How viable an income stream is trading?
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Hi,
Firstly I want to say that I’m fairly new (month 3 maybe) and this isn’t a post picking fault with trading or anything just that I am genuinely curious.
Where I am: Still learning (a lot) following a couple of profitable members strategies from the pre-existing drop downs in the Football software, have imported a few from the forum thread also. Overall I am profitable (so happy).
My question is really, what to expect going forward. I know this is a very subjective question depending on bank, time, experience etc but I want to hear from all corners of the trading world.
Is BF trading bringing you a small side income e.g. maybe less than £100 per month and is more of a hobby? (Because it is actually fun, well I think)
Is BF trading bringing in the sort of money you would consider a small side hustle maybe anywhere from £500 to £1000 pm? Something you could put aside for a decent family holiday type thing.
Are you in the cracking side hustle / nearly full time wage land? Considering a modest average UK salary is probably £1500 to £3000 pm well midlands upwards (no offence intended to anyone
Are you full time and have replaced your wage or are you considering doing so?
I know money and income is a funny topic to discuss so please only divulge what you are comfortable with but an insight would be great. I think I am writing this mostly for myself but might be great for Ryan etc to grab a few snippets for new members. I personally have found it really hard to find loads of trustworthy info about BF trading online (until I found this collective of people) but there’s next to nothing out there that might give you an indication of potential from it.
Thanks
Andy -
@chris-king Its great to see to be able to set your longer term goals though, I really like this.
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@ryan said in How viable an income stream is trading?:
@chris-king I will add these too! These are wicked!
Great, glad to be of help. There may be better out there but these are the most straight forward/simple calculators I’ve found.
While we’re on the subject, here is one last one that’s finance related.
https://www.thecalculatorsite.com/finance/calculators/interest-rate-calculator.php
I don’t use this much or for anything particularly but it’s fun to have a play about with to calculate the interest potential of investments over weeks/months/years.
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@dan-mackinnon First we get into profit, then we maximise it matey
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@chris-king I will add these too! These are wicked!
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@ryan Thanks for the feedback. They have really helped me quicken up my testing but more importantly improve my understanding of odds and value in relation to strike rate.
Here are some others I occasionally use. They may be of use.
The first is a betting ROI calculator.
https://www.betblog.com/calculators/roi/
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@ryan said in How viable an income stream is trading?:
@dan-mackinnon Wow he need to get himself in here, he'd get much better than 20% ROI on that bank with us helping him
I thought that was quite good! Saying that I thought I was doing well averaging 10%. There are clearly a lot of gems I've yet to truly uncover
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@chris-king said in How viable an income stream is trading?:
Excellent post, I’m following. Thanks for asking the questions.
I’m still fairly new to trading too and have only traded tiny £1-£2 stakes over the past 1-1.5 years on and off which has left me at a loss of approx £75 but taught me a lot which i consider, along with the BTC membership as trading education fees. I have always been very reluctant to trade higher stakes until i have learnt how to trade and have confidence in my trading.
While i’m learning i am building a trading bankroll in a designated bank account from any unspent money (this is not my monthly savings) at the end of a month and from anything i no longer want or need i sell online/eBay/Facebook etc.
I accepted that this was not a get rich quick way to make money but have always believed i will make money from Betfair if I’m determined, patient and accept that it’s something i have to learn to do properly. If you’re serious about it, you have to respect that learning how to do this is a fact.
A couple of months before joining BTC I scaled back small stakes and minimal structure in my trading as got sick of not being profitable, and replaced this with paper trading; learning to test, plan, track and record everything i need for my potential strategies to in spreadsheets which has completely changed my trading ability in to a structured process. Now I only trade my strategy selections from my BTC filters and never do anything random.
My discipline has been transformed, which was my major issue and i now have 2-4 potentially profitable strategies, 3 of which are in healthy profit in testing at £10 stakes which i’m very optimistic about. One of these i am trading with £1 stakes and is profitable. I hope to share anything that is successful on BTC.
My goal is to supplement my income with a £200-£400 (hell even £50-£100) a month from trading on Betfair and then scale up and I’m getting closer all the time.
Despite making almost no money from Betfair, the work I’ve put in to learning has all bee worth it. I feel I’ve given myself a solid and credible foundation on which to give myself that extra income now.
From my own experience I’d advise anyone new to trading to forget trading real money from the outset and spend your time learning to test (The proven strategies available on BTC are ideal) because although it may seem tedious initially, it really is the fast track to being able to trade properly and profitably on your own without getting lost in what can seem like a never ending maze.
You’ll be able to enjoy working on your trading without any financial pressure and really learn what it takes to trade profitably and with a successful strategy, see it produce a profit!
