just not as good as BetAngel's hedging function. Can't put my finger on it. Maybe the fact that BetAngel fires out a couple of small ones instead of one? But in general I press hedge, it gets hedged fast. One really weird thing though. I changed the hedging to "quick" and I assume that means it will take the first price available instead of putting it at the point where you maximise but might have to wait a bit. Thing was that the quoted hedge price was something like -$0,17 which I could deal with with only 40 seconds or so to go. But when I pressed hedge (so I pressed the -$0,17) it got hedged at -$2,75!!! OUCH!! Cause prices where matched a bit higher up the ladder and I'm pretty sure I could've gotten out much closer the the -$0,17 then the -$2,75. So now I have to find out if the price quoted, is not the price you'll get when there are gaps. If that is so it makes it rather complicated for me and I'll have to manually try to get out when the market turns against me instead of hitting the hedge. I hope this was a fluke or I did something wrong cause it sucks if you have to make a split second decision and can't count on the numbers displayed.

I had a go at the doggies again today and I got in and didn't realise that my default stake was still $15,- on my laptop as I had changed it on my desktop. Oops! So much of todays loss is that first bet that went wrong and sent me down $6,- or so. Having a string of small wins and then cock it up with 2 big ones through stupidity is not the way to fame and fortune I can tell you from personal experience now.

I'll say this for the last time as the BetTrader folks have said they'll take care of this in the update but not having the full market stinks. The WOM just doesn't tell you the whole story, neiter do the top 3 prices. Just by watching the money build up behind (or the lack of that) and seeing the spoof amounts further down and where people with slightly larger funds want to be filled at gives me so much more info on what's happening and how much I can expect to be in the shitter if it goes wrong. Lets put it this way. If you have 2 big amounts and a small one on the back side but you see the money above it move up. And the first 3 amounts on the layside aren't that big but they are closing up on the back money and they are getting a lot of support with other money right behind them and no gaps, my bet is the price is going punch through those 2 big ones. By just seeing 3 on each side you'd get the opposite impression. Some goes for the matched amounts shown on the ladder at the odds they were matched at. It makes gap trading so much easier if you know whereabouts the hidden money, I mean the people that don't put money up to be filled but simply jump on top of the lay/back at a certain level, kicks in so you can do a risk vs reward ascertation.

If above is a bit (or totally for that matter) vague just leave a reaction saying that and I'll try to explain it better.

As I said yesterday though. BetTrader just feels easier to work with and I like some of the shortcuts and little GUI tricks they have. Once you get stuck in you can act really fast on a relative small screen without having to go through a bunch of tabs etc. If I only would stop bleeding money while using it I'd be a happy camper.

Tomorrow no doggies or UK horses as I have to be at work early. I'll be hitting the US markets though. I think I'll do a session where I use BetTrader for an hour and then BetAngel and see which one I feel more reluctant to close down and switch. I do have to get the ladders showing the same way! I think you can change that in BetAngel and not in BetTrader. I mean that the back and lay side works different. In BetAngel if I click on an amount of money I match that. In BetTrader I cue up. So back lay is turned around and you have to click the other side instead of the same side. Confused? So am I!

Tuesday it's back at the dogs. They have cost me a bundle! Not nearly as much as my own dog has cost me so it's all a matter of perspective but my first assumption that they are easy extra money has bitten me in the bum with a vengeance. As it should. I don't want to give up on the dogs, I can do them every day and those markets just rock. I'm still convinced that if you get a grip on the market you can make some nice extra money every day on those mutts. But it all happens three minutes before the off every race and it's a relentless rollercoaster. Next time I'm doing it with BetAngel and the full market as I felt really confident when using that and now on BetTrader I didn't feel in control ever.

Much too late once again, I'm off to bed!

New software

Bankroll $147,09

I've decided to give BetTrader a spin. It looked good on the video's and they have a really good deal for only GBP 50,- for 6 months.

My slight drop in bankroll is of course complete the fault of BetTrader. Couldn't be anything else.

