BETTING-EXCHANGES.COM

Just taking a break from writing about horse racing today to reflect on the final last night. I am not a Manchester Utd supporter but I did want them to win. It is always good to have a big trophy like the European Cup won by an English team.

I have to say though that it was painful to watch - aside from the first 10 minutes or so it was embarrassing really. Both teams only know one style of football - the problem is that Barcelona are a lot better at it than Utd. It was a good game but only because Man Utd were naive in their tactics.

As brilliant a manager as Fergie is I think he got it wrong albeit against a very good Barcelona side. Still, he had fewer options at 1-0 down - other than go for it and who am I to question one of the true greats. I suppose everyone has an off night.

What could Sir Alex have done at half-time already a goal down? Not much, except bring on Chelsea. Hiddink at least had a plan and the players to execute that plan. Chelsea too found it hard to keep the ball - but had numerous chances to kill off the semi despite the sub par refereeing.

I think English clubs are set to dominate for years to come - so we wait for 2010!

posted by Betting Exchange Trader

I've seen quite a few horses in recent months going out to odds of 1000.0 in running on Betfair - only to come back and win the race. Nice if you can get on! Today another one went close. Silver Grey in the 2.20 at Chepstow came back to grab second place after looking like he'd blown it.

posted by Betting Exchange Trader

Losing betting streaks can kill you professionally. I sometimes wonder how many potentially good pros are out there who never made it because they did not understand the envelope of possibility regarding their strategy - or if you like - standard deviation. It is all too easy to give up too soon.

I read somewhere that you need to play in the region of 1000 hours of poker (online poker) to know for sure if you are a profitable poker player. Think about that for a minute. You could play an hour a day for close to three years and still not know if you are any good!

Streaks are horrible things. When I was living in the US, quite a famous NFL pro capper told me how a colleaque of his had hit something like 30 losses in a row in basketball. He was invited onto radio shows to tell listeners of his unfortunate losing run! Now remember he was probably playing the handicap line at odds of around 10/11 as much as any other market - that's odds on! Add to that the fact that he was a Vegas pro capper who knew his stuff. The chances of losing thirty in a row at shortish odds would have been at least millions, if not tens of millions to one...just goes to show that anything can happen in betting.

So think carefully before you put aside a miserly twenty point bank for betting on odds on favourites!

Still streaks should not bother you that much - they are a standard feature of betting. Assume for a moment you are a profitable bettor. You know that you will have winning bets and losing bets - but more winning bets. Assume for now that those bets are placed at even money or 1/1.

Imagine that you have a barrel filled with one thousand golf balls. Each ball represents a bet. There are 550 white coloured balls representing winning bets and 450 black coloured balls representing losing bets. You tip them out onto the ground and then begin to pick them up. You might well come across 5 black balls first of all, then a white ball, then another 3 or 4 black balls. You could be 9-1 down before you know it.

But hey, the winners are still out there - you just haven't reached them yet - you are not bad at what you do - in fact you know you are profitable - you have just hit a bad streak. Don't stop, because the thing that will kill you off as a bettor is giving up.

posted by Betting Exchange Trader

I'm going to have a weekend away from Betfair and the betting exchanges - it'll do me good although it is always a bit of a wrench. I find that you never really know how frazzled you are until you actually force yourself to take the time off!

I may take a peak on bank holiday monday - but the kids will be around so may not get around to it. Have a good weekend - whatever you are doing...unless it is something bad of course!

posted by Betting Exchange Trader

I decided to lay Forest Flyer in the 15.20 at Newcastle today - I was pleased because I managed to lay him at a good price only for the worst to happen. It's not really such a surprise when this occurs in a reasonably competitive race - but naturally I thought I had the horse beaten - it just goes to show. Naturally I am still happy with the bet - even it it was a little frustrating. I decided to watch my bets today so as to find something to post - normally I don't do this - maybe I should stick to my guns!

