Trading Discussion

2.3k Topics 36.4k Posts

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  • Let's smash the tennis trading in here shall we?

    17 Topics
    6k Posts

    @Martin Hi, thanks yes i think Iโ€™ll have to do this as you say to find out. I track the trades so in time should be able to.

    I think getting out of a losing trade with the smallest loss could be something i focus more on rather than staying in for slightly greater wins. Kind of the same thing but the opposite.

  • To discuss all things cricket and golf

    13 Topics
    15k Posts

    @Simon-Hardy interesting, not tried this but keep me updated with how you get on!

  • A Place for members to discuss potential ideas and profitable filters or ask for feedback on their ideas

    59 Topics
    1k Posts

    @Kurtis-Steven-Graham Hard to say.

    It's the actual rules that tell you what is happening.

  • Our daily pro picks

    2k Topics
    2k Posts

    No selections today

  • We'll replicate our blog posts here and give you a heads up when we do new podcasts!

    198 Topics
    362 Posts

    A few years ago I wrote a Betfair Trading bankroll managment guide for traders of all types. It is still a great article and worth reading for all traders you can [FIND IT HERE](https://betfairtradingcommunity.com/en/blog/betfair-trading-bankroll-staking-strategy-how-much-do-you-need).

    However, as lots of our Football Trading and Horse Racing traders are now using set and forget strategies, I realise we also need a guide for that type of betting bankroll.

    Set and forget strategies are essentially just betting on an outcome and letting the bet run.ย 

    This style of Betfair trading has become more popular in recent years, the idea of sitting at a PC all day trading is not only too time consuming but also not neccessary to make money on Betfair.ย 

    So, hey, why not save time and effort and use straight bets to make money? I mean if it makes money who cares what type of betting it is?

    Anyway, if you are at all interesting in set and forget betting on Betfair then you need to read this guide!

    ย 

    What is the ideal bankroll for becoming a Betfair Trading pro-trader?

    We get asked this question all the time! However, the answer is different for set and forget betting...

    The key thing you have to be aware of when placing bets with no intention of trading out is that you will lose 100% of the stake you use.ย 

    This is obvious but the reason I mention this is that you will have more variance than the typical trading strategy, in some cases a lot more.ย 

    It's simple maths really, if you lose 100% of your stake when you lose a bet your losing runs will be more impactful.ย 

    So the way to combat this problem is proper bankroll management!ย 

    Every time we bet we are risking that stake, so let's think about each bet as a BIG BET.

    Our bankroll needs to have a certain amount of BIG BETS to cover a losing run.

    Not only that we don't want one bad day to cripple our bankroll, so we need enough to be extra safe.

    How many BIG BETS would you want?

    Well in trading you can get away with 50 (2% of your bankroll 2x50=100%) because you will not lose the full stake, you will be cashing out for a profit or a loss at some point.

    However, when straight betting 50 is not enough. Imagine you have a losing streak of 10 bets, this can easily happen when betting at odds against even when betting at evens.

    Suddenly you have lost 20% of your bankroll and that could be in one day.ย 

    That's not a sensible staking plan.

    So how many BIG BETS do we need.

    Well it depends on the odds you are backing at. Let me explain.

    If you are generally betting at odds on maybe 1.5 or below you could probably get away with 100 big bets.

    1% of your bankroll per bet should be fine because you will win at least 66% of the time on average.ย 

    If you are betting at evens to 3.0 you could probably get away with 200 big bets. (0.5% of your bankroll)

    This is actually the kind of bankroll professional poker players use, they will have 200-250 buy ins behind them (so when you see a player lose their buy in on TV, it's not the big deal the broadcasters will try and tell you!).

    If you are betting at odds above 3.0 it can get tricky, you will want more big bets the higher the odds go! Maybe 500+!

    ย 

    So Let's Talk Money!ย 

    All this talk of percentages is great and definitely where you should start thinking from, rather than financial amounts but I know most of you will be asking, how much money do I need to bet on Betfair?

