Do simple things, very well….
I’m oftened ask what is the ‘secret’ to sports trading. Is there a Betfair trading strategy works and is really easy?
Of course there is no one liner that I can give that could possibly encapsulate all the experience I have gathered. I’ve participated in hundreds of thoasands of markets and know much about how the markets are priced and how they work, tha’s a lot of information that can’t be crunched into one line, but there is a small gem I can offer you.
The great thing about sports markets is their frequency. There are tens of thousands of markets offered up each year on the exchanges. Any very large number multiplied by any number, no matter how small, soon adds up to something subtantial. So first off, the number of markets presents an opportunity. If you get a small positive number multplied across a large number of events then that is great. But, of course, you could multiple that very large number with a negative and that is very bad. But in reality its not about being right all of the time, just being right most of the time. So how can you do this?
Imagine playing cricket, but in this cricket game there are no stumps. You can’t get bowled out, you can only get caught out. Therefore, in this game of cricket, your destiny is in your hands. In this game of cricket, you control the risk and can bat at the crease as long as you wish without getting out. You can only get out if you make a terrible mistake, sometimes you can even make a mistake and still not get out, when the ball gets dropped.
Trading is like batting without any stumps. You don’t actually have to do a thing, you can just sit there and wait for an opportunity. If you don’t take the one in front of you another will be along in a minute. So with that in mind; if you can’t see a decent shot then you simply wait for one to appear, because it will. When you see it, you can hit it for six.
From a mindset viewpoint, you shouldn’t be trying to make macro decisions on everything you see, that’s a mistake. In fact, you should be looking for a specific set up where you understand the upside potential and the risk on the downside. You then need to practice finding those opportunities. I don’t look for whether to back or lay, or for an uptrend or downtrend in the the market, which direction etc. etc. I’ve made that judgement as I arrive, or shortly after I arrive on the market. I then wait for the right moment to execute my position. If I don’t see it, I do nothing.
I do a lot of nothing, very often. I scratch quite a large number of positions as well. In the process of doing that, I maximise the potential for spotting good opportunities while limiting my downside. I also realise I can’t get it right all the time. So if it doesn’t work out, I abandon or exit my position and try again. I treat the fifth failure or success in a row, the same way I treated the first attempt.
So there you go, there’s a gem for you. My over arching strategy is to do simple things, very well.
Category: Trading strategies
