My Sports trading journey – Part two

Click here for part one

Financial markets

My early forays into the gambling world had taught me two things. People very often don’t make rational decisions and that making money by gambling was incredibly hard. I didn’t need to learn the latter point as that was obvious, but I thought it was worth a try. It was a dream that maybe somehow, someday, I could find a way overcome all the issues and achieve the impossible of making gambling pay. I looked up to, took inspiration from and wanted to be an Ed Thorp!

As I drifted away from gambling markets I drifted into financial markets. I had no background in financials so I just had to pick up some books and learn, this was in the days before the Internet. The first book I bought was ‘the bluffers guide to finance’; this taught me some of the terms used in financial markets. I then started reading the Investors chronicle but couldn’t understand a word of it. Back then, never in my wildest dreams did I think I would actually end up with a weekly column in a financial journal! But that’s life isn’t it?

While holding down a conventional job I slowly I progressed my financial career and started investing in financial markets. My epiphany came when on a trip to the US. I picked up a book about Warren Buffet and I was transfixed by the content. By the time I had arrived back in the UK I’d read it from front to back and was on the phone to try and buy shares in Berkshire Hathaway. To cut a long story short, this eventually ended up with an attendance at the AGM and the opportunity meet the great man himself.

My investing really started to take shape and, despite holding down a senior position in the technology industry, it looked like I would end up as investing becoming my primary career. I had a real passion for it and could read companies like a book. I also yearned to leave a normal job and work for myself.

However, it was my love of technology and investing that led me to start attending First Tuesday meetings and it was there that I first heard of betting exchanges.

The Dot Com boom

First Tuesday meetings were like an early version of the Dragons Den. Basically people would gather around as either investors or entrepreneurs and people would make a pitch to each other for funding or assistance in starting a business.

It was a really interesting time in the industry, the ‘dot-com boom’, and I met a whole host of people that I never would have met if it were not for this period in time. It was during one of these meetings that somebody explained the concept of betting exchange. ‘Disintermediation’ was the keyword at this moment in time, cutting out the middleman. Based on my experiences in gambling markets cutting out the bookmaker sounded like a brilliant idea!

12 to 18 months later betting exchanges started to come on the scene. Because I was familiar with the concept I signed up immediately and became one of the first ever customers of ‘Flutter’ and ‘Betfair’.

Next up, what I first did on the exchanges and what happened from there.

Tags: sports trading journey

Category: General, Using Bet Angel