    Firstly, if you are new to trading you should start low, go as low as possible ยฃ1 bets so you need enough money to have as many ยฃ1 big bets as you need. ยฃ100 for 100 big bets, ยฃ250 for 250 big bets and so on.ย 

    Then you can raise stakes as you earn money according to your percentages, so you use the same percentage per bet but increase the stake naturally as your bankroll grows.ย 

    So if I doubled my bankroll from ยฃ100 to ยฃ200, I would now use ยฃ2 stakes and still have 100 big bets.

    If you want to know what bankroll I recommend for pro traders it is still the same as the previous article.

    If you are placing multiple bets per day on a variety of profitable strategies ยฃ5,000-ยฃ10,000 will be a great starting point, you can easily go semi-pro at that level, however, because of the low stake percentages you are probably going to want to get that up to ยฃ20,000+ eventually.

    Although, as I always state there is no rush!ย 

    Remember set and forget is so easy, you just place your bets and get on with your day, so there is less pressure to make big money because you are not wasting any time where you could be doing other things.

    ย 

    What if it goes wrong?

    My simple rule that I have been told by so many traders over the years was godsend is this:

    If I lose half my bankroll I halve my stakes. (Obviously if you are using ยฃ1 minimum this can't be done but it's not a major worry at that level, you just may need to look at a different portfolio of strategies).

    By halving our stakes we give ourselves another chance to have success and it's nearly impossible to 'bust out' and lose our whole bankroll.ย 

    If I am using a ยฃ5,000 bankroll and ยฃ50 stakes then if it gets to ยฃ2,500 I will reduce stakes to ยฃ25 and so on.ย 

    This gives you maximum bankroll protecting and you will never be the victim of a horror 'I LOST MY BANKROLL IN ONE DAY' story!

    ย 

    One final bit of advice...

    Please test your strategies before putting money on them, don't just backtest but forward test them as you go.

    Give it 6-12 months and really get a feel for what works and what doesn't before putting serious money down!ย 

    The biggest mistake Betfair traders make is to bet heavily on a strategy they have not fully tested, which usually leads to disaster.

    If you have any more questions about this please do not hesitate to ask me on the forum or contact my via email [email protected]

    Be safe with your bankroll, it will become your best friend in hard times!

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  • Files, spreadsheets and everything else you need to get trading

    44 Topics
    2k Posts

    @Greg-Mitchell That's great Greg. Have got everything except the tipster bit right. Will try that. Thank you so much for getting back to me so quickly.

  • 90 Topics
    5k Posts

    @Wayne-Thomas @Martin they have nailed it. Itโ€™s really good. Got its own story which is good. Always thought it was a shame they ruined fallout 76. Would love a fallout 5

  • Exchange overrounds advice

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    1 Posts
    197 Views
    No one has replied
  • Pre-Match Soccer Trading Thread

    0 Votes
    14 Posts
    769 Views

    Wolves on one tick recycle for me today & Liverpool are also on it.

    Graphs are pretty strong up and down a tick for them both at present - will do it all day if the graph stays the same.

  • Automation advice please and thank you

    0 Votes
    4 Posts
    397 Views

    @dave-jessop thanks for that I've not actually explored the forum yet. i only do one thing with horses at the moment - im lucky enough to know im not ready for those markets

  • Trading Software

    1 Votes
    17 Posts
    884 Views

    I really like BF Bot manager like Charles for automation purposes. Once setup you can just leave the computer on and it does all the work.
    I have it directly linked to Proform too, so it just takes my selection everyday and bets on them.

  • Weight of Money Help.

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    1 Posts
    203 Views
    No one has replied
  • Simons April Trades

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    54 Posts
    4k Views

    @gary-brown hi Gary, yeah I rarely actually LCS. I either back the next overs when it reaches 1.6, or I LTD if itโ€™s a draw. Keeps liabilities down, Iโ€™m comfortable at these odds and more importantly, it seems to be profitable. Shame about my another strategies haha!