Kidding! I played Aussie markets for a bit again and this time the slowness of the entering and exiting the market (which is just as slow in BetAngel) did it to me. Yet another reason not to do Aussie racing anymore. I did the smart thing and quit for the day. It's just so hard if you're doing the US races and are having fun and the last race ends and there's only Aussie races left and you don't feel like bed yet. But it's got to stop. The slowness is starting to cost me and it's silly. Do any other Euro's play the Aussies and do you cope?

Back to BetTrader.

Disclaimer! I have only tried it for a couple of hours and I might be wrong with some (or most) of the things I say, if you spot a mistake feel free to correct me!

I really like the intuitive feel of the software. It just feels easier and friendlier then BetAngel does. I can't really trade well on my laptop with BedAngel and BetTrader makes much better use of limited real estate. But the other way around is true too. On my desktop computer I have a 24" widescreen and BetTrader leaves a lot of empty screen while I could think of quite some stuff I'd like to fill it with.

Big plus over BetAngel is that I can have all the horses on the left side of the screen, and have three ladders next to it. Even on a smaller screen. Very easy to put a horse in the slot you want, smart GUI work there.

Big minus is that there is no full market view. You can only see the first three backers and layers. Also that you can't see the matched amounts right next to the odds on the ladder makes it a lot harder to see what's going on. Those aspects of BetAngel make it easy for me to see what's going on without a graph and BetAngel has excellent graphs and allows you to pop up the Befair graph and autorefresh it. BetTrader graph (unless I didn't find another option??) is inferior, can't see the prices just the downward or upward trend starting from when you open the race. So I have no clue where the price was coming from when I first open a race. Also with BetTrader the Betfair graph isn't autorefreshable, or able to pin it to the front (so the huge empty bit of BetTrader won't go over it when I click on it) and I found that it doesn't work more often then it does in the first place.

I have read on BetTraders excellent forum (www.racingtraders.com) that a lot of these things will be taken care of in an upcoming upgrade so that would be great. I really use that full market and the matched bet amounts on the side a lot and I feel a bit lost without them. But there seem to be quite some guys who really know their stuff and are doing really well without it so maybe I value it too much.

Hedging is also different between the two. On BetAngel you don't get to see the amount all the time. Only when you have a position open. If you have no position open and you want to see what you can green up for you have to click to grid view and then click back. With BetTrader you just see the number on top all the time. But! Really big but!! I think BetAngel offers you a more realistic hedge price, especially when there are gaps. Once again, I think! Because I was messing around with it for the first time and I'm still learning too. Let's say you place a back bet that get's filled. The way I see it BetAngel quotes you a hedge price based on the best lay available then and BetTrader quotes you a hedge price based on the best back price available then. Especially when there are gaps that's not good for two reasons.

1. it simply isn't a true price yet as there is no market there. if no one is buying it, it's not a price.
2. it doesn't instafill! Most of the time I hit hedge I just want out and move on, not speculate.

Also I thought BetTrader didn't cancell my unmatched bets and made a bit of mess of the bets with the hedge bet in the middle of it when all I wanted is just get out entirely. BetAngel does cancell anyting and offer you and almost instafill.

Somehow I can't imagine that I'm right with the above and I will test this further tomorrow and report my findings. Surely this must have come up more often on the forums if I'm right.

After reading back what I just wrote I realise sounds all a bit negative towards BetTrader but it really is a great piece of software, I'm just overemphasizing (sp?) some small differences that I noticed in the first testing but there are a lot of little things that just look, feel and are more logically done in BetTrader and with the update coming up (June'ish I believe) I hope they improve without losing what makes it such a nice program now.

If you're a new player on a budget I'd go for BetTrader now anyways. GBP 50,- for 6 months is a great deal. Better be quick, runs to the 13th of march or so! You can also download a trial that goes for 200 minutes or so.

A bit of redemption

Bankroll $150,75

With a bit of healthy paranoia in me I got stuck into the US horse racing. The market I believe I have the most feel for.