I should mention I have also learnt just as much from testing losing strategies.Learn to use a basic spreadsheet and track your strategy. Trade it as if you’re trading with real money. (i had no prior spreadsheet experience. So have learnt the basics myself). Ryan recently advised me Fiverr can be used to pay someone a small fee for a great spreadsheet. https://www.fiverr.com/
I use a number of free online tools that have been extremely useful; Smarkets bet and hedging calculators to quickly work out profit and loss and also a strike rate calculator and back/lay converter.
https://help.smarkets.com/hc/en-gb/articles/115002171411-Hedging-calculator
https://help.smarkets.com/hc/sv/articles/115001854272-Bet-calculator
I am going to add those websites to the starter packs!!
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@dan-mackinnon Wow he need to get himself in here, he'd get much better than 20% ROI on that bank with us helping him
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Great post! I’m also a newbie (3 month) I think the best thing I’ve learned is to take your time and scale up slowly, start by making a small profit consistently and then start increasing the stakes. Start as though it’s hobby (like betting on a weekend used to be) then into a side hustle then into full time (if that’s your goal)
I can speak from experience when I say don’t scale up to quickly it’s a very easy way to blow the bank! You could pick up a strategy at an excellent point where it’s on fire and win large amounts and I guarantee it’ll be tempting to put them stakes right up (done it) and then as always happens it hits a rough patch and the banks gone. It’s difficult because it’s human nature to want to increase the staking
Learn as much as you can while your getting your results together and building the bank, there is so much information on here and plenty of traders with lots of experience who make it full time
I’m confident that in a years time I’ll be making consistent profit just by doing what people have said on here and the key is learning
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I've been reading a book called "Mastering Betfair Trading" and the author says he has a bank of £5k and aims to get a 20% return each month and he withdraws that amount. He also says he plans his trades in advance so he only moves money across as he needs it, allowing the rest to gain interest somewhere else. His trades are based on £50 stakes.
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Excellent post, I’m following. Thanks for asking the questions.
I’m still fairly new to trading too and have only traded tiny £1-£2 stakes over the past 1-1.5 years on and off which has left me at a loss of approx £75 but taught me a lot which i consider, along with the BTC membership as trading education fees. I have always been very reluctant to trade higher stakes until i have learnt how to trade and have confidence in my trading.
While i’m learning i am building a trading bankroll in a designated bank account from any unspent money (this is not my monthly savings) at the end of a month and from anything i no longer want or need i sell online/eBay/Facebook etc.
I accepted that this was not a get rich quick way to make money but have always believed i will make money from Betfair if I’m determined, patient and accept that it’s something i have to learn to do properly. If you’re serious about it, you have to respect that learning how to do this is a fact.
A couple of months before joining BTC I scaled back small stakes and minimal structure in my trading as got sick of not being profitable, and replaced this with paper trading; learning to test, plan, track and record everything i need for my potential strategies to in spreadsheets which has completely changed my trading ability in to a structured process. Now I only trade my strategy selections from my BTC filters and never do anything random.
My discipline has been transformed, which was my major issue and i now have 2-4 potentially profitable strategies, 3 of which are in healthy profit in testing at £10 stakes which i’m very optimistic about. One of these i am trading with £1 stakes and is profitable. I hope to share anything that is successful on BTC.
My goal is to supplement my income with a £200-£400 (hell even £50-£100) a month from trading on Betfair and then scale up and I’m getting closer all the time.
Despite making almost no money from Betfair, the work I’ve put in to learning has all bee worth it. I feel I’ve given myself a solid and credible foundation on which to give myself that extra income now.
From my own experience I’d advise anyone new to trading to forget trading real money from the outset and spend your time learning to test (The proven strategies available on BTC are ideal) because although it may seem tedious initially, it really is the fast track to being able to trade properly and profitably on your own without getting lost in what can seem like a never ending maze.
You’ll be able to enjoy working on your trading without any financial pressure and really learn what it takes to trade profitably and with a successful strategy, see it produce a profit!
I should mention I have also learnt just as much from testing losing strategies.Learn to use a basic spreadsheet and track your strategy. Trade it as if you’re trading with real money. (i had no prior spreadsheet experience. So have learnt the basics myself). Ryan recently advised me Fiverr can be used to pay someone a small fee for a great spreadsheet. https://www.fiverr.com/
I use a number of free online tools that have been extremely useful; Smarkets bet and hedging calculators to quickly work out profit and loss and also a strike rate calculator and back/lay converter.
https://help.smarkets.com/hc/en-gb/articles/115002171411-Hedging-calculator
https://help.smarkets.com/hc/sv/articles/115001854272-Bet-calculator
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I like this a lot, I like being able to see people post these threads and have those conversations.
One of things I am always chasing is a way to show people how to achieve the goals of side hustle £500-1000 & then the wage element.
This will be really interesting.
