Iwantmore's Beginners Trading Diary

[iwantmore]

I have decided to have a dabble trading with football. I Read a few bits about it and started playing a few days ago, I like what I have seen so far so im going to try it out properly but only at small stakes to begin with.

I am going to keep a diary on here for anyone who is interested as there isn't much going on in this section and so far seems pretty profitable so I will hopefully help others.

After reading it seems that the easiest way (for me) is to lay the draw before kick off on a football game. Then when a goal is scored,back the draw for the same stake as the lay.

Once I have backed the draw I will then have a profit of £0 if either team win or A win of £x if it’s a draw, so to make it so I have profit on all 3 outcomes I will make another smaller lay on the draw.

I work this out by 2nd lay stake = Current profit on draw / current lay odds.

I will then have roughly an equal profit on each outcome.

I hope the above makes some form of sense


Ok so far this is what I have done. I haven’t got the detailed info just the profit or loss (so far its all been profit no losses)

7/4/10 - Man Utd V B Munich £5.32 (Layed £20 to start)

7/4/10 - Bordeoux V Lyon £4.13 (Layed £20 to start)

8/4/10 - Liverpool V Benfica £13.01 (Layed £20 to start)

8/4/10 – Ath Madrid V Valencia £7.53 (Layed £20 to Start) – This game ended 0 – 0 But in the 88th minute I backed the draw with £250 to get the profit. Something I maybe shouldn’t of done could of easily gone horribly wrong and there was 6 mins stoppage time.

9/4/10 - SV Reid V Rapid Vienna £9.18 (Layed £40 to start)

9/4/10 – Hercules V Huesca £5.09 (Layed £40 to start) No idea who these are but it was the only game that hadn’t kicked off last night haha.

So after the above results I have come up with a couple of rules for myself (not that im very good at sticking to rules

1. Always back as soon as one goal is scored and don’t keep waiting for more goals (for better odds) i.e Liverpool game payed of that time but could go other way.

2. Don’t bet on obscure games I know nothing about i.e. Hercules and Huesca.

3. Haven’t decided on what to do when its 0-0 after 85 mins might just play that by ear.

Also its not very common to get a 0-0 draw especially in the premiership so as long as theres 1 goal in the game at anytime I should make money.

I am hoping to get a few bets on over this weekend but I have loads to do and can’t sit in front of pc waiting for goals but I can use betfair on my phone.

Any tips you have will be very welcome on trading or improving the diary information etc..

Profit after 3 days £44.26

[Swift]

I was considering doing pretty much the same as you, but also backing 0-0 for a small amount (just enough to cover the lay on draw) before the game started, so if it did finish 0-0 I wouldn't make a loss

[darkhorse]

Have you tried using one of the bf trading apps out there ? They will automatically work out you hedging figures and you can then green(red) up with one click without having to do any of the maths yourself.

[iwantmore]

Yeh I see what you mean, might condier that. In the atletico game I was considering backing the draw to minimise loss to just £9 instead of the £68 loss the lay would of been.

But i thought theres bound to be a goal in the 88th minute the odds on the draw were only about 1.21 so I had to put £250 to get into profit. but what you have said is quite a good idea

[iwantmore]

I have downloaded ageekstoy had a quick play but havent really got my head round how to use it yet.

Need to give it a good look over

[DireEmblem]

I hope you keep this going, as it could make out to be a very good read for anyone looking to start trading.

With re to the Toy, load it up, and watch how it works when you back/lay at betfair, thats how I picked up how it works. You can then slowly switch to trading fully through the toy itself.

Also, with the below statement, I would be very weary doing this in future, the likes of the recent Arsenal game for example would be a good highlight of this.

8/4/10 – Ath Madrid V Valencia £7.53 (Layed £20 to Start) – This game ended 0 – 0 But in the 88th minute I backed the draw with £250 to get the profit. Something I maybe shouldn’t of done could of easily gone horribly wrong and there was 6 mins stoppage time.

Also, laying the draw can be a good starting point, and I hope you ignore certain matches. Say for the point of an example Chelsea were playing Burnley. You lay the draw at the start. Burnley manage to get the first goal. If this is early on in the game, then what may likely happen is that the odds shorten, as its more than likely Chelsea will score a goal, and it will become 1-1. If it ends 1-1 then you could also be in for a loss.

Best of luck with your efforts though!