I didn't trade every race. I got out as soon as the market went differentely then expected, and took small losses. I scratched some bets. I made sure I got my profit in instead of continuously trying to get more out of a bet.

In the end I had a good run with the right mindset. I wish I had that mindset a couple of hours earlier I would've been closer to my goals.

But it was a good learning experience and a rather cheap one.

I think I have to say goodbye to the Aussie racing. They are simply too late for me and I blame the losses for being too big on tiredness and passiveness. I simply don't care enough when I'm tired. This sucks as I'll have to do the KYC thingy with someone signing the copies of my passport to get my money out. (I saw the unavailability of it as a way of saving) Of course after doing the KYC I can transfer the funds in and out as I please so maybe a good idea anyways as I have sometimes problems with laying although my total funds would cover the liability.

On that note I've noticed that the question if you should back or lay first is asked quite often on different forums. I don't always do the one or the other. It differs per situation as I try to get in on a spot where I have the biggest margin on a price movement before I go into a loss. This is more important when trading with gaps then one tick trading I suppose. Although still would people who always back only trade when they think the price will go down? Waste of the times you're sure it'll go up!

The doggies stung me today but I think it was my being greedy, sloppy and stupid. If it were so easy that I could easily make money on it on autopilot after just one session everyone would be doing it. So I'll have to get stuck in again and I'll use minimal bets for a bit until I get the feeling that I know when to hold'em and know when to fold'em. The timeslot is just too convenient for me to pass up on them. I can play them almost every day and some sort of steady flow of money from them would be welcome.

Tomorrow I'm swamped with work so no playtime.

Humble Pie

Bankroll: $141,70

As you can see on my new bankroll total, this wasn't my best day trading ever..

I lost some last night on the Aussie markets. Then I got slaughtered on the dogracing and to top it of I turned a small loss on the UK horses this afternoon.

Good news is that it was all my own fault and I have plenty to think about that I can then work on. It's easy to blame external factors but that won't get you any further. I think I had a classic case of invulnarability complex. Some of the losses I took were just silly. And I'm not talking about entering the market, my stop loss was crappy today. Thinking, even willing against better judgement for the market to come back up/down. Instead of just accepting the fact that it went against me and trying to execute an optimal exit strategy.

So lick my wounds and get stuck in it again. The money doesn't mean anything to me, it's the ego that needs mending. I even considered (for a splitsecond and then I chastised myself for it) not posting about this until I had fixed the bankroll but that defies the purpose of this blog.

I like the muts and I cannot lie.

Bankroll: $157,28

Had my first go at dogracing today. It's something I can do for a quick hour before I'm off to work on days I have the early shift. Seeing as there's no horseracing going on then it's a great filler of that timeslot.

First impression: Love'em!

Nice and jumpy, fairly agressive but still lot's of gaps. Probably more volatile then the horses as the liquidity is lower and a lot of people try to get all of it in in only a couple of minutes.

I bet on 6 races giving me 5 wins and 1 loss. And as you can see on my new bankroll total an overal small profit.

The one loss made me wonder once again if doing some sort of homework up front would be a smart thing to do. One thing stopping me from even looking into it is that I have a strong feeling that not having a vast knowledge on how to process the information will do me a lot more bad than good. What happened was that the money started pouring in and suddenly the favorite turned out to be not the favorite at all. The price soared up, and I mean really soared and I had backed it so I was in the kaka. Got out in time but it went from around 2 to well over 7. Something must have happened there. Maybe the dog wasn't a favorite in the first place and traders were trading on it because they all felt it was and when the punters started getting there money in it went up to it's true value. Or something happened on the track and other people knew stuff I didn't know.

So my idea of the homework would be to find out who are the top 3 for every race and have some sort of website, stream or internet radio thingy that can keep me up to date on stuff goin on on the tracks. Also I'm wondering if there's some way to find out what the price will start around initially as I can see profit in knowing where it will aproximately settle once the gap closes in back and lay. Maybe checking out the other bookies and see what there lines are.