It is quite possible that the horse should never have gone out to odds of around 19.0 - sometimes a horse deserves to and a lot of people are laying at these bigger prices - but in this case it was probably just a few punters over reacting and volume wasn't that high. No prizes for guessing where you wouldn't have wanted to lay!

There are strategies you can adopt for picking up these horses that drift in running - you find it happens more in certain races and distances. But although I think I could probably make it profitable I am not sure that I would get the volume of races that I would like. I generally like high turnover of bets and tend to get relatively low ROI. Although I do utilise one strategy that only gets me about one hundred bets a year. Horse for courses I suppose.

posted by Betting Exchange Trader

Got sidetracked on the chickens (previous post) . Earlier I was saying that I have a useless connection speed at home and a good one at an office. Reliability is important to me but speed isn't - as I do not spend all my time short term trading / scalping.

I would think that the good traders can probably go up to a second for swing trading - although you will always have that 'what am I missing' feeling - trading at slow speeds. But it cuts both ways. I remember when I used to trade solely at home with a grindingly slow refresh rate - I sort of got used to trading at that speed. When I first got my office and was able to trade at just under 200ms, it was a disaster!

I ended up reacting too quickly to tiny movements. I fiddle around in each race to see what suits but usually end up in the 250-350 ms range. Most of the time it doesn't make much difference.

posted by Betting Exchange Trader

I am in the dog house this morning, or perhaps that should be 'hen house'. I left the chicken coup open last night and our two chickens are 'missing'. A Colombian Black Tail (I think) and a Black Rock. Nice birds and eggs - anyway I had to explain it all to my kids before breakfast - never easy!

It really is a case of what goes around comes around with chickens - I read somewhere that genetically their closest relative is Tyrannosaurus Rex and when you watch chickens move around you can believe it. What a 'come down' though - from being perhaps the deadliest predator the planet has ever known, to...well...a chicken - probably the most slaughtered and consumed animal in the world today!

I wonder if humankind has 'got it coming' too - christ, maybe we'll evolve into tiny pellet like creatures and it will be chickens who wipe us out. Chickens feeding on all mankind!

Or perhaps it will be a more job 'specific' justice - maybe one day all the losing bettors and traders on betfair will rise up as one and strike down the few winners who have made their lives hell!

What goes around comes around...be careful out there..

posted by Betting Exchange Trader

I read a lot about trading set up. I guess it is vital for pure traders. Many have dual, tri or quad screen systems allowing them to keep half an eye on the true start time of a horse race via TV / commentary. Other screens might be filled with charts or markets for the following race.

I don't have anything like this. It's is not that I wouldn't like it - but it is not really necessary for me as a bettor primarily. Perhaps when my current computer completely grinds to a halt - then maybe I will look at something a bit better. My current PC is an eight year old Gateway and it is beginning to slow down. They're a good brand though - I bought it while I was in the States. Not sure if you can get them in the UK.

When I work from home I have terrible refresh speeds (500ms on betangel) that I squeeze out of 0.5 Mb - really poor. Worse still, I have a constantly dropping connection! Apparently we are too far from the exchange. The other problem I have is that I live in an old house and there isn't really a level floor anywhere near a plug. So I kind of work on a slope. Traders would just despair! Needless to say I rarely work from home...

I never watch my races - so don't currently use TV pictures. Occasionally I will listen to commentary on the radio. I am not interested in living and dying by every bet I place.
I will of course analyse my results - but I do not do this every day, every week or even every month as frequent analysis is tougher psychologically - that in itself takes a bit of discipline.

At times I will study the markets for months on end and take notes on every race - maybe if I am trying to prove a theory or get a feel for a potential strategy.

I do have an office or a 'room' in my local town - with a fast internet connection. It happens to be located right next to the telephone exchange. I can sometimes get up to 16 Mb which is great. The connection hasn't dropped once in the 4 months that I have been there.

I'll talk about my connection speed and trading in my next post tomorrow - just realised what time it is.

posted by Betting Exchange Trader