Tag: featured
New blog now available
We’ve upgraded our old blog to a new one. The old blog will remain a rich resource of content, but the new one will be even better. It will give you a wide range of new features including the combination of videos and written articles. It will become a great way to find detailed content on sports trading, strategies and using Bet Angel. We will update all message areas eventually to reflect that. But in the meantime please visit the …
Trading the US Masters
I like the US Masters. This is mainly because it’s the only major played on the same course each year. This means you can collect a ton of stats on how the course plays and form your strategies around that. It gives me a good guide as to when to trade in and out of a position. You can do this on most courses, but because the Masters is at the same location every year it is much more predictable.…
Betfair trading – Slow and steady wins the race
Further to my post at the weekend about my trading style outside of a major meeting, I thought I would raise my hand to the mouse today show you.
I had planned to do this anyhow, but a couple of comments about me using ‘old’ results meant any thought of me not doing it was summarily dismissed and trudged my way through the snow late this morning to slip and slide into the office. The reason for showing older results …
Back to reality of day to day trading on Betfair
Well, that was a really good week. But then I really do throw the kitchen sink at big meetings like Cheltenham,. The reality of day to day trading though is starkly different.
Big meetings and races
Big meetings and races don’t come around that often and account for a very small percentage of the mix over the year. So when they occur I push as hard as possible, it’s the only time I can do that. They probably only account …
Impossible
It’s all Impossible
When I was young, I was constantly reminded how some things were just impossible and why I shouldn’t try. I had many dreams, but a difficult start in life meant they were very, very distant. I had no mentor, guide or path to follow so I didn’t know how to achieve the things I so dearly wanted. Life was going to be a whole lot of hard work!
I started to read up and understand how others …
The Betfair exchange – Getting more and less efficient at the same time!
One of the questions that people often ask me is whether the markets easier to trade than they were 10 or 20 years ago and are the markets on the Betfair exchange more efficient or less efficient now. The answer is an odd one.
Are the markets efficient?
If you ask me, are the markets more efficient? I can say to you yes and no because, curiously, as the markets have evolved both situations have transpired at exactly the same …
Betfair trading strategies – Trading order flow
There is no doubt trading is an odd thing to do in a betting market.
‘Real’ Trading is generally tricky to understand, can be counter-intuitive and worst of all it’s a great way to profit.Why worst of all? Well, there is the problem, people find it hard to really fully understand it. Cynics of the world unite!
How I trade on Racing
On Racing, I’m a ‘pure’ trader. I trade order flow. When I arrive at a market, I observe …
Binary thinking
Imagine you are a caveman meandering through a landscape, you hear a rustle in the bush. “What’s that…?”
Your brain kicks into action and provokes a flight or fight response. It could be lunch, or it could kill you! Your primitive brain makes a really simple judgement and decides that the payoff here for ‘kill you’ is pretty bad, -100% in fact. The pay off for food is there as well, but it can’t offset the negative. So you walk …
Finding value in malevolent markets
You will be forgiven for thinking that humanity is an outdated concept that should be replaced. But they do say, to err is human. But to completely screw up, you need a computer!
Flash crashes
The stock market was set up to allow companies to raise investment capital from investors. A simple and effective concept that works. But modern financial markets are more like a giant casino. You can still raise funds, but the aftermarket dominates the central purpose. The …
Trading Football on Betfair – Trading under 2.5 goals
The Soccer Mystic profiling tool is a way to help identify opportunities and give you that all important edge when trading soccer matches – it’s packed with a number of features to assist you when trading any of the Match odds, Over/Under or Correct Score markets and will help you pin point what times to get into and out of positions for the most value.
If you prefer the Over/Under markets then Soccer Mystic can offer you some invaluable help, …
Had a good week last week? Here’s why…
You may have seen me post up results or information along the lines of ‘If you did this with £100 you would have managed to achieve this’.
I collect and analyse a lot of data and it’s all with the aim of identifying biases and the structural nature of a market. You would be surprised how many markets exhibit biases. Some have exhibited a structural bias for my entire trading career. I’ve casually dropped hints now and again and it’s …
Where Angels fear to tread
One thing I’ve learnt over time is that whether it’s short term trading on Betfair or long term investing in financial markets being a contrarian seems to be a very, very effective strategy.
Why does contrarian behaviour work?
Over the years I’ve spent a lot of time looking at psychology and its impact on decision-making and it’s proved a fascinating subject. I’ve immersed myself in as much material as I can find, all in the quest of really trying to …
Why Saturday is like a mini Ascot for me
When I first started sports trading, I treated it like a 9-5 job.