Once again, these are some very basic ideas forming in my mind which I'll be carefully looking into later but I can also think of quite some reasons how this could work against me. End of the day ignorance might be bliss and best results might be had by just having a feel for the actual real time market and act upon that.

Moving on up

My bankroll is at $156,15! So I've moved up to $15,- stakes. Next stop is $20,- stakes at $200,- or back to $10,- at $125,-

I was over $162,- but when I checked my profit/loss what was up it seemed I lost over $6,- on a race. I must have made a mistake somewhere because that's a huge amount to lose with $15,- stakes. At the end of a session I always remember the big wins and losses I had and I certainly don't remember taking this hit. Maybe I forgot about a bet that was partially matched and I didn't green/red up before the start. But it seems like a weird double mistake to make.

It was an Aussie race and they are late for me so maybe I was tired, I just wish there was some way to replay your actions and see what happened. Recording every session with Camtasia just in case is something I'm not going to do though. Unless freak losses like this keep popping up, then I'll have to make sure it's really me doing it.

I had a go at the placed UK markets this afternoon and I feel those will suit me much better for the time being. More then enough liquidity to easily match my stakes, and I can probably double them at least 2-3 times before they get too high to get matched. Nice gaps. I like gaps. Gaps are good.

Hopefully I'll have some time tomorrow to spend on the UK horses.

Catching on

I've been having continued succes with the Aussie and US horses. My bankroll is increasing in a satisfying rate compared to my stakes.

When I started this blog my bankroll was $125,- it now stands at $149.27 I've been using $10,- stakes and will move up to $15,- at $150,- If I fall back below $125,- I'll go back to $10,- If I go over $200,- I'll move up to $20,- etc etc. I believe this staking system will make it really hard for me to go bust and always have plenty of funds vs stakes to be comfortable with them.

My stake for the UK horse races will continue to be $4,- until I get a grip on that and start making money there. I have more time to play later at night so I haven't had the opportunity to suss them out yet but wednesday and thursday I'm start work late so I have the afternoon to try some stuff.

I am still learning loads from each session and I don't expect that will lessen any time soon. Hopefully I'll find out how to make money on the UK markets soon as that is where to money is. US and Aussie don't have the liquidity to sustain my stakes for too long shamelessly assuming I'll keep inproving and growing.

Confidence boost

Today I've had two more sessions that ended in profit.

This afternoon just quickly on 2 races, one US and one UK.

And I've just been betting on the Aussie horses for two hours after work. (I own a bar/restaurant so I'm home late) I bet on 7 races of which 5 were profitable and 2 turned up a loss. Best thing about the night though is that only one of the profitable races made less then I lost with the losing ones. So I've managed to cut my losses quick and make the most out of the good situations.

I fully realise that my sample size is, and will be for quite some time, far too small to say that I'm now a definite winner or loser but at least it feels good to have a couple of positive sessions in a row.

Tomorrow afternoon the wife (not married but it wouldn't make a difference) and kids are of to the inlaws which means I can do the UK races with some peace and quiet around me. Yay! Would be nice to be able to have a winning UK session with quite some races that I've bet on.

My tactic is going to be to green up well before the 10 minute mark and move on. I might even move on to the next one at 20 minutes but we'll see how it goes. Also if I feel up for it I'd like to try to have a couple of horses (who are in the same race ofcourse!) next to each other and see if I multitask it. I've always multitabled poker so I should be ok and it's a good opportunity to get some experience under my belt with the 2nd and 3d favorite. I might find out that I prefer betting on them for the time being but we'll see tomorrow.

Past bedtime once again, I'm off!

Yes we can!

I had some fun with the US horses last night. Plenty of gaps and not too bad luiqidity. Well plenty of liquidity to cover my measely little bets.

One thing to reckon with though with the US horses is that the starting times Betfair posts isn't always the exact time the race starts. So I green/red up well before the start not to get caught.

Last night my gap tactic worked like a charm and when it does it really feels like easy money. Of course there's always the chance of a major wipe out as someone might come in with a wad of money and change the odds by a ridiculous amount of ticks. Myself I'm not going for one tick either, I'm trying to make use of the full range of the gap.