  • Newbie Matched Betting Insurance

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    1 Posts
    216 Views
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  • Automation/VPS/Servers

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    1 Posts
    273 Views
    No one has replied
  • Trade Post Mortem Thread

    1 Votes
    8 Posts
    944 Views

    I could fill a couple of really boring books with all the dumb things I did in the first few years after 'discovering' that i could actually trade on betfair.

    My biggest single loss ever wasn't on horses though (although when on tilt a couple of times blew my entire bankroll in a single afternoon of racing) but on the T20 World Cup cricket when England played West Indies. I had a very substantial initial wager on England, quadrupled it at the end of the England innings and then even added more after Windies lost early wickets at some stupidly low price. I am embarrassed to say that I left it all out there...didn't even bother to eliminate my liability and then watched it evaporate in the last over.

    I look at that now and cringe......sheer greed and arrogance and probably a desperate need to recoup losses on some 'system' that I was staking 15-20% of my bankroll on after a few successful trades.

  • Rugby League Trading

    1 Votes
    6 Posts
    470 Views

    @col Iโ€™ve been an NRL punter previously but keen to explore trading angles.

  • Traderline (Mobile APP)

    1 Votes
    6 Posts
    466 Views

    @martin-futter me too but needs must at the moment i'm afraid!

  • Multiple Betfair Accounts

    0 Votes
    11 Posts
    729 Views

    @martin-futter 1 in the car, 1 in the living room & 1 in the bog? ๐Ÿ˜†

  • TV Specials Trading

    0 Votes
    14 Posts
    796 Views

    @rob-lawton

    I agree that it was funny!! She's a fan favourite as well isn't she so she will do well on that front.

    Melody is ๐Ÿ˜

  • NBA trading

    0 Votes
    6 Posts
    770 Views

    I'm hoping someone may be able to point me in the right direction with this, and to anyone who does, I greatly appreciate it. I want to be able to backtest previous games within my own statistics to see the highest prices matched in-play. As we discussed, there are huge swings in NBA. In the picture below and spreadsheet attached are predictions that I currently do not use due to it not being profitable. BUT If I can test at what point they are profitable along with the likelihood of being matched then may be able to make them profitable. As you can see, its -0.89% POT from 2772 games over 12 seasons on corporate/vegas odds (I get my data from bigdataball and they use vegas odds) So Betfair can beat those odds anyway, but knowing ratio of the likelihood of being matched at X odds can make these profitable. So is there a source that says the highest matched prices of completed markets? I tried to get data from https://historicdata.betfair.com/#/home but I couldnt get the file to work at all. If anyone has any helpful info on getting data or even to get the bloody file to open I'd greatly appreciate it!
    0_1547025203319_Betfair ML backtest.png

    0_1547025342067_Betfair moneyline backtest.xlsx

  • Darts - PDC World Championship

    1 Votes
    7 Posts
    474 Views

    Have greened up now. -0.5 pts on White, -1 pt on Suljovic and +5 on Smith. Happy with that.
    Going to let the 9 dart bet run the course. 2 games left, fingers crossed.

  • Deontay Wilder v Tyson Fury

    1 Votes
    3 Posts
    322 Views

    what a fight and result! can't wait for a rematch

  • Realistic Expectations

    2 Votes
    18 Posts
    865 Views

    @keith-anderson yeah before trading I did thin value betting, still do it at the moment but tailing it off as trading is taking up more of my time. So Iโ€™m well used to variance, but with betting itโ€™s usually lots of small losses then one big one, whereas with trading itโ€™s lots of small wins. So that for me is taking some getting used to.

  • X-Factor Trading

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    10 Posts
    573 Views

    @janne-rusi In all honesty, thatโ€™s the plan. All trading and the like in Q4 all goes towards Christmas.
    Together with this and Iโ€™m A Celebrity (backed Harry Redknapp early and secured a nice profit there) sheโ€™s in for a treat! ๐Ÿ˜‚

  • Habits

    2 Votes
    10 Posts
    601 Views

    @luke-ridger I can understand this!