I did all the usual things you would in a normal job and returned to my out of work activities after the day was over. Fairly quickly I realised that this wasn’t going to work and was a terrible error of judgement. All the best opportunities seemed to occur outside of ‘normal’ hours and therefore I had to shift my working patterns.
Shifting my workload
At first, …
Trading Tennis in-clay – When it’s good to see Red
European clay court Tennis, Group Racing at Newmarket, the Grand National behind us; spring is definitely here!
We are now on the cusp of a lot of major sporting action. The Monte Carlo Masters Tennis is a signal to start dusting down things for the French Open. The European clay court season is upon us and it presents us with some decent opportunities.
Tennis – Why Red Clay can equal Green
Clay is an interesting surface for Tennis because of …
The Betfair exchange in numbers
I started collecting data on Betfair from the very early days and have carefully archived masses of work that I’ve done in the market.
I hoard data, even if I have no need for it, as I can go back and look at or compare previous periods. This is helpful in sporting terms to understand how the markets behaved in the past, but also I’ll often go back to apply something I recently discovered and see if results are consistent …
The growth and growth of inplay
It seems difficult to imagine a time when it wasn’t ‘all about the in-play’ – but before Ray and Betfair there really wasn’t much concept of betting on an event after the official start time. How things have changed!
The start
Back when exchanges started, it was purely a replication of the traditional bookmaker regime. Similar sports and similar punting styles, but exchanges brought this new concept of betting while an even was underway.
In essence, some markets were ‘in-play’ …
Everybody needs a role model
I’m very excited to have pre-ordered Ed Thorp’s new book. I suspect it will go on my top recommendations list.
Principles to live by
It’s important in life to find something you can live by. Some principles, desire, a path to follow. Often you look to others to find that.
A long time ago, while still at school, I visited at a friends house. There I stumbled across a Commodore pet. Learning to do some basic stuff on …
Starting out as a sports trader – Scaling up
I was back on my small account on Monday. I was recording a few videos at low stakes (I posted one last week) and also giving instruction to my daughter; she is progressing nicely.
I’m also teaching a new recruit to the team. It’s interesting to watch and learn from newbies and how they look at the market. I feel like It’s a microcosm of the entire market. I ‘feel’ this in the market every day, but experiencing first hand …
Bet Angel – Now ten times faster!
We are pleased to announce that a new version of Bet Angel is now available.
The upgrade is free for all trial and existing users. There is no need to re-register. To upgrade simply download the latest version, install and log in!
Download it from here: –
https://www.betangel.com/download/?product=BetAngelPro
Key new feature – Exchange price streaming
This version adds support for Betfair’s Exchange Streaming for prices and bet updates. The feature is switched off by default but is activated by ticking …
A fool and his money are soon parted….
‘A fool and his money’ It’s a classic phrase, but it always seems to ring endlessly true and never shall it be any different it seems!
I have written about this before and in particular about the now infamous Elliot Short: –
I wonder how many times I will hear about some gambling scam where people have lost enormous amounts of money? It seems that will always be the case.
It’s a real downer!
It’s a real downer to …
Ebor or Ebore?
Summer racing isn’t over quite yet and today kicks of the Ebor meeting at York. I’ve traditionally done OK at this festival each year so I am looking for something above average this week.
The Ebor meeting can yield some good results, but nothing is ever guaranteed and this meeting can be a bit random at times so it’s probably not going to be all plain sailing. It should be better than what we have been seeing recently though.
Traditionally, …
Finding a front runner – Exclusive offer & free trial
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Trading in-running
One excellent strategy you can use on betting exchanges, is backing or laying before the off and trading out in-play. Many Bet Angel customers do this or a variation of this, , as part of a profitable activity in the market.
In-running tools
Bet Angel is great for this as you can do it manually or automatically using the automation. On the manual front we …
Using Bet Angel – Walkthrough videos
I’ve had quite a few requests for, a simple to view, list of videos on getting started with Bet Angel. So this week I’ve uploaded an entirely new play list for – getting started, the one click screen and the ladder interface.
These videos are not my normal videos, but instead they are shorter and designed so that newbies have a clear path to follow for getting started in trading in simple steps. This should get your trading faster than …
My job as a football data scout
When you look on Betfair you will see a graphic, this graphic is telling you things like ‘Dangerous attack’. Corner, substitution or goal. Lots of bookmakers use this service now and a lot of them, including Betfair, use it to manage markets automatically. If you ever wondered where this info comes from, or why a match ‘losses its feed’ or experiences ‘technical difficulties’ read on…..
How I got a job as a scout
In the couple of years when I …
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