So in any event a nice confidence booster!

By the way, I can't click my own pictures to enlarge them. Is that me or can no one else click them either? I looked at other blogs and they seem to use the blogger uploader just like me but theirs are clickable. I suppose that if you can't enlarge them you can hardly see the numbers and it's all a bit pointless.

Self Fulfilling Prophecy

As I've said before, I'm doing better on the Aussie markets then on the English horse racing. So I kind of doomed myself into todays result.

I simply have no clue what the market is up to with the English horses, especially not when the big money hits the market and the price just goes haywire. If it would go up and down a lot that would be great and easy money but I have this nack of getting in at the wrong moment and the price zooming the other way. And then I decide to bank on that and it turns on me again. I should have zigged when I zagged!

I have to rethink my strategy on the English horses and I have two possible solutions and maybe I should do them both:

1. Trade up to 10 minutes before start and then move on to the next as the big money arrives and things start getting erratic and I start losing money

2. Don't trade the favorite but another horse with a bit less liquidity and a stabler pattern.

Probably the thing I need most is hundreds and hundreds of more bets under my belt.

Here is my profit & loss for English and Aussie horses for today:

Good news is that I'm in no rush and enjoy doing it!

Of to bed now, tomorrow is another day.

Back in the saddle again

No more Mr Pacif Resistance! Time to get at it again.

Due to the hours I work I can't do the English daytime horses everyday. I either start work at 13:00 CET or 19:00 CET. Obviously when I start 19:00 I can do the British horses, otherwise I give the Aussie horses a shot.

So today I worked the day shift so I've been trying to make some profit on the Australian horses. Downside is that Betfair or BetAngel was really slow, not even letting me put in bets in the end. At least I hope that showing "placing" bet for over 20 seconds and then not showing a bet anywhere means I didn't place a bet. I did double check in Betfair I had no open bets but otherwise I just hope that whatever I bet the horse does ;-).

I'm playing with 4$ stakes which I will up to 10$ if I consistantly win for at least a week straight and feel that it was based on some sort of skill and not 7 days of dumb luck. My bankroll is 130$ at the moment with another 100$ at Pokerstars which I could move to Betfair if things start to get going as I'm not playing poker at the moment anyways. I am very conservative and disciplined concerning bankroll management though so I'd like to have at least 10x my stake in bankroll and preferably 20x. I can just deal with profit and loss in a lot more relaxed manner if it doesn't affect my bankroll too much either way. I think keeping a level head is important in this game.

Here's my P&L of last night.

Nothing fancy ofcourse but for me the main thing is that I can keep on finding profitable situations.

I like playing the markets where there are some gaps and I can go for the bigger swings. I seem to have a slight grasp on it. The English daytime markets are a bit manic and cloudy to me at the moment but with all that money there it is of course the place to work towards to.

On a side note I have to do some smaller goals before I can do the Peter Webb course. I'll list them, I'm sure they make sense :-)

1. Dishwasher. Our old one broke down and the best way to not only get my better half of my back, but even have her being supportive of this new obsession is by buying something usefull for her first. I did the same when I started to play poker. First thing I bought with my profits was a good dryer which she really wanted badly as she was about to have our first (of 2) daughter. (so lot's of clothes to wash and the climate here isn't fit for drying stuff outside) I almost got bullied into playing poker whenever I didn't feel like it after that!

2. I bought a 2 month subscription to BetAngel which will need to be renewed within the month. I'm also contemplating giving BetTrader a go just to see how that feels. It seems to me that I prefer some parts of their layout but maybe BetAngel has the same functionality but I haven't found it yet. What I do appreciate about BetTrader is their forum and the community they build and as I read it everyday and post every now and again I'm inclined to give something back by using their software. Doesn't have to be the one or the other as I can think of some situations where I'd like to have both running at the same time or have one package if the other decides to break down.

So once I've got those expenses out of the way I can start concentrating on getting enough profit for a nice trip to England!