Gambling is a mug's game, you'll NEVER make any money!
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These are the words pretty much yelled at me by my brother at the weekend! My nephew was also there and whilst not as brutal, he feels the same. So do the rest of my family, and my friends too. Even the polite ones say things like "well, how long are you going to try this for?" or "what's your backup plan"? but the main one is just - "just get a job!"
Argh!!! I've been going between betting and trading for a couple of years now. I've realised that in terms of my personality and mindset, I am much better suited to straight up betting, based purely of stats and data. I do not watch anything that I bet on and there is no emotion involved in the bets I place. The downside to that is the variance - long losing runs are just inevitable.
What's worse is that over 2022 I've actually lost money overall. Looking back, I can see exactly why. And each time I see a mistake I've made, or learn something new about a market I am involved in, I adapt, make changes and start over.
The launch of the racing software last year has been a game changer for me. But even with that, I have been chopping and strategies for months. I have discovered a phenomena - every time I start something new, it starts off by losing! Just sod's law I'm sure
At the end of last year, I realised that whilst I had developed some strategies with superb returns, the bank size required to cover the potential drawdowns were massive, and as a result I was only able to bet with tiny stakes. Betting at £1 is not going to make any decent money no matter how good the return is!
So I decided I needed to radically change my approach. Instead of looking to develop strategies with the highest possible return, instead I decided to try and develop strategies that combined a decent overall profitability, but that had the lowest possible variance.
This is working so far... it's allowing me to scale my stakes more quickly and it means that I don't have a cardiac event on the losing days lol!
I'm super excited for 2023, and I'm writing this post because I'm just so fed up from all the negativity around me from my family and my friends who don't understand jack s**t about what I do and just assume I am some mug gambler!
But you guys understand
Here's to a fantastic year of betting and trading guys! I love the new racing software and I'm hoping the devs are going to extend it to other sports, other countries etc. The potential is truly mind boggling!
Caroline (yeah, a GIRL!)
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@caroline-middlebrook the blogs are really good, for a few reasons.
• You get to take people on your journey with you
• It helps you stay accountable
• It lets you air your frustrations and get feedbackOne of things as well is it lets us help you best, when we know more about you, the way you trade the things you are working on it allows us to advise you better.
A lot of people come on, don't give us anything to work with.
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@lee-woodman said in Gambling is a mug's game, you'll NEVER make any money!:
@ryan said in Gambling is a mug's game, you'll NEVER make any money!:
@lee-woodman Yep I agree, I had an ex who didnt like me trading.... she did like it when I paid for everything though lol
Ha ha, strange how that works isnt it?!
Very lol
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@ryan said in Gambling is a mug's game, you'll NEVER make any money!:
@lee-woodman Yep I agree, I had an ex who didnt like me trading.... she did like it when I paid for everything though lol
Ha ha, strange how that works isnt it?!
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I say do what makes you happy...its your Money!!!
Life is too short to be miserable, so many people go through life doing a job they hate for 40+hours a week and moan constantly.
If you enjoy it and can survive on whatever income you have..do it!! -
@caroline-middlebrook It’s strange that someone who is successful and entrepreneurial by nature would be so closed off in terms of mindset. Especially with such a judgemental outlook!
Maybe just dodge the question altogether, do what you want and be happy
And yes, trading is very very hard to learn really….but hopefully worth it in the end!
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@ryan said in Gambling is a mug's game, you'll NEVER make any money!:
@caroline-middlebrook I've found this over the years and the best way I've found to go about this is:
• Find people who do support you and speak with them about it
• Go about your trading / biz on your own terms, don't speak to the naysayers about it. You'll only change their opinion when they see your results.It's really hard to get somebody with such a set opinion about something to change so I have stopped bothering and stuck to what I know and believe.
That's why I'm here on this forum! There is not one single person in my social circle that has any understanding of what we do. It feels better being able to talk to people who actually GET IT!
I'm considering starting one of those accountability blog thingies. I've been reading through some of the older ones and they are quite interesting and sometimes very useful and inspiring.
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@lee-woodman said in Gambling is a mug's game, you'll NEVER make any money!:
@caroline-middlebrook How come you need to justify it to your brother? I would say it’s not really his business if you aren’t affecting him. You won’t change his opinion now so don’t bother, just get on with your own thing and I wouldn’t even waste your time talking to him, or anyone negative, about gambling or trading
Just go with what Ryan said, that’s the absolute best way
this is a tricky one. I think because all of us in my family are self employed, our conversations do tend to revolve around business and money. I've had several businesses in the past but this trading & betting malarkey has undoubtedly been the most difficult thing I have done and it's taking longer to learn than anything I have done in the past.
Though unlike my past businesses I simply can't ignore the upsides - no clients, no customers, no product development or maintenance, no issues with servers, no tax to pay! And as for the possibility of scaling it up... well that's where it really get's interesting eh?
I'm not going to quit ever, and I tell them that, and they think I am delusional. Luckily I don't actually see him all that often! I'm hoping I can avoid him a while then the next time he asks about it I can tell him what I've been making
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@ryan said in Gambling is a mug's game, you'll NEVER make any money!:
@lee-woodman Yep I agree, I had an ex who didnt like me trading.... she did like it when I paid for everything though lol
is that why she's your ex lol?!
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@lee-woodman said in Gambling is a mug's game, you'll NEVER make any money!:
And the advice of ‘just go get a job’ is the worst piece of advice! I would hate to ever tell my kids that! It may be necessary to have a job, obviously, but it’s such a quick way to try and crap on someone’s ambition and I think I’d instantly dismiss anyone who said it anyone!
Lol yes and the stupid thing is that in our family we are ALL the same! My brother has never worked a job a day in his life! I've had very brief periods of employment, but no, I started my first business at 19 and am still self employed now. Same for my nephew. So for him to tell me to get a job - it's just not in my nature lol! Not saying I wouldn't if I really HAD to, but it would be a last resort.
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@lee-woodman Yep I agree, I had an ex who didnt like me trading.... she did like it when I paid for everything though lol
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@caroline-middlebrook How come you need to justify it to your brother? I would say it’s not really his business if you aren’t affecting him. You won’t change his opinion now so don’t bother, just get on with your own thing and I wouldn’t even waste your time talking to him, or anyone negative, about gambling or trading
Just go with what Ryan said, that’s the absolute best way
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@caroline-middlebrook I've found this over the years and the best way I've found to go about this is:
• Find people who do support you and speak with them about it
• Go about your trading / biz on your own terms, don't speak to the naysayers about it. You'll only change their opinion when they see your results.It's really hard to get somebody with such a set opinion about something to change so I have stopped bothering and stuck to what I know and believe.
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I think the problem with my brother in particular is that he has a couple of lifelong friends that have serious gambling issues, one of which lost his house, family etc due to his gambling addiction. So I think that is what he thinks I do. I've tried to explain it to him but I think he mentally sticks his fingers in his ears going "la la la la la I'm not listening". I'll never convince him of the validity of it until I have an actual solid income stream coming in.
I do want to prove him wrong, and all the rest of them... but that doesn't change what I am doing in any way.
My main goal is to work on the execution of the strategies such that they can actually perform as closely as possible to the BTC results.
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And the advice of ‘just go get a job’ is the worst piece of advice! I would hate to ever tell my kids that! It may be necessary to have a job, obviously, but it’s such a quick way to try and crap on someone’s ambition and I think I’d instantly dismiss anyone who said it anyone!
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It sounds like a very disrespectful way to talk to someone and it’s not something I’d accept personally, especially if it was from a place of sheer ignorance, presumably he doesn’t actually understand it? If it get’s mentioned again then I’d expect him to have a civilised, informed conversation from a place of understanding….maybe ask him to go and research trading first or to discuss odds, statistics and probabilities
Although you probably want to prove him wrong, i know I would, don’t use it as a motivating factor. Just get your head down, follow the slow and steady path using the advice here and your longer term success will do that! Having the forum is good for nonjudgmental advice
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@caroline-middlebrook great post, loved reading this!
You are in good company here most of us will have gone through the same thing.
It's interesting I do wonder if people would be less harsh if you were a man, I can't imagine someone yelling that at me!
Lots of people make their money from careers in the gambling industry, Betfair Traders, Sports Bettors, Poker Players etc it's not an alien concept and people should be more accepting.
Maybe just talk about it with people who get it or like to bet themselves, then talk to the naysayers about other things, life is short at the end of the day.
Glad to hear you have started the year well, you are right about low variance it is king, I would far sooner take less profit on a strategy that did not have wild swings.
Keep us updated!
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Look at compounding in your bot. Absolute game changer. Even from £1 stakes. You can compound for 1%, 2%, 5% depending on your max drawdown.
Separate bank for each strategy so they don’t batter each other with losses.
Look at laying to a liability. Much lower drawdown. Yes smaller profits BUT you can compound at a greater rate as the drawdown will be lower.
Look at the first post on my horse racing resources and it tells you how to calculate max drawdowns with the excel formulas.
That should help. Also start with two strategies. Forward test with no money.
I took 6 months off of using actual money when I reached the point you are at. Best thing I ever did.
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@keith-driscoll said in Gambling is a mug's game, you'll NEVER make any money!:
Beginner's should start with high SR strategies, 40%+. That takes a lot of the losing run hurt out, although it usually means a lower ROI%.
Yep that was exactly my reasoning of the change I made recently. I figured that I'm just not going to be able to build my bank unless I have something much more steady to start with and then can start to bring back the higher variance ones later down the line when I have spare money to set aside for a bigger bank.
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If you have strategies that start with a lower SR than 50%, which to be honest, 99.9% of them do, then you are going to start on a losing run, or hit one soon enough. The lower the SR, the harder it can seem to get a foothold. Beginner's should start with high SR strategies, 40%+. That takes a lot of the losing run hurt out, although it usually means a lower ROI%. Talking of which, when using software, I never use anything under 5% ROI, as it takes into account errors/mismatches. The only rule breaker for this is trading.