[DoctorGonzo]

I've started to dabble in trading myself (mainly just scalping so far), so I'll be following this with interest. There was quite a good article in last months Gambling magazine on basic trading strategy tips, which is well worth a read if you haven't seen it.

p.s. if any mods are reading, another official TGT Trading Challange this year would be most welcome

[iwantmore]

Ok first update and its not a good one

Already gone against my own rules and also made daft decisions has cost me pretty big.

Celtic V Ross County (Game ended 2 - 0 to Ross County)

Origianl Lay stake £40

I was out and about and doing this on my phone (not a good idea). When ross county went to 1-0 the odds were still below what I had layed as celtic were still favs but when ross county scored again near the end. I backed them so I had no loss but didnt get the time to balance it out as everytime I went to my calcuclator then back to betafir the odds had changed hence why phone is a bad idea unless you have a seperate calcualtor handy.

So ended that game with no loss or gain £0

Spartak Moscow V Terek Gronzi (Ended 2-1 to spartak)

Original Lay Stake £40

Don't really know to much about these but spartak were clear favs so I thought theres bound to be a goal at some point. Which there was but it was from terek at first. So odds wern't in my favour. Spartak then equalised dropping the odds on the draw again. Made a HUGE mistake by backing the draw with £250 as spartak score in the dying seconds.

So a £200 Loss on that game

West Ham V Sunderland (Game Ended 1 – 0 to West Ham)

This went to plan and managed to make £20.91

Blackburn V Man Utd (Ended 0-0)

Original lay stake £100

I know Utd were without rooney and seem to be useless without him but I thought Blackburn aren’t having a great season and utd have to win to stay in title race so I thought united would win. So much that I layed with £100 expected an early goal trade it out then move onto the the next game. How ever it ended 0-0 I kept holding out for the typical united last minute goal and it didn’t happen. Backed the £100 to reduce the loss Slightly and just prayed for a goal from either team so I ended with another no loss game.

It didn’t happen and I finished -£294.79

Liverpool V Fulham (Ended 0-0)

Original lay stake £30

Being a Liverpool fan I should of known better but in the frustration of the previous 2 big lossess I thought sod it. Its horrible when you get to that stage and can’t think sensibly. However done exactly the same as the utd game waited and waited for the goal that never came. I couldn’t watch the game but had it on the radio and I don’t remember hearing aldo even mention Fulham having the ball I was convinced we were gonna nick the win.

Anyway at the end I gave up and just back the £30 out and hope again for a stoppage time goal so I would have a no loss.

Finished this game -£90.30

Espanyol V Ath Madrid (Ended 3-0)

Orignal lay stake £30

This game went to plan managed to make a measly £2.85


So in a nutshell not a very profitable 2 days. 1 due to my stupid idea of backing the draw with £250 on the Moscow game, could of just settled with £49 loss I thought I was gonna get but would of actually ended as a £0 loss because of the goal.

The united game I don’t think that was a mistake on my behalf Id do that again as I really thought they would win. I think I was just unlucky.

Liverpool was a complete stupid idea, we have been horrendous all season why would yesterday be any better today.

Anyway my betting float has took a big hit and I only have about £250 of it left (I made £9.5k last year paid off debts and kept £500 of it to play this year. So I haven’t lost any of my own money just profit left form last year.

So I will carry on doing this, But I am going to try and pick games more carefully and now im gonna have to stick to £10 - £20 stakes as I don’t have the funds for the liability.

Cureent Profit / Loss = -£517.08
This diary could end up being one of the shortest ever but I suppose people will get an idea of how wrong it can go?

[soton50]

If it's any consolation, I have been laying 0-0 using the same sort of selection criteria as yours, and that obviously went badly wrong yesterday for me too !!

It is all part of learning, and you just have to realise that the odds of Spurs (for me), Liverpool and Man U all failing on the same day against complete underdogs is about as remote as you could get.

And as I keep reminding myself too, this is all free money, it was never mine to start with !

[iwantmore]

yes thats why im not angry at loosing, im just dissapointed that my small float (which was profit from last year anyway) is now very very small.

Yesterday was crazy when it came to results, its typical the week I decide on laying draw and needing goals, there isn't any. Other than man city of course.

I think laying chelsea on tuesday is a safe, there should be goals in that so will probaly have a go at that.

Could do with a winning streak, I don't want to put my own money into this and I want to keep the diary